Review
Played on: Switch
Released: 2024
During a Nintendo Direct presentation in summer last year, Nintendo announced Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Featuring the same graphical style of the 2019 remake of Link's Awakening, review here. However, the big plot twist was Zelda being the main playable character!
In addition, there's a brand-new take on the classic Zelda gameplay, something that makes the game stand out as a refreshing experience for the franchise in comparison to Link's more typical moves with sword attacks.
Let's put on a hooded cape and take a look at a creative Hyrule!
The adventure begins with a playable segment as Link. In a successful attempt to rescue Zelda from the main villain, Ganon, a rift swallows Link and it turns around to becoming Zelda's task to save Link instead. Similar rifts appear all over Hyrule and Zelda's dad, the king of the kingdom, also disappears into one and is replaced by an evil doppelganger. As such, Zelda is put into prison by the evil king. She escapes with help from a fairy named Tri, who hands her the magic Tri Rod.
This magic wand is key to the whole adventure. It allows Zelda to enter rifts and close them, as well as the most important feature: copying and using items, enemies and objects!
You see, Zelda can only use Link's sword abilities in small, energy consuming, bursts when she needs it. Most of the time, though, Zelda's relies on a completely different set of abilities compared to Link. With the Tri Rod she can copy almost any moveable object in the kingdom and spawn them from a list at any given time elsewhere.
Zelda can spawn furniture to climb on, enemies to attack for her or objects to protect herself from oncoming projectiles. There are over a hundred items for Zelda to copy and use. In addition, she can move the objects around too, allowing her to place them exactly where you need them.
This creative gameplay element makes Echoes of Kingdom a far less linear affair when it comes to controlling Zelda's path through the kingdom. See that treeline blocking your way on the map? Make a few wooden boxes and a trampoline and just climb over it! Same goes for mountains or cliffs to cross. It's a unique way of progressing. Sure, you do settle into certain objects and enemies you prefer more than others, but there's tons of room to get creative.
My only caveat in the gameplay are the somewhat cumbersome menus to choose which item to create, you'll have to scroll past numerous objects just to get to the one you need. It's fine when everything is calm, but once you're in the heat of battle it breaks the pace and feels clumsy. In classic Nintendo fashion, the gameplay is great, controls well, but the button layout and number of combinations is overwhelming with some strange choices.
The story takes some unexpected turns and is charmingly realised with the small characters. As usual, the variety in the Hyrule kingdom is fantastic. With deserts, snow mountains and water areas, each with their own set of enemies and objects to copy with your Tri Rod. It feels refreshing going undercover, complete with a cool hooded cape, as the Princess of the kingdom and traverse about. It gives an idea of how Zelda feels as she gets to know her father's kingdom from the inside by interacting and exploring all its diverse areas!
Visuals keep the exact, chibi styled, characters of the Link's Awakening remake. With a charmingly simplistic design to the environment and character models. There's the neat, tilt-shift styled, camera distortion too, making it all look like a small model world you're looking down on. There's more variation in environments and enemies here, with some pretty areas to explore.
Sadly, the framerate struggles to maintain its 60fps target, resulting in frequent drops. While it's not a speedy game like a shooter or racer, it would've been nice to see it optimised to a locked state. The fluctuating framerate is prominent and disappointing considering the same complaints were made about Link's Awakening. I guess the next Switch 2 console will brute force it to a stable state!
Performance aside, it's visually charming adventure though and there's a lot of love put into the world. Characters are cute and have lovingly fantasy style combined with a CGI cartoon style. There's a fair bit of work put into the characters gestures and movements to express a lot of emotions with so little. when you consider the simplicity of their models.
Apart from performance and some stumbling with menu selections, I found the game highly enjoyable and innovative. It works excellent as a sequel to the Link's Awakening remake for newcomers, delving into deeper and more creative gameplay. Story is exciting and gradually fixing the kingdom feels rewarding.
It's a neat plot twist for the series playing as Zelda and the way they've made her vastly different from Link makes it a refreshing playthrough. The sheer difference in gameplay approach and elements, while at the same time clearly being a title in the Zelda franchise, is cleverly designed.
As a player I felt I was rewarded for getting creative and finding brand new ways of traversing the environment or attacking enemies, making it a memorable experience. It stands out as fresh new idea for the Zelda franchise, while keeping key elements to retain the charm and uniqueness of the series. Highly recommended!
And oh, this game should've been called The Legend of Link: Echoes of Wisdom. Would've been a super cool twist!
