After spending the better part of 40 years as a supporting character, Princess Zelda is more than ready to star as the hero of Hyrule.
In a few short weeks, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will arrive for the Nintendo Switch and after playing through the first hour of the game, I can confidently say its creators are not playing it safe.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is an onslaught of ideas and creativity.
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And much like Tears of the Kingdom, it gives players the freedom to solve puzzles and defeat enemies in ways that have never been possible in a 2D or 3D Zelda.
My demo began with Zelda and her new companion, Tri, locked in a cell.
I can’t explain how the Princess got there or how the pair met as I wasn’t allowed to watch the game’s opening cutscene.
Zelda already has everything she needs to escape though, thanks to her staff, a glowing table and large hole above a shelf on the left wall.
When Zelda approaches the table, the player is prompted to press ZR to “Learn.”
After the classic musical chime plays, Tri explains that you have learned the “table echo” which can be summoned out of thin air by pressing ‘Y’ and dispelled by pressing or holding ‘ZR.’
Like in Breath of the Wild, you can cycle through items (in this case echoes) by holding right on the d-pad and using the right thumbstick – but more on that later.
I quickly summoned one table, jumped on top of it to reach the shelf, then created a second table to reach the hole and escape via the open door in the neighbouring cell. In classic Zelda fashion, your next challenge is to evade the slow moving guards between you and freedom.
By carefully stacking three tables, you can easily evade the first guard and find your second echo, a wooden-box. These are twice as high and twice as wide as a table but cost the same amount to use.
Each time a wooden-box echo is summoned, one of the three triangles (which look suspiciously upgradable) vanishes from behind Tri.
If you’ve already summoned one box and two tables, Zelda’s next echo will wipe the box from existence.
This is particularly important when considering how to solve puzzles and how to fight enemies.
After dodging a few more guards, I made it to the exit with a total of five echoes; a table, a wooden-box, a plated tree, a bed and a breakable pot.
The game – at least the first hour of it – is relentless in throwing new tools and enemies at you. There was little to no information on how to use each echo, just gentle encouragement to experiment from the get go.
After an excellent (but brief) encounter with Impa, Zelda and Tri are released into the wild.
Anyone who assumed Echoes of Wisdom would recycle the world map from Link’s Awakening is sorely mistaken. Everything here is brand new, more expressive and more interactive than any top-down Zelda I’ve ever played.
Like the item echoes, the game wastes no time throwing enemies at you to copy. They all have official names but within half an hour you’ll have bats, snakes, spear-throwing warthogs, spike balls, green goo, goo that’s on fire and spiders at your disposal; along with what is arguably the most overpowered weapon I’ve ever used in a Zelda game.
I won’t spoil much, except to say this spinning wheel of death made short work of the first dungeon boss once I nailed the timing of my tether.
Zelda’s ability to ‘tether’ herself to enemies and objects, and exploit their movement (or her own) to solve puzzles was shown off in a recent trailer by Nintendo and boy does it result in some mind bending solutions.
I’m not allowed to explicitly say how I solved puzzles on my run, but the freedom you have in tackling the most basic challenge rivals (if not exceeds) that of Tears of the Kingdom. People will scoff at that until they play the game for themselves.
There’s a layer of strategy to every fight and, like in Pokemon, knowing which echoes are effective or useless is critical to your progress.
Large chunks of Hyrule have been swallowed by ominous rifts and it’s Zelda’s job to investigate, enter and dispel the rifts to save her world.
The path to the first rift opening is somewhat linear, gradually ramping up the difficulty until players discover an opening in a rift and dive into the Still World for the first time.
Like its name suggests, people and parts of the world swallowed by the rifts are trapped, motionless inside the void of the Still World.
Unlike Link’s Awakening, Zelda does not require special items to jump or swim. She can (thankfully) do both from the get go, which comes in handy as players look for simple and unique ways to clear gaps in the Still World.
By the end of the first dungeon, which demands heavy and creative use of Zelda’s tether ability, you’ll find yourself squaring off with an evil version of Link himself.
This battle was far tougher than I assumed it would be. Link is far quicker than Zelda and it does not feel good being on the receiving end of that sword.
Eventually, thanks to my overpowered echo and some solid timing with the tether ability, I was able to best him and collect the sword he leaves behind.
The sword allows Zelda to transform into Link with the push of a button. Zelda is unable to create echoes in this mode, but with a sword and shield, she’s able to battle enemies head on and cut through purple webs in the still world.
Thankfully, the transformation is tied to a metre, meaning it won’t last forever. You’ll need to collect energy shards in the still world to build Zelda’s sword metre up to be used in the right place at the right time.
As I reflect on my time with my hour with the game (emphasis on the single hour), my thoughts always return to how effortlessly Nintendo has been able to design, implement and explain such a wide variety of mechanics.
I didn’t even get to see one of Dampe’s automatons which were shown off in the latest trailer, ride a horse or spend time with the quirky townsfolk who are far more detailed and expressive than those found in Link’s Awakening.
Like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom before it, the Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is poised to break the conventions of Zelda all over again.
And – while it’s still far too early to declare from my short time with the game – it already feels worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence of those two genre defining titles and I can’t wait to play more when it releases for the Nintendo Switch on September 26.
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