The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom seems like the perfect blend of everything that I loved in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
After playing through over an hour of the upcoming game at a preview event hosted by Nintendo, I’m confident that the next entry in the long-running series has all the makings of a fantastic sandbox experience. It could even become one of the best Nintendo Switch games of the year.
On the surface, Echoes of Wisdom looks most similar to Link's Awakening, a 2019 Nintendo Switch remake of a 1993 Game Boy title. It has the same adorable art style, which lends everything a cutesy, miniaturized look. The Hyrule setting is almost like a diorama, with a top-down perspective and shiny, plastic-like textures to really sell the effect.
That said, anyone who played Link's Awakening will know that the attractive overall look of that game was always a little undermined by its rough performance. Substantial framerate drops were common, particularly when entering or exiting a scene.
Thankfully, the build of Echoes of Wisdom that I played performed substantially better. It wasn’t perfect, with a couple of visible dips in particularly busy moments, but it was much more consistent on the whole which bodes well for the finished release.
Copy and paste
One of the biggest departures from the Link’s Awakening formula in Echoes of Wisdom is its protagonist, Princess Zelda. It’s the first time in the series that she’s taken a starring role, that is if you wisely choose to ignore the horrendous Phillips CD-i installments. It seems like a very positive direction for the franchise and, given the success of titles like Princess Peach: Showtime!, a Zelda game where you play as its titular character was well overdue.
Playing as the princess doesn’t just mean a change in aesthetic either, as she feels like a very distinct hero and is bolstered by her own set of magical abilities. My demo opened with her imprisoned in the dungeons of Hyrule Castle, the kingdom thrown into chaos by the sudden appearance of sinister purple rifts that are swallowing its inhabitants. You’re soon introduced to Tri, a fairy-like creature that grants you a staff that can create echoes - identical copies of objects from the world around you.
Echoes are where the most obvious Tears of the Kingdom elements come in. There are a huge number of objects to add to your collection, any of which can be summoned at any given time. The world is your playground and many of the early puzzles that I encountered took full advantage of this fact. Patrolling guards may be distracted by a tossed summoned pot, while a tall cliff can be easily scaled if you stack boxes like a ladder.
There are some hilarious options to play around with too, like trampolines that bounce you at rapid speeds or giant roast meats that attract nearby monsters. You have a limited amount of Echo energy, which does restrict the number of objects that you can summon at one time, but I never felt frustrated by this limitation. Rather, it was a consistent joy to work around it and find a good solution given these constraints.
Chatting with some other participants from the demo session over lunch, I was also pleased to discover that each of us had tackled the puzzles in our own way. I was a big fan of the bed, which can be stacked like a plank to create bridges. It’s versatile and a brilliant way to navigate between elevated areas. Others favored tall potted plants, dropping them in gaps to form small platforms or even just a plain old crate.
Catch em all
Creating echoes of objects is only one half of the story, though, as you can also cast echoes of defeated foes. Zelda does not have any conventional combat abilities at first, so you need to rely on small conjured armies of Zol, Moblins, and more to fight on your behalf. I primarily made use of the bat-like Keese, finding their dive-bomb attacks perfectly suited to dealing quick bursts of damage.
Some enemies can even be used for more than just combat. Like Link’s Awakening, Echoes of Wisdom features a number of side-scrolling 2D platforming sections. Here, creating a spider could give you a handy strand of silk to climb.
Towards the end of my demo, I was also able to try out Zelda’s Bind ability which is absolutely brimming with potential. Bind can be used to pick up any moveable object in the world, be that something you’ve found or that you’ve summoned. Holding the R Button inverts these mechanics, causing Zelda to move alongside the object that she is holding rather than control it. Binding to a moving platform above you and holding R, for example, will cause you to float along in its path underneath it. It sounds a little complicated on paper, but it’s highly intuitive in execution.
This is definitely a good thing, as mastering Bind was fundamental for the completion of a couple of highly enjoyable puzzles, not to mention tracking down hidden chests.
The only part of the demo that I wasn’t overly thrilled with was the point at which Zelda unlocks her sword-fighting form. This sees her suddenly transform into a warrior who looks suspiciously like Link, with access to his iconic sword and shield. I was almost disappointed when it appeared, as I was definitely enjoying the departure from a more traditional The Legend of Zelda experience. Thankfully, your use of the ability is restricted as it is time-limited and relies on a special type of energy that you need to accumulate first.
This moment aside, I left the preview highly excited to discover what else lies in store when The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom launches for Nintendo Switch on September 26.
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