Let's finally talk about the most important reveal from the latest trailer. In addition to creating echoes of all sorts of objects and enemies, Tri will let you use "Bind" on them, even on objects that normally can't be turned into echoes, like some gigantic boulder.
Visually, this looks very similar to the Ultrahand from Tears of the Kingdom and it partially even works like it, in the sense that this lets you move things around, but unlike with Ultrahand you can't do so freely. Whatever is bound to you will simply follow your movements, even when you jump. So, this is actually an evolution of the Dominion Rod from Twilight Princess, where this isn't limited to certain statues any longer.
Apparently, you will learn this ability early in the game, but not right at the start. Zelda has already five hearts in the showcased sequence, where she seems to be back in the dungeon where Link fought Ganon, which might be the first dungeon in the game.
In any case, Bind feels like the missing puzzle piece after the introduction to the concept of echoes. Back in June, the main concern was that the echoes will make things too passive. Instead of fighting enemies with a sword yourself, you will summon a Moblin who fights them with a sword for you, while you just watch and dodge. Bind gives Princess Zelda a lot more agency, where she can now actively use certain summons as a weapon.
You can even move enemies around with Bind, which looks overpowered first. But if you have played the Trine series, where you can do something similar with the wizard, then you will know that this won't necessarily help you with groups of enemies. You probably will get interrupted whenever something hits you, so you still have to be careful. And there will be environments, especially inside dungeons, where you simply won't have anything to discard enemies into.
In the footage, Zelda creates a hole with a mole and then drops a Moblin inside it, which is very clever, but of course you won't always have earth or sand below your feet. Some dungeons in the Link's Awakening remake had this, however, like the Tail Cave or the Catfish's Maw, where finally this would have some utility.
When using Bind on things that normally move on their own, you can even flip the bond and make you follow them. As an example, they let Zelda climb some trees and hills with a Skulltula. Or they let her fly around with a bird.
Of course, this makes things passive yet again, because you're at the mercy of whatever you're bound to. In case of the Skulltula echo, it seems to automatically climb anything that you put it against. But with the bird it looked like you were just going in circles, which isn't exactly helpful. You're better off with summoning your own bird echo and then picking it up, which is something that you also can do. So, it will be quite situational and heavily depend on the echoes / entities.
Interestingly, the icon for Bind is Tri itself, Zelda's new fairy companion. This goes on the X button, while your echoes are summoned with Y. (B is probably used for jumping.) You can even see how Tri moves towards the objects and enemies whenever you use Bind on them, and goes back to Zelda when you use Reverse Bond. The echoes on the other hand are purely coming from the Tri Rod. Tri's tail is an indicator of how much you can summon, but it's the rod that does the summoning. So, Bind is actually the main ability of Tri.
And this makes me wonder: what else will be there and what form does it take? It doesn't seem like this game will have traditional items, like a Hookshot. Echoes are essentially your items and even add a sense of progression, because you won't have all echoes from the start. But the inventory doesn't seem to have a page where you swap whatever you have on the X button, so this is probably also done with the D-pad, much like in Breath of the Wild.
If Tri was the only thing that ever goes on X, then they probably wouldn't show the button on the HUD. And this is curious, because Tri seems to be very important to this game, so whatever you can place on X otherwise should be equally important, because it's replacing your sidekick. The best answer to this is that there will be more fairies like Tri, who all have their own abilities. This would be similar to the three Spirits from Phantom Hourglass – Ciela, Leaf, and Neri –, who all came with different buffs, only that this time these fairies would be your main items and you constantly switch between them.
If that's true, then this could lead to having some proper progression in the game. You start with the Tri Rod and creating echoes. Then you will learn Bind from Tri early on. And then you may have to free other fairies, Tri's siblings or whatever, where each of them will grant you a new power. Ideally, these powers will let you utilize the echoes in other ways.
One idea would be "Lift", where it shoots things upwards, similar to the Tornado Rod from A Link Between Worlds, only that this can be used on anything. But you could summon a bed, step on it, and then use the Lift power to turn it into an elevator. You could potentially stun enemies by throwing them up into the air. And the reverse of this ability could make things flip around, so it would work like the Cane of Pacci from The Minish Cap. Like Bind, it's a simple mechanic that would bring lots of utility thanks the echo system.
Ideally, the existence of such abilities is something that Nintendo will let us discover ourselves, because the combination of echoes and Bind is already promising enough to sell the game. Lots of potential there.
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