Echoes of Wisdom thoughts
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom review
I was really excited to play this game from the launch trailer and it lived up to my expectations. I finished the game at home in Ennis on Christmas eve after speeding through the second half. It makes the most sense to compare it to Links Awakening and it absolutely blows it out of the water.
LA was a nice tech demo for this new approach to 2D Zelda but it fell a bit flat. I think that was just because it was a remake of a game multiple decades old. The map size, enemy variety and semi-grid-lock thing are inherited, but there were still small technical issues holding it back. With the exception of the technical stuff all of the gameplay gripes were completely gone. In retrospect the decision to keep LA in a semi-grid layout was absolutely nuts. The map was the perfect size that I never felt like there was any "filler" open world spaces. Everywhere felt designed without feeling like a themepark. I would have still liked a bigger map but I was happy with what we got in this entry. Would be really nice to see what a sequel to this looks like.
The game felt propelled forward by the echoes which felt really elegant. I think it's a flag for good design when the promise of new and interesting skills/abilities is pushing you towards the next objective. There were some areas where the reward was just 50 rupees (really anti-climactic), but almost all of the bigger or unique caves have a new item that modifies gameplay or gives you more echoes to work with.
The game may be worth a replay in a few years time with the higher difficulty score. I thought the combat was fun when I was summoning echoes and watching them fight, but by the end it became very simple and repetitive. Simple because the level 3 Darknut won most fights and repetitive because once you find out what a specific enemies weaknesses all it comes down to is pausing the game, menuing to the right echo and pressing Y.
The characters were also a big improvement over LA. Close in quality for other mainline Zelda games but that's not saying a while bunch. Conde is a huge highlight and the Zora story was a highlight. Deku nuts were very cute but the zone story didn't do much for me. The main story was boring but I'm not the one to comment on that. All Zelda main plots are a bit boring as far as I can remember.
Overall I really enjoyed the game. Very easy and easy to breeze through but the core mechanics really stick the landing. I would love to see every aspect of the game expanded on if we ever get a sequel to this, a V2 with more technical polish would be perfect.
i loved...
- Conde!!!
- The echo variety kept things fresh and propelled the game forward
- Way more reward variety compared to links awakening, it was cool getting new items, echoes and costumes
- The size of the map, they could've easily overdone it but it was the perfect upgrade compared to links awakening
- graphics were really nice, kept the same art style as links awakening. The not-too-chibi designs look great on the switch
i didn't care for...
- Not enough costume rewards, most seem to be gated behind amiibos or post-game content. I don't understand why games do this
- Level 3 Darknut sweep, basically solved all combat situations for me
- I got the dampe machines waaaay to late, barely got to use them
- the lag, oh man it's really bad. It's a late stage switch game but I heard it's poorly optimised on emulators with high specs too. Compared to other titles on the switch I don't see why the performance was shipped as-is
- Why so many limitations around the horse? No whistle or horse echo? It would've been really cool to be able to ride some echoes around the map for transport instead of warping to a horse, running over to it, then heading to your destination on the map
- Lots of menuing through echoes. Tabs for creatures and items would've helped immensely