Echoes of Wisdom combines elements from Tears of the Kingdom and the traditional top-down Zelda games to craft a unique adventure that feels both innovative and reminiscent of its roots.
By Steven Petite on September 25, 2024 at 5:00AM PDT
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom bridges the distinct worlds within Nintendo’s beloved action-adventure series. It merges the exploratory and puzzle-solving style of Tears of the Kingdom with the established dungeon challenges known from earlier iterations, predating Breath of the Wild’s impactful transformation. Echoes of Wisdom transitions smoothly between historical and modern influences within the franchise, forging a new chapter in Princess Zelda’s saga.
It may come as no surprise that a significant change in this installment is its spotlight on the series’ namesake, Princess Zelda, as the main character. Although Zelda’s Adventure on the Philips CD-i was technically the first with Zelda as a playable character, it failed to echo the quality and authenticity of Nintendo’s core Zelda series. Echoes of Wisdom marks the first true Zelda-centric game, which is somewhat astonishing considering even Tingle has had his own titles and an interactive app on the DSiWare.
From a narrative perspective, the role reversal makes little impact, largely because Echoes of Wisdom is light on story. A malevolent force is creating rifts across Hyrule that turn residents of Hyrule, including Link and Zelda’s father, into statues inside the dark and dreary dimension known as the Still World. Much like how Link was accused of wrongdoing in A Link to the Past, Zelda is accused of creating the rifts and is subsequently imprisoned; you’ll even find Wanted posters around Hyrule, this time showing Zelda’s face instead of Link’s. In her cell, she meets Tri, an ethereal being who accompanies Zelda on her quest and is essentially Zelda’s version of Navi from Ocarina of Time. Though some express momentary shock that Zelda is the kingdom’s only hope, she is mostly viewed as the one person capable of defeating the evil threatening to consume Hyrule.
While the rote plot is a hodgepodge of familiar stories, Echoes of Wisdom is more focused on shaking things up from a gameplay standpoint. The shift to playing as Zelda includes markedly different systems for combat, puzzle-solving, and platforming—yes, Echoes of Wisdom has plenty of platforming. Armed with a magical staff given to her by Tri, Zelda can spawn “echoes,” copies of objects and enemies you encounter across Hyrule. Outside of bosses, every enemy can be conjured as an echo. Since Zelda is incapable of attacking directly, friendly echo monsters serve as the main form of offense. Each echo has a cost, and going beyond your current max deletes the oldest echoes you created. Because there isn’t a cooldown period and you can manually wipe the slate clean at any time, this seemingly passive combat system is far more active and exciting than it initially seems. Once I started racking up echoes and was able to use more at once, I started to enjoy the organized chaos more than any pre-Breath of the Wild combat system.
Player choice is paramount to the combat system. Much like Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild, there’s no “wrong” way to vanquish enemies. Do you want to create rocks and hurl them at your enemies repeatedly? You can do that. Command Zirros to spew bombs everywhere? Check. Create a deathring of Pathblades that slice those armored Moblins and Lizalflos while you take a nap on a bed and regenerate health? It’s an effective strategy. Zelda does get to wield Link’s traditional weapons in Swordfighter Form, though this is tied to an upgradeable energy gauge. When used in combination with echoes, Swordfighter Form is a powerful complementary mechanic that adds another layer to the organized chaos of Echoes of Wisdom’s combat.
Monsters make up the majority of the 127 echoes, but an assortment of inanimate objects combined with Zelda’s ability to jump serve as the connective tissue of this thoughtfully designed iteration of Hyrule. Without the Tri Rod, this version of Hyrule simply wouldn’t work. Going all-in on one central mechanic really helps Echoes of Wisdom feel markedly different than any other Zelda game. The end result is a top-down Legend of Zelda game with more freedom than ever before.
Unlike Link in previous top-down Zelda games, Zelda herself doesn’t require Roc’s Feather/Cape to perform jumps (something she ought to teach Link). This unique ability allows her to hide in pots and leap around to stay unnoticed by castle guards in an early stealth segment that echoes back to Ocarina of Time. The game, Echoes of Wisdom, utilizes platforming that involves creating makeshift stairs and bridges using end tables, wooden crates, decorative trees, and notably, beds. It is amusing to see twin-sized beds stacked to form bridges and towers across places like Lake Hylia or over the fiery depths of the Fire Temple. Even more humorous is the possibility of summoning a bed during a boss fight to sneak in a nap and slowly replenish health.
Similar to the Ultrahand rune in Tears of the Kingdom, Tri in Echoes of Wisdom can attach to and manipulate echoes. This system, more basic in nature, does not permit the rotation of objects or the crafting of intricate devices with multiple moving parts. Typically, gameplay involves stacking items to bridge gaps or utilizing echoes to solve puzzles. A particularly favorite mechanic used for traversing is the water block echo, discovered while aiding the Zoras. These blocks can be aligned vertically or horizontally to form towers or underwater tunnels. Excellent for platforming and puzzle-solving, this feature also demonstrates the tactical use of echoes—like creating water barriers to defeat flying enemies or drawing opponents into blazing torches to vanquish them.
The game’s extensive echo system fosters experimentation and motivates exploration. Players are advised to observe their surroundings for objects that sparkle, indicating their potential for duplication. Trampoline echoes allow access to higher areas before upgrading the Tri Rod, and for those skilled in platforming, disappearing cloud echoes enable crossing vast map sections without ground contact. Moreover, you might opt to follow instead of guide monster echoes, with birds and sharks offering unique modes of transport. While these monsters initially guide the journey, impromptu interactions, conversations, and side missions can teach you new techniques to revolutionize how you navigate platforming challenges and puzzles.
Nintendo has adeptly blended traditional and novel elements in Echoes of Wisdom’s game structure and overarching level design. Pre-dungeon phases draw inspiration from Tears of Kingdom with multi-stage quests, including a venture into the Still World to rescue Tri’s friends and cleanse the corrupted land. These scavenger-hunt-like segments bear resemblance to scaled-down versions of Tears of the Kingdom’s dungeons. The Still World, akin to a mix of the Sky Islands and the Depths, is a dim platforming domain with fragmented islands and bolder monsters. Rifts excellently indoctrinate players into the regional “rules” as they progress towards the dungeon hidden amidst the darkness.
Tears of the Kingdom’s temples more closely resemble traditional dungeons than the Divine Beasts of Breath of the Wild, although they still deviate significantly from the traditional design. Echoes of Wisdom reintroduces the classic dungeon structure featuring multiple floors, rooms filled with adversaries behind auto-closing doors, the need to find small keys, and a large chest containing the boss key. Elements such as the Faron Temple (Forest), Lanyru Temple (Ice), and Jabul Ruins (Water) are themed around specific elements, Hyrule Castle included.
The dungeons’ strong point lies in their puzzles which utilize familiar mechanics like floor switches and torches in novel ways, without the introduction of new equipment. Instead, newer objects and creatures are incorporated. Side-scrolling sections, reminiscent of those in Link’s Awakening and the Oracle series, now present challenging riddles. Puzzles evolve in difficulty as your ability to create echoes increases and the cost decreases, with some proving more challenging than any encountered in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, giving a profound sense of accomplishment upon solving them.
While perhaps less challenging overall than the combat in the open-world Zelda titles, enemy encounters and especially boss battles can quickly spiral into tough confrontations. Early bosses, like the subterranean, sunglass-wearing creature in the Gerudo Ruins, offer significant difficulty due to its rapid, underground movements and debilitating quicksand. Nosurviving boss encounters demanded frequent healing to prevent a game over, though outright defeats were avoided.
Supplementing the traditional dungeons, an array of side quests akin to those in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom enrich the experience significantly. From fulfilling simple tasks like displaying an echo, engaging in score-based minigames, to embarking on exploration-heavy missions, the side quests grant valuable echoes and items. First-time introductions in a top-down Zelda include horseback riding, derived from completing specific quests, though fast travel often supplants horseback due to its convenience and the echo-based exploration mechanics. Despite being potentially the largest top-down Zelda game in terms of map size, Echoes of Wisdom’s plethora of warp points supports an exploration style focused less on horseback and more on the versatile echo system.
Fans of Zelda games have always been keen on uncovering secret items, and the game “Echoes of Wisdom” doesn’t disappoint, bringing back the much-loved Heart Pieces as a collectible. This reintroduction underlines the game’s blend of old and new Zelda traditions. Within the world of Hyrule, players can discover 40 Heart Pieces, many of which are cleverly tucked away behind complex puzzles. Defeating bosses not only yields a Heart Container but also upgrades the Tri Rod. In addition to Heart Pieces, the game introduces Might Pieces for upgrading Zelda’s Swordfighter Form, which players collect through various side quests and exploration. Another quirky collectible presented in the game is from Stamp Guy, an eccentric collector, pushing players to share his enthusiasm for stamp collecting—a task as entertaining as it is peculiar.
The game adopts several modern features typical of new-era Zelda series, including an interactive map displaying clear markers and reference points to enhance exploration. Hyrule remains hidden until each area is explored, emphasizing the importance of discovery. The menu systems are reflective of prior games, and while browsing through over a hundred echoes might seem daunting, organizational tools help manage the clutter. Traditional cooking is replaced with Deku smoothie shops where players combine ingredients like fruit and monster parts for health and various buffs, encouraging thorough exploration for unique materials. While Zelda may not boast as many costume changes as Link, she does have a primary and several secondary outfits obtainable through gameplay and Amiibo scanning, which can subtly alter her abilities.
Zelda’s wardrobe includes a couple of main outfits along with several others found through side quests and exploration, with some acquired by using Amiibo. These outfits might tweak certain characteristics slightly, while optional accessories often offer significant enhancements such as improved jump height, extended underwater breath-holding, and better drop rates for crafting items and rupees. The game’s gear approach leans towards traditional gameplay rather than the RPG-like system seen in modern titles, using echoes as a means of personalizing the player’s ‘build’.
Those familiar with the “Link’s Awakening” remake will recognize the beautiful, vivid graphics in “Echoes of Wisdom.” However, the game does suffer from occasional frame-rate issues similar to its predecessor, albeit less frequently. The bigger scope of this game suggests that some improvements have been made to the engine. Importantly, these slowdowns do not affect the performance during crucial gameplay elements like deploying echoes, hinting the problems are likely linked to how the game renders the map.
Nearly the entire map is accessible from the start, though you’ll need to upgrade the Tri Rod to reach collectibles and solve certain puzzles throughout the overworld. Main quests can be completed in the order of your choosing, at least to a certain extent. After the first dungeon, you can head to either Gerudo Desert or Jabul Waters to help the two Zora factions. These first three dungeons (called Ruins) reminded me of Ocarina of Time’s Young Link phase. The mid-game dungeon is the same for everyone before opening up with three different paths for the larger temples.
Being able to explore freely and bounce around between quests for a change of scenery makes Echoes of Wisdom feel like a semi-open-world adventure. Unfortunately, the path I went down in my first playthrough led to a full-on game-breaking bug that placed an invisible barrier at the entrance of Goron City. Since you need to go inside to complete the Eldin Temple main quest, I was left with no choice but to abandon my 35-hour save file, which included numerous hours of troubleshooting without success, and start again. GameSpot informed Nintendo of the bug, and we will update this review if we can confirm it has been fixed. It’s worth noting my colleague did not encounter this issue. Though I don’t know what caused the bug, here’s what I did during my second playthrough: I started the main quest in Kakariko Village and proceeded straight to Goron City before touching any of the optional content in the region.
With only one dungeon and the final area remaining, the bug required me to make use of the second save slot far sooner than I normally would in a Zelda game. If there’s a silver lining to abandoning 35 hours of playtime and starting from scratch, it’s that I gained a greater appreciation for the versatility of echoes and developed new strategies that made replaying each dungeon as interesting as the first time, for a different reason. Obviously the thrill of learning how to solve many of the puzzles was gone, but optimizing my play style with learned strategies made me enjoy the second playthrough almost as much as the first. Rather than walking in my own footsteps, I often unconsciously gravitated toward new solutions.
My total playtime eclipsed 65 hours, but if I had been able to complete the game during my first playthrough, I likely would have rolled credits around the 30-hour mark. It’s not Tears of the Kingdom or Breath of the Wild big, but Echoes of Wisdom is larger than many fans would likely expect from a top-down Zelda game.
If Zelda’s debut in the spotlight is a one-off, at least it’s a memorable adventure. But hopefully this is the beginning of a new legend for the heroine. Echoes of Wisdom’s brilliantly integrates echoes system links two eras, proving that the freeform mechanics of the new age can coexist with the franchise’s classic formula. Don’t mistake this for a spin-off or minor entry between big “mainline” games: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a major moment that shouldn’t be missed.
