After nearly 40 years, Nintendo is taking The Legend of Zelda in a new direction, and with Echoes of Wisdom, the video game company is not only building on the experimentation of its last Switch release, Tears of the Kingdom, but is also doing something no other Zelda title has done before: giving the Princess powers previously reserved for Link alone.
“Zelda’s been given a sword” has been a recurring line for Echoes of Wisdom since it was announced back in June. But that’s not the only reason the game is unique. Rather, the game is part of the franchise’s top-down 2D series, and while it has a different look and feel than Tears of the Kingdom, it still takes advantage of the freedom players had in previous games, like being able to create everything from Korok prisons to giant mechs.
In Echoes, that means being able to take different parts of the world itself, replicate them, and reuse them. For series producer Eiji Aonuma, it means players won’t get bored of the Zelda games. “We began to feel that unless fans could think independently and try different things freely, rather than following a set path, they might not continue playing this series,” Aonuma said recently.
While perhaps unintentional, the change also means players won’t get bored of Zelda, where the eponymous hero can build things and fight his way out of dungeons in ways Link couldn’t.
The game begins like many other Legend of Zelda games: Zelda is captured and Link goes to rescue her. This time, however, after fighting the captured Link, she is pulled into a deep purple rift and must escape on her own. Though she does escape, her happy reunion back home is cut short when Zelda is blamed for the rifts appearing throughout Hyrule. Now a fugitive, Zelda must figure out how to close the rift and save Link with the help of her magical new friend Tori, who gives her the ability to create copies (“echoes”) of items and enemies.
Zelda isn’t great at fighting, so echoes become her main weapon, her main everything. Beds make great ladders when stacked in the right way. Flying tiles can send Zelda flying across large gaps. Urns thrown in the opposite direction create diversions. The fun of Echoes of Wisdom is figuring out how to use everything you find to your advantage. For example, in one puzzle, I saw the piece the game expected me to use: two conspicuously stacked rocks lined up perfectly to block steam from two vents that would prevent me from moving forward. I skipped the whole way with a few carefully placed cubes of water. I swam until I was free and moved on, feeling like a genius.
What’s the underlying story of Echoes of Wisdom? Zelda doesn’t need to emulate Link to be a great hero in her own right.
Ingenuity is at the heart of Echoes of Wisdom. Many of the game’s puzzles can be solved in multiple ways, and solving them sometimes left me feeling like I’d sneaked through a section under the developer’s nose. Areas I shouldn’t have been able to enter were made accessible through cleverly placed beds and trampolines, and a little childlike tenacity. I summoned an army of bat-like Keiths to fight in my place, while Zelda napped nearby. Is this the way I’m supposed to play? Probably, but it still felt mischievous.
The echoes in the game are so effective that I rarely used my abilities, like Zelda’s Link, unless the game called for it: the Princess can transform into a form that wields a blue sword and throws arrows and bombs, but time spent in this form drains energy that must be replenished intentionally, and is meant to be used sparingly.
