Echoes of Wisdom Announced

Let's start with the most important topic for this blog, which will certainly keep me busy for the rest of the year 2024. Nintendo has announced a completely new Zelda game today, called The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. It launches September 26th, uses the same engine and style as the remake of Link's Awakening, takes place in Hyrule, but lets you play as Zelda for the first time ever in the series.

Zelda will meet the fairy Tri and obtain the "Tri Rod", which lets her copy a lot of things from the world and spawn them on demand, including enemies that will fight for her. So, this creates a rather unique playstyle for a Zelda game to a point where it almost feels like a spin-off. But it's fully part of the main series and storyline, even if it's quite different, like Four Swords or Tri Force Heroes before it.

It might leave a similar taste in your mouth as those games, however, because it's not exactly your classic Zelda title. I've seen very different reactions, from the joy of playing as Zelda in a Zelda game, which should finally shut the media up about this for good, to concerns about the echo mechanic. I share both of this, personally.

Overall this game looks very cute. I've always been a fan of the artstyle from the Link's Awakening remake and it's great to see that this was put to good use again. It's also fantastic that the Nintendo Switch got its own new top-down Zelda game after all, where I wouldn't have expected that.

But this was mainly, because there always has been the potential of a remake of Oracle of Ages & Seasons, which simply made sense as a follow-up. Imagine they remake Ocarina of Time (again) and instead of giving Majora's Mask the same treatment, they decide to make a new 3D Zelda game in the old N64 style afterwards, where you play as Zelda and summon Cuccos.

That would get a lot of people excited, for sure, but it also sucks a bit for Majora's Mask. If we already had a remake of Oracle of Ages & Seasons, then I would be a lot more hyped about this, because then this wouldn't get made at the cost of an improved classic. It's a silly position, I know, because a new game is generally more interesting than a remake of an old one. But the older Zelda games still profit a lot from such remakes and remasters, where there's a lot of potential with the Oracle games...

Maybe they will still make them afterwards. And if GREZZO has been developing Echoes of Wisdom, then they truly have earned this. After working on two multiplayer Zelda games and three Zelda remakes, it's their turn to truly contribute to the series with a new singleplayer entry. So, I don't want to sound ungrateful, since this is effectively the Zelda equivalent to Super Mario Bros. Wonder from last year and much more than what I had asked for.

As for the Tri Rod, this feels a lot like an answer to the Ultrahand from Tears of the Kingdom, just as something that works well in a 2D space. With the enemy summoning it also feels similar to Cappy from Super Mario Odyssey. So, there is a lot of utility here, while at the same time it's actually very simple.

It makes the gameplay a lot more passive, however. Instead of hitting enemies with your sword, you will have to find alternatives or summon monsters to do the job for you. I'm not sure how satisfying this ultimately will be.

The list of entities will potentially also grow quite large. This is already a big problem with all the materials in Tears of the Kingdom, where the quick selection didn't have enough sorting options and comfort, if you ask me. At least there you barely even need a tenth of everything regularly, so that the "most used" sorting is somewhat helpful. With Echoes of Wisdom it already looks painful to find whatever you need... And it looks like you only get the Y button for it, which means you will have to switch between entities A LOT.

But in the past I've dreamed of being able to alter the island of Koholint in any way I see fit, where the Tri Rod does go in this direction. It probably won't become a top-down Minecraft, however, because I don't think your spawns will be permanent. But if it's only temporary, then crossing certain obstacles in the environment will get annoying after a while. They will have to find a good solution here.

Then there's the fact that Link isn't the playable main character this time, which is probably the biggest novelty here, unless you count the Philips CD-i games (which you really shouldn't) or the actual spin-offs, like Hyrule Warriors and Cadence of Hyrule. I really like how this title begins where most of the classic 2D Zelda games have ended: you fight Ganon as Link and free Zelda, before you're doomed into what's probably the Dark World. And then it's Zelda's turn to shine.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if the game still let's you play as Link further down the road. It was noteworthy how Link didn't have the Master Sword, but something that looked more similar to the Lokomo Sword in color. Could be the Magical Sword, for example, or the White Sword. He also has a bow in the same color and style, which looks a bit like the Bow of Light from Spirit Tracks in shape. (Not saying that these games are connected.) My point is... If he simply disappears until the end of the game, why not just give him the Master Sword right away?

But you also don't want Link to steal Zelda's showtime here, which will certainly happen if Zelda's gameplay is less direct and all revolves around summoning. Maybe it's that fun and addictive that you don't want to play as basic Link anymore with his Roc's Feather and Spin Attacks. But it doesn't look like it from the footage so far...

Well, there is a lot more to discuss with this trailer and I will go into more detail later this week, after I have talked about all the other news from the Nintendo Direct...