Depending on who you ask, when The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild released in 2017 it was either a bold new direction for Zelda (for better or worse) or a return to what had made the very first Zelda game great. In reality both of these statements are true to some degree. The same is arguably true in the case of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom in relation to the Zelda formula set forth by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Echoes of Wisdom is simultaneously a return to something closer to that iconic Zelda formula following the shakeup of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, while also being one of the biggest reinventions the series has ever seen. The end result is that for some Echoes of Wisdom will feel like a warm blanket of Zelda nostalgia, while others will struggle to reconcile it as a Zelda game at all.
Echoes of Wisdom revels in its ability to play on your nostalgia, and your awareness of the series, while ultimately being something entirely new. The game opens with regular series protagonist Link at the end of a Zelda game we didn’t play. He’s already powered up, and he is ready to take on Ganon while Zelda looks on, trapped within a crystal. It is a scene that calls to mind several different endings throughout the history of the franchise. But just as Link is about to claim victory he is consumed by a strange dimensional rift and as Zelda we are left to pick up the pieces of a game already in progress. She emerges into a Hyrule inspired by A Link to the Past but not a 1:1 replica of it. Rather it is just close enough to your memory to play on your expectations.
Early on you encounter a character named Tri (a small yellow ghost-like creature), who grants Zelda the ability to create echoes. This allows Zelda to replicate any enemy or object she has previously learned. Each of these echoes has an associated cost, represented as a series of triangles. At the start of the game Zelda only has access to three of these triangles, meaning that at most she’ll be able to summon three weak monsters, or perhaps one stronger one. You won’t be able to swarm enemies with an army but rather you’ll need to be intentional about what echo will best fit the situation. This takes the combat from the traditional direct approach of other Zelda games to a more strategic style instead. As the game proceeds and the number and type of monsters you can create expands, gameplay becomes almost akin to a real-time-strategy game. It was an experience that lit up the Age of Empires II section of my brain. Pikmin might be a more Nintendo appropriate comparison. But unlike either of those titles, what Echoes of Wisdom lacks is a good way to order your minions around.
For the first time in 2D Zelda, you have access to the Z-targeting feature originally introduced in Ocarina of Time. However unlike Ocarina of Time where positioning an enemy in frame was usually enough to intuitively communicate to the game what you wanted to target, Echoes of Wisdom’s top-down perspective makes this more difficult. I’d often fight the controls for several seconds to get it to target my desired enemy. Once targeted your echoes prioritize that target in combat. It works well for alerting echoes that may not have even noticed an enemy, or for getting them to flip a switch. But in the heat of battle echoes largely tend to do whatever they want and place little emphasis on what you’ve targeted. This occasionally resulted in echoes throwing themselves at enemies they would immediately die against, rather than focusing on the enemy that they’d have an advantage on. A proper command system allowing you to tell your echoes to focus, attack at will, or defend Zelda, would hugely improve this system.
On some level it feels as if the developers were concerned about the echo system in terms of large scale combat. The swordsman ability (which temporarily turns Zelda into a more Link-like form) comes off as a fallback option. It can only be recharged by defeating specific enemies, but recharges are generally plentiful during boss fights. I found that boss fights were significantly more interesting and enjoyable if I didn’t allow myself to use it, but I couldn’t help but find it odd that the developers seemed scared to fully commit to making me exclusively use echoes. Or perhaps this was a higher level decision that was scared of the game straying too far from traditional Zelda gameplay. It is a shame, because it ultimately undermines the design. My recommendation is to treat it a bit like the invincible tanooki suit in Super Mario 3D Land. It is there if you need help.
As you explore Hyrule, you’ll find that the world is littered with rifts. By reaching specific points, Tri can open an entrance into these rifts. Once inside Zelda can help Tri to close the rift by rescuing all of Tri’s friends trapped inside. Rift interiors consist of broken up pieces of the area they’re covering in the overworld. There is a surprising focus on platforming throughout many of these segments. Like Link’s most recent outings, Zelda has a proper jump button this time around. That being said, the top-down perspective can make depth perception a little difficult, but falling isn’t particularly punishing, you’ll simply need to try again without any loss of health. It is also worth noting that most platforming can also be solved by building bridges from echoes. Thus removing the need for careful jumping.
Within some of these larger rifts are the game’s dungeons. These are an incredible return to form following the Divine Beasts of Breath of the Wild and the better but still not ideal dungeons of Tears of the Kingdom. Despite the deeply rooted changes to underlying game mechanics, these are Zelda dungeons in the purest sense of the word. Each one includes one or more unique elements, many of which involve echoes that can be learned and made use of to overcome the dungeon’s challenges. Essentially think of the unique echoes in each dungeon a bit like dungeon items in older Zelda titles. What is interesting is how often dungeon puzzles allow you to solve things multiple ways. Occasionally I’d find an echo that felt like it could circumvent any challenge the game threw at me, only for the next room to render it useless and force me to come up with new solutions. In many ways the basic philosophy behind these dungeons are such that I hope to see them translated to modern 3D Zelda as well.
One of the most interesting things about the way in which Echoes of Wisdom presents its world, is that it feels like a Zelda game happened before you got there. As you explore you’ll meet characters who reference the things Link did for them. You can find Link’s starting town where one might imagine he got his first sword and shield. The people there all know him and will tell you about him setting off on his adventure. You’ll catch snippets of Link’s exploits helping the various races of Hyrule on his way to rescue Zelda. Despite not being overtly cutscene heavy, there is a high degree of care placed upon how Echoes of Wisdom tells its story. This carries into its lore and relation to the wider series anthology as well. New elements are added but clear effort is taken not to conflict or step on what has already been established. In an interview published around launch, series producer Eiji Aonuma commented on holding a focused story bootcamp to work everything out. I think this is evident in the final product to a degree that was not necessarily the case in some other recent entries.
A more traditional soundtrack also makes a return this time around, after Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom opted for a more atmospheric soundscape. The new soundtrack is excellent with predominantly new music that occasionally works in motifs from elsewhere in the series. Classic locations like Kakariko will briefly allude to their musical past without simply being a new arrangement of an original song. The main theme used for the overworld opens with Zelda’s lullaby before going into a brand new piece that has been stuck in my head since first starting the game. Another favorite is the entirely new theme for Link’s hometown, Suthorn Village. It calls to mind the peaceful starting village themes from Zeldas past. The audio presentation as a whole is fantastic.
The same cannot be said for some other elements of the presentation. The user interface, which borrows heavily from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t always line up well mechanically with Echoes of Wisdom. Your echoes are limited to a simple list that gets unbearably long very quickly as you expand your collection. They can be sorted in a few different ways, but there is no way to properly favorite an echo meaning that you’ll often wind up digging for what you need. Technical performance is also a sore spot. The game targets 60 frames-per-second but realistically only hits that while Zelda is standing still or in an interior location. The moment you start walking in the overworld the double-buffered v-sync forces the game all the way down to 30 frames-per-second. I’ve never seen it drop below that 30 frames-per-second mark indicating that it has decent headroom. This was an issue in the Link’s Awakening Remake as well, and why the frame rate simply wasn’t capped to 30 like many other modern Zelda games is beyond me.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is in many ways a return to the Link to the Past formula but in other ways presents something unlike any other Zelda game. For this reason it is likely to be one of the more divisive titles in the series. For myself it was an incredible and unique take on Zelda. The echo system shifts the perspective on combat and puzzle solving creating a fresh take on both. That being said it feels slightly afraid of fully committing and some additional control over your echoes would greatly enhance the depth of gameplay. Dungeons return to a quality we haven’t seen in more than ten years and the musical presentation is excellent. Performance while consistently hitting 30 frames-per-second strains fruitlessly for 60. But ultimately Echoes of Wisdom excellently weaves itself into the grand tapestry of Zelda with surprising originality while being careful never to trample on what has come before.