REVIEW – Despite the name The Legend of Zelda, the franchise is most often associated with Link. Although there have been cases where he wasn’t the main character (Zelda’s Adventure, TLoZ: Wand of Gamelon, Philips CD-i), there have been no such cases for a long time. Until now: although the princess is not exactly known for her fighting skills, the gameplay has enough twists to give Zelda a run for her money.

The gameplay is so different from the Link’s Awakening remake, for example, that this is not an action-adventure game, but rather a puzzle adventure.

Hyrule in danger again

Rifts are appearing all over the kingdom, swallowing up everything in their path. Link is also caught in one. Zelda is not left alone, because she meets Tri, which, at first, may seem risky or unusual. The princess gets the Tri Rod, which she can use to copy enemies or characters. She does all of this in a world that seems overly plastic. The unusual visuals are extremely well animated and detailed, and with twice the area of the Link’s Awakening remake, you can get 12-16 hours of playtime in a playthrough, and there will be quite a lot of missions and side quests. When you meet someone, you’re almost guaranteed to get a request (that’s where the side quests come in), and you’ll get important, useful items in return. However, Zelda won’t fight like Link, and you can copy your opponents with the Tri Rod. If something is shiny, it can be “stored”. But the Echoes (these will be our stored things) don’t always work in all scenarios, so in some cases we have to use another one. If there is a task, it can’t always be done in just one way. You can experiment, and the best thing is that it pays to experiment.

You can’t do so with the rifts, however: if you jump in, you’ll find yourself in the other world, you’ll need other Echoes, and you’ll eventually get to your dungeons. These are the most fun elements of the game, but not all rifts are mandatory to enter anyway. The ones that are optional will give you short sections where you have to find Tri’s friends to get them to close the rifts. However, these quests are not always varied enough, so it is worth spending time on the side quests scattered around the world (though there are also easier fetch quest ones amongst them). These are important because they allow you to strengthen Zelda in one way or another. You’ll also be able to craft potions that can provide additional buffs beyond energy recharge (for example, you’ll be able to gain temporary protection from fire). At the same time, there’s also the potential for a challenge: if you want to speedrun The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, there’s already a category for it on YouTube, and you can see some surprisingly clever tricks here and there to cut the time. But of course this is not mandatory.

Without Link, the adventure is a bit… stale?

There will be a lot of Echoes, and it can be annoying to find the one you need. A horizontal bar allows you to filter only the most recent or most used. This slows down the gameplay, although a faster pace has never been common in The Legend of Zelda series. So when it slows down in comparison to that, it can be noticeable. Also, the comparison to the Link’s Awakening remake is no coincidence. It’s already been said that the visual style and camera angles are the same, but so is the developer, since we’ve had Grezzo’s work in our hands (literally, of course) for five years and still have it.

However, the technological flaws of the previous game remain somewhat present here, as the frame rate didn’t feel very refined at all times (and perhaps even felt weaker than in the Link’s Awakening remake). Dynamic resolution, usually 720p/1080p when not docked or dicked, and some choppiness when the frame rate seems to bounce between 30 and 60 FPS. Of course, this may have changed since release, so the performance may not be as buggy now, but it’s definitely a negative. Still, the positives should not be forgotten: it has a nice style and a lot to look forward to in the world, and although it doesn’t have quite the same style of gameplay as the franchise, it still feels familiar, and therefore the rating is not so bad that it is not a recommended purchase.

Zelda can be a hero, too

Evaluating The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is not so easy, because if you would treat it as a franchise title, it would not be so strong, but if you would treat it as a puzzle-adventure game, it is a pretty good product. Taking the average of the two, it can be said to be a 7.5/10. Not outstanding and not weak, but rather something you play once and then pick up a few years later, when developers and publishers are cutting back a bit. Not bad, but not revolutionary.

-V-

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Nintendo EPD, Grezzo

Style: puzzle-adventure

Release: September 26, 2024.