GamesActionThe Legend of ZeldaThe Legend of Zelda: Echoes of WisdomZelda: Echoes of Wisdom prepares us for the world after Tears of the Kingdom, but lets its hero down in the processWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesActionThe Legend of ZeldaThe Legend of Zelda: Echoes of WisdomZelda: Echoes of Wisdom prepares us for the world after Tears of the Kingdom, but lets its hero down in the processWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Nintendo)
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is an important game for Nintendo. Famously, it’s the first mainline game where Zelda herself has been playable - no, I’m not counting Spirit Tracks - bucking a decades-long trend and finally putting the eponymous princess at the forefront of her own legend. But it’s also the first game to exist in a world afterBreath of the WildandTears of the Kingdom. And while it’s very effective at being one of those things, it stumbles clumsily over being the other.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdomopens to calamity in Hyrule. Strange rifts begin appearing all over the kingdom, swallowing up anyone unable to outrun them, including both Link and the King of Hyrule. The latter is eventually spat back into the world, where he mysteriously pins the blame on his daughter Zelda, and sentences her to death. It’s an unfortunate start for the princess, who begins her first-ever title game consigned to the dungeons of her own castle.
Cut & Paste
(Image credit: Nintendo)
Puzzle-solving isn’t only limited to arranging copied items just-so, thankfully, as Tri has a handful of other tricks. The sprite can attach to heavy obstacles, allowing Zelda to move them around with ease, or to moving objects, letting the princess match their movement. The latter system is a little finicky, particularly when Echoes of Wisdom transitions from its top-down perspective to a side-on approach for certain puzzles, but it’s another harkening to the kind of open-world freedom that isn’t necessarily present in here, but remains an obvious link to Breath of the Wild.
Mistaken Identity
(Image credit: Nintendo)
While Echoes of Wisdom does seem to have taken the lessons of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom’s Hyrule to heart, however, it feels like a step back from those games in a key regard: Zelda herself. Echoes of Wisdom subverts three decades of series tradition in introducing Zelda as a playable character, but having done so it quickly feels as though it’s no longer particularly interested in herasa character.
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Can Echoes of Wisdom do enough to make it onto our list of thebest Zelda gamesof all time?
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