The first in the Zelda franchise's nearly 40-year history to put the title character in the leading role, Echoes of Wisdom is also seemingly an attempt to reconcile the newer, more immersive style of Zelda with the classic dungeon crawling format that made it a hit to begin with. But does it strike a solid balance between old and new, or is this a surprisingly unwise outing?
Echoes of Wisdom is a game that utilizes a very similar visual style to the Link's Awakening remake, though it's made clear pretty quickly that it's not a full return to form - while you do play the intro as Link, utilizing a very familiar arsenal of weapons and moves, the game quickly shifts to you controlling Zelda and the gameplay changes up dramatically. The main gimmick this time is utilizing the Tri Rod to create "echoes" - by scanning objects or the icons left behind by defeated enemies, you earn the ability to make duplicates of them. Each object has slightly differing properties to utilize, while enemies behave much like their normal counterparts; just that they target and harm other enemies instead of you. As you move through the game and complete dungeons, you also unlock new abilities. One is that Tri allows you to pick up and move objects as though they were weightless (much like the Ultrahand ability in TotK), while completing dungeons earns you upgrades, like being able to have more active Echoes at the same time or create them at further distances, opening up new avenues to explore and overcome obstacles.
The central gimmick is certainly a clever one, and being able to improvise with the tools you're given to solve various problems makes the gameplay quite fun and rewarding. That said, I think they made a mistake by making one of the first powers you get a limited time transformation to essentially just become Link again. You even start out with his sword and unlock his bow, hookshot and bombs as the game progresses, like they were afraid to stray too far from the old staples despite the game ostsensibly starring a new character with a very different gameplay centerpiece. Granted it doesn't completely upend Zelda's gameplay - it runs off a fairly short timer and you still need to use Zelda's toolset to expose boss weak points - but it feels like a bit of a copout that Zelda's first adventure still basically has you play as Link. I found the game most enjoyable when I used the Link morph only when it was absolutely necessary to and just stuck to improvising clever solutions with echoes whenever I could; it gives the game a charm similar to doing a swordless run of 1986 Legend of Zelda.
While the game does return to a linear style of storytelling and progression by requiring you to complete dungeons in order to progress to new areas, some trappings of the open world style Zeldas remain in Echoes. One is that there are many optional areas to explore and side-missions given to you by NPCs, which often have useful rewards. BotW's cooking system returns in a more limited format - rather than being able to cobble together almost anything into a potion or a meal, you now combine two ingredients to create "smoothies" with various effects like elemental resistance, temporary damage reduction or restoring some of your energy. Outfits also return in a more limited format, divided into Clothing and Accessories that grant various beneficial effects or are just cosmetic.
As in the Link's Awakening remake, performance does gets a little choppy in places (particularly when there's a lot of water effects) but I never found it severe enough to hamper the experience; a constant framerate is certainly necessary for games like fighters or racing games that require frame-perfect inputs, but in a leisurely, slower paced adventure like Zelda it's not a serious hindrance. Something the game could have used is a Favorites list for your Echoes; having to scroll through a single-file list that runs dozens deep gets pretty tedious, and the various sorting options you're given only alleviate it to a point. Being able to set a few Favorites in designated slots at the top of the list (or a separate list entirely) would have helped quite a bit.
So, is Echoes of Wisdom a return to the classic style of Zelda? Yes and no. It certainly returns to the more linear, puzzle-oriented format of the classics, but the core gameplay is more of a hybrid, taking the emergent approach to puzzle design from BotW/TotK and downplaying direct combat in favor of finding creative ways to outwit and defeat foes. So if you like to make your own fun but want a more straightforward approach to dungeon and storytelling while you do it, Echoes of Wisdom is one you'll probably want to pick up.
Developer: Nintendo EPD, Grezzo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: 2024
Platforms: Switch
Recommended Version: N/A