 |
| A new hero rises. |
The game begins with young swordsman Link venturing inside a dungeon to rescue the trapped Princess Zelda from the clutches of the dark being, Ganon. Just as the day is saved, Link gets captured by Ganon. In a last minute heroic effort, he frees Zelda who escapes. Now alone in a land consumed by darkness, Zelda must fix Hyrule with the help of "Tri", a mysterious little fairy that has the power to mend the rifts by diving into the "Still World". Now, our two heroes will need to work together to thwart Ganon's schemes and free Hyrule.
The story was good and seeing Zelda as the main protagonist was a nice change, though she doesn't speak at all. In fact, there's no voicework, but thankfully the dialogue was entertaining with quirky characters and funny moments. While Tri was a handy companion, its personality was mostly robotic and emotionless and I didn't find myself caring for the sidekick by the journey.
 |
| Guided by a tiny companion, Zelda's journey is a daunting one. |
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a puzzle-adventure game where you journey across Hyrule's regions as Zelda, fixing rifts and solving the locals' woes. It's presented in a top-down view similarly to the old 2D Zelda games like A Link to The Past. Zelda uses a "Tri Rod" that allows her to bind it objects and monsters, which she can move around to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. It functions similarly to the Ultrahand ability in Tears of the Kingdom, where it offers some freedom in interacting with your surroundings, though on a more smaller scale.
"Echoes" are the main mechanic where Zelda can learn to copy objects and enemies to create pathways and minions to help you out. You go about this by "learning" both objects you interact with and enemies you defeat. Tri can only summon a limited amount of echoes until you can upgrade its capacity by mending rifts and completing dungeons across Hyrule. It was neat as although I'm not the most creative mind out there, I did come up with some neat ways to navigate through the game's challenges.
 |
| The echoes mechanic was helpful in and out of combat. |
In addition, Swordfighter Form, grants you the ability to use Link's arsenal such as his sword, bow, and bombs when in a bind. They offer good direct attack at the cost of depleting the energy gauge and the weapons can be upgraded by collecting blue crystals by exploring around and solving quests. You'll notice that combat is less action-focused as you'll mostly regulate your echoes to do the fighting while you occasionally join in with swordfighter form.
You'll come by smoothie stands in your journey, where you can mix heart-restoring smoothies or make ones that restore your energy gauge and offer cold-resistance. If you still have them around, scanning Zelda-related Amiibo will unlock new costumes and crafting materials as a bonus too.
Rifts are prevalent in the world and you'll need to mend them to progress the story. These see you finding Tri's friends who are hidden in the distorted levels and you'll need to use your echoes to defeat enemies and reach all five in each rift. Completing them increases Tri's echo capacity as well as reduce the casting cost of some echoes too, so they're worth doing.
 |
| Solve tricky obstacles when exploring the game's caves and dungeons. |
Dungeons are the stars here and the majority can be tackled in any order. They're packed with neat puzzles, tricky platforming, and frequent enemy ambushes that we've grown to expect from the series. The bosses were relatively easy to beat, especially when using the more powerful echoes like Sword Moblins and Darknuts.
The land of Hyrule is one big open-world with lots to offer by exploring the familiar-looking locales like the Gerudo desert, cold Hebra mountain, lush Faron forest, and the volcanic Eldin mountains. Riddled throughout them are secret caves that houses treasure chests, mini-dungeons with optional bosses, materials used to make health-restoring smoothies, and plenty of side-quests that offer up neat rewards like heart-piece containers, stat-boosting gear, and rupees. By completing certain quests, you can even unlock a horse which makes traversal a breeze on top of having plentiful waypoints.
 |
| Hyrule is packed with lots of secrets to find and worthwhile quests to solve. |
I loved just randomly exploring around the map and solving the clever puzzles. It took me around 20 hours to beat with me taking my time to nab most of the heart-pieces and doing a lot of side-quests. My gripes were that I wished that the echoes menu was more organized as you'll have to sort through a long row till you find the needed echo each time. Moreover, enemy AI can be dumb sometimes as they won't attack nearby enemies as they'll just stand idly and lastly, aiming with the bow is stiff as you don't have much freedom to move it sideways.
Echoes of Wisdom features the same toy-like visuals of the Link's Awakening remake. The game pops with bright colors, cute models, and varied enemy variety to keep things fresh. Performance was surprisingly well, as I encountered few frame-rate issues. However, the image quality was choppy as the game suffers from jagged edges on character models and backgrounds in both modes. The soundtrack was pleasant and gelled with the game's atmosphere. The Overworld, enemy encounter, and Lanayru temple tracks were my faves.
 |
| The presentation was solid, with the cute visuals taking center stage. |
I initially wasn't expecting much with The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom since it looked like a light spin-off, but I quickly enjoyed my time with the game. It was a solid adventure that successfully blended both old and new styles of Zelda. Exploring Hyrule was rewarding, solving dungeons was pretty fun, and the presentation was nice. Fans of the series shouldn't miss out on Echoes of Wisdom.
Comments
Post a Comment