Echoes of Wisdom is both familiar and fresh in the best way

In a recent Nintendo interview, legendary The Legend of Zelda director and producer Eiji Aonuma noted that one of the goals behind the series’ latest game, Echoes of Wisdom, was to let players be “mischievous.” The idea, he said, was to let players copy and paste objects and even enemies in the world to create a unique sense of playfulness. After playing through Echoes of Wisdom myself, I’d say the team absolutely succeeded on that front, delivering one of the more purely entertaining Zelda games in years.

That all starts with the titular character herself, who, for the first time in a mainline entry, is the central playable character. While it’s undeniably a bit crazy that it took this long to happen in the nearly 40-year-old series, Echoes of Wisdom absolutely makes the most of that premise.

First, there’s a refreshing sense of desperation to Zelda’s quest. With Hyrule being overtaken by mysterious rifts that have engulfed towns, forests, deserts and even Link himself, Zelda must venture across the land to save the day. Rendered through the 2019 Link’s Awakening remake‘s clay-like visual style, the dark purple hues of the fiendish rifts and the massive stretches of ruination they’ve left in their wake offer sharp contrast to the cutesy presentation of everything else, resulting in a remarkably striking aesthetic.

The Zelda-focused narrative framework also lets you engage with familiar series staples in interesting new ways. With Zelda having been framed for the rift incident, she must go undercover as a cloaked mage and prove herself to the people with the help of a fairy named Tri. Unlike Link, who’s beloved as the Hero of Hyrule, our concealed Zelda has no clout or royal favour to rely on, leading to charming unorthodox partnerships, including one with a beleaguered Gerudo. While there is certainly a sense of familiarity in visiting different regions with the same elemental-themed tribes (i.e. the Gerudo in the desert or the Zora in the lakes), I did at least appreciate how Echoes of Wisdom uses Zelda herself to shake things up.

But the biggest way in which the game evolves the Zelda formula is through its aforementioned central “copy-and-paste” gameplay mechanic. After Tri gives her the magical ‘Tri Rod,’ Zelda can conjure up ‘Echoes’ of all kinds of objects and enemies. With respect to the former, this includes stools, plants, boulders and even beds, all of which you can stack to create different platforms and tools. Need to reach a distant ledge? Maybe you’ll create a makeshift bridge made of beds. Crates are blocking your path downward? Drop a boulder on them. At the same time, you can only initially only conjure 3 Echoes at a time, with the ability to expand this, so you have to be strategic in your deployment of them.

Zelda can also manipulate objects or even enemies in the environment with her ‘Bind’ power, which is sort of like Magnesis from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. (A companion ability called ‘Reverse Bond,’ meanwhile, lets Zelda tether herself to an object, like a moving platform, for extra mobility.) Being able to use Echoes and Bind together made for some of the game’s most rewarding moments.

For instance, in one of the game’s ‘Still World’ mini-dungeons (areas in the rifts that have been frozen by time), I had to get an item on a platform that was surrounded by quicksand. After playing around with it a bit, I went to a distant higher level and made my go-to bed bridge, but soon realized it was just slightly too short. So, I wondered: could I use Bind on this to move it just a few inches closer while still balancing it on the ledge? Sure enough, it worked! That’s a smaller example, but Echoes of Wisdom consistently features glorious open-ended puzzle design, just through the more manageable framework of a 20- to 30-hour experience instead of a gargantuan, 100-plus-hour Tears of the Kingdom setup.

I also love the room for experimentation — or “mischief,” if you will — in Echoes of Wisdom‘s combat. Admittedly, this has generally not been Zelda games’ strong suit, with Link’s signature sword and shield attacks being rather simple. But Zelda isn’t Link, of course, and so that means she must use Echoes in battle instead. What results is probably the most I’ve ever enjoyed combat in a Zelda game, outside of last year’s similar DIY-minded Tears of the Kingdom.

A group of ‘Rope’ snakes is hiding in a field of bushes? Why not throw the fiery Ignizol at them to light everything ablaze? A distant enemy is shooting deadly projectiles at you? Summon the armour-clad Darknut and Bind him to create a shield as you advance before releasing your knight and letting him hack at your foe. But above all else, I appreciated how these enemy Echoes allow you to see returning Zelda fiends in a new light. My favourite was the frightening, zombie-like ReDead from Ocarina of Time that haunted me as a kid with how they could paralyze and sap Link’s health. In Echoes of Wisdom, though, the ReDead are yours to command, and I got great pleasure out of sending small groups of them to terrorize Moblins and other enemies.

Zelda can also gain some of Link’s abilities, like his sword and bow, in her Swordfighter form. On top of offering some cute fan service (seeing Zelda take on a spiritual form of Link and make her own ‘hya’ sounds is especially fun), this gives her a more direct combat arsenal, which is useful in some tougher encounters and simply essential for some puzzles and boss fights. At the same time, it uses a metre that slowly recharges as you collect energy, so it feels appropriately balanced in a “supermove” sort of way.

The only areas in which Echoes of Wisdom really falters really just come down to some quality-of-life issues. For one, the game suffers from the same kind of clunky menus that plagued Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. In just a few hours, Echoes of Wisdom will already have you juggling dozens of Echoes, and there’s no meaningful way to organize them outside of somewhat restrictive filters like “Last Used,” “Most Used,” and “Type.” Since the game so wonderfully encourages experimentation, I wish there was even some sort of “loadout” system that let me customize my favourite Echo configurations because as it stands, it’s tedious to sometimes have to scroll for several seconds at a time to find what I’m looking for.

The overworld itself also has some minor frustrations. Link’s Awakening (2019) had notorious frame rate issues, and unfortunately, Echoes of Wisdom also suffers from occasional stuttering, especially in areas where there are a lot of enemies and objects on-screen. It definitely doesn’t happen as often here as it did in Link’s Awakening, but it’s still disappointing to see similar problems crop up five years later. Graciously, at least, they aren’t enough to detract from exploring the otherwise meticulously crafted and tantalizing, secrets-filled Hyrule.

On the whole, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the perfect example of how to freshen up a long-running series. The easy thing to do would have just been to let you play as Zelda and have her more or less do the same things as Link, but Echoes of Wisdom is thankfully infinitely more creative than that. Through the iconic princess, Echoes of Wisdom allows you to interact with the world of Hyrule in fascinating new ways, from her interpersonal challenges with signature Zelda tribes to experimentation-focused exploration and puzzle solving and even enemy manipulation.

All in all, it’s a brilliant mix of classic, tighter Zelda games and the more open-ended design offered by the sprawling Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Hopefully, this is the start of a new series of games for Princess Zelda!

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will launch exclusively on the Nintendo Switch on September 26th.

Image credit: Nintendo