Echoes of Wisdom Adventure Log, Entry 7 ~ Cats & Horses

After reaching the game's midpoint, I've been tying up some loose ends before I'm headed into one of the three goddess areas. So, I've been mainly returning to previous places and doing some side quests. More outfits to unlock, more accessories to find, more mini-games to play... And another boss from the past was awaiting me.

~ Carrots and Tombstones ~

Since you're now recognized as Princess Zelda in the game, you can claim your own horse, the royal white steed, which was waiting at the Hyrule Ranch all this time. But surprise... it ran off and you have to find it again. For this you need carrots, but the carrot patch at the forest was taken by a rift, which brings you to another smaller Still World. The game now makes much more use of these additional rifts, where they have even appeared in the areas you've previously visited.

I've also cleared the rift next door at the Sanctuary, where previously I hadn't understood what I needed to do with the tombstones. Well, you can take an educated guess what ability I had been forgetting back then... but I've learned my lesson in the Gerudo Desert.

Once freed, the priest shares a number of helpful rumors about this part of the game, where it would have been interesting to hear what he had to say earlier... But I will explore this on my second playthrough. Maybe the dialogue options are simply cut in half in that case, because stuff like the Great Fairy already was relevant right at the beginning.

Anyway, what I certainly couldn't move with Bind in the early game were the carrots. Believe me, I've tried. But I suppose you could argue that they still had to grow. You can only summon your own horse with the carrot echoes, from what it seems, so that's why it's the way it is.

What I also can finally summon now is the very big Moblin, because mending all these rifts brought Tri to Level 6, which finally added a fifth triangle, so I can spawn the Level 3 Moblins. And these guys are ridiculous. They take a while to attack, but they do so much damage that they kill most enemies in a single strike. It's effectively a mini-boss that you can spawn into anyone's face now.

~ Desert Princess ~

Yesterday I left off the Gerudo Desert wondering about the one tower at the Gerudo Palace and the Gerudo attire, where now this all became clear. The story has been progressing and you're given new things to do in each area, which is fantastic.

In case of the Gerudo Palace, it's another mission about sneaking past by guards. If you use the patch of dirt on top of the roof, this gives Cat Thief Zelda a significant shortcut. So, this wasn't terribly difficult, but I still had enough stealth action for one Zelda game.

You receive the Silk Pajamas as a new outfit, which look a bit like Zelda's ceremonial robes from Breath of the Wild. So, that's fun to wear and also grants you a unique ability: it makes you heal faster in beds. I love how the game suddenly addresses my earlier complaints... Maybe I shouldn't worry too much and let it do its thing, but that would be only half the fun. Maybe I will even get the winter clothes that I wanted as well.

There was also a new side-quest about defeating the Beetle Mounds for a Gerudo who is scared of them. I already did that, but I had to do it again... At least I got an accessory for my efforts, the Heart Barrette, a stronger version of the Heart Pin.

Like the Energy Glove and Belt, you do keep both, but since you can equip them both, it actually makes sense to keep them both, because their effects will stack. At least I think they'll do. This is unlike the Magic Rings in Oracle of Ages & Seasons, where you can equip only one at a time. In that case the weaker versions of certain rings, like the Heart Ring, became completely obsolete.

It was even one of my suggestions for a remake of the Oracle games that you should be able to equip all your rings in the Ring Box at once, so five at them in total. Coincidentally, five accessories also is the maximum in Echoes of Wisdom, so this shows that such a change should be fine. And it makes me truly wonder if Grezzo wasn't working on the Oracle games to some degree...

Back to the Gerudo stuff, the Mango Rush lets you play its final variant, which also features Bomb Flowers as a trap, and this then lets you obtain the Dancing Outfit, which is advertised Gerudo attire. It increases your spin radius, which together with the Frog Ring makes this mini-game very easy, and this is probably the best of the clothing perks so far. It's honestly a little bit too good, because I feel inclined to wear it and not just play with style, so I would have preferred a "Dancer's Veil" or so as an accessory.

While it's nice that the outfits can also give you additional abilities, it would be better if they were all situational. Like, even more situational than quicksand or swimming. You wear the pajamas when you want to sleep, you wear the cat costume when you want to talk to cats... And for the rest of the time you wear whatever you feel like. But the increased spin radius is something that is generally nice to have, even though it's arguably not the greatest advantage outside of the Mango Rush mini-game, since it's mostly just there to cut grass.

~ Zap from the Past ~

It's not just the Gerudo where you can experience new things, but the Zora as well. It's just that there weren't any big indicators that something additional will be happening around the Jabul Waters in the future. Though, I'm not sure if one of the quests there wasn't possible already earlier, but you didn't receive the side quest until now. Some old man claims the boat wreck as his, but it's been plagued by a large electric monster lately.

Well, I already knew thanks to General Wright what was awaiting me here: Barinade from Ocarina of Time! Of course, I had to use a Boomerang Boarblin for the job, there was no other way... But I'm liking these classic bosses and the music that plays during the battles.

However, it's completely ridiculous how there was this huge mini-dungeon inside the small ship wreck that you can find. The boat houses from Seesyde already scratch on that suspension of disbelief when you enter those three-by-two spaces to find a whole fishing mansion inside. But when I went into this ship wreck I must have put my Gnat Hat on. Anyway, the reward was another Fairy Bottle, where I have all four now.

There was also a side quest about the two Zora Chiefs to see what they are up to, which earns you the Gold Brooch for even more Rupees. You can also find a mostly side-scrolling Still World in the northeast corner, so the optional tasks get somewhat more sophisticated at this stage in the game. I still have to bring that one Sea Zora a fancy box, though...

~ Catariko ~

Someone in the development team of Echoes of Wisdom must be a big fan of cats. There are so many in the game and you can talk to them all with cat costume, and only them. Why make an outfit that lets you talk to cats, but no other animals? It's something that you could do as Wolf Link and would have been an interesting addition. I suppose the horses and Cuccos already have interactions, so this would get in the way, but I don't see why there shouldn't be a dog costume for Zelda as well.

In Kakariko you have some side quests about this, where an old man wants you to find his cat. For this it would be convenient to ask the other cats, but some woman has purchased the only cat costume from the Kakariko store. However, the game does account for the case that I already have gotten such a costume via amiibo, so that's clever.

But think about it... They went through the effort to write and translate additional dialogue for such a side quest, instead of simply locking the alternate clothing colors until you have found the original. I suppose they wanted to let you cheat with the amiibo, essentially, just for the fun of it.

You can still get the original cat costume, where having a different version of it also helps with that quest to find out what to do, because you can simply talk to the cat and see what she wants. Maybe this is the only case where getting outfits in advance via amiibo makes a different. But I could already think of another example with the Dancing Outfit: if there are colors of it, then you can use them to unlock the original more easily in the Mango Rush game. (Update: there aren't amiibo colors for the Dancing Outfit, nor any others than what I already had.)

Speaking of mini-games, I haven't been to the dojo in a while, but I was pleased to find out that this offers you the ability re-battle the bosses in the game, as I had hoped. In this first scenario you fight the three first main bosses from the Suthorn Ruins, the Jabul Ruins, and the Gerudo Sanctum, in that order.

There are no limitations here, so you can hit them with the best that you've got, where in my case the Sword and Bow of Might are already at their highest tier and the big Sword Moblin was put to good use. Hopefully, there will also be the optional bosses, like Barinade, somewhere in there. That would be great.

Three new missions were unlocked, where only the wind challenge with the Gibdos gave me some troubles. And the new rewards from the dojo included the katana and the "First Mastery", an accessory reducing your energy cost.

It looks to me like most of these trade items, like the katana, will be used to create the Automatons later on. I even found Dampé and visited his house, but for the mechanical Tektite I already need an enemy that I haven't encountered yet (I think), so I couldn't unlock this feature yet. Seems a bit late for something that was part of a trailer from Nintendo. I'm not even sure how useful the Automatons will even be when you already have Level 3 monsters at the ready...

~ Triforce Discovered ~

There was another Lv. 3 Moblin in the Eternal Forest, so I thought I should go back there and have it fight my own. Sadly, it was also a sword variant, so I couldn't receive anything new here. But I did discover something interesting:

If you mark the location of those pedestals on the map, it creates a Triforce pattern. There it is, I found it! Well, I'm sure the Lost Woods will become relevant in the late game, probably after the three current rifts are cleared, and I will learn the meaning about all this then. But that would also mean that Nintendo has shown a lot of late-game content, because they had released an image of the Deku Tree.

On a side note, I got the Survey Scope accessory from making ten different smoothies. This grants you more materials, so it's essentially like the Treasure Medal from Skyward Sword and another accessory that you might want to keep on most of the time.

~ Horse Race ~

If there's one thing I certainly do not want to return from Ocarina of Time, then it's the horse race stuff. I hated this mini-game as a child and hearing its music in Echoes of Wisdom again makes me unwell. Curiously, the short course, which goes around the ranch in a circle, just like in Ocarina of Time gave me the most problems.

You need to do it under 17 seconds and my best score was like 17.02 for a while... I felt like I was missing something crucial or like I'm playing for an S-Rank in Nintendo World Championships. Eventually, I did it, and then I cleared both the middle and the long course on my second try. They were much easier to manage for some reason...

(Update: I was missing something crucial and as so often it was Bind... You can move the trees out of the way with it! Alternatively, you can also shoot them off the track with a Tornando.)

Among the usual Might Crystals and Piece of Heart rewards, which is very similar to the mini-games in Link's Awakening, you also get the Prismatic Music Box, where I'm guessing this is another automaton building part, and finally the Charging Horn, an accessory that increases the damage of your horse. Neat, but certainly one of the lesser useful accessories so far. It would have also made sense to give this effect to a riding outfit instead.

But I have 16 accessories so far, looking forward to what the rest will have to offer. As you can tell from my obsession with them, this may become one of my favorite collectibles in the series.

Echoes of Wisdom Adventure Log, Entry 6 ~ Hyrule Castle

Getting those fireworks early in the game was the best decision I've made on my journey so far. I'm using them to celebrate Echoes of Wisdom, where I've just got past the game's mid point and I'm really liking how this is going. So, in this post I'll talk about what happens in the story after you've cleared the major rifts at the Gerudo Desert and the Jabul Waters, so spoilers ahead.

 

~ The Stolen Castle ~

Well, I had been wondering why General Wright and Minister Lefte (such punny names) aren't really trying to clear the air and instead are just hiding at Lueberry's lab, but right at this point the game shows you that such efforts are in vain, as long as the imposter king still runs things.

"Luckily", this is the part of the game where Hyrule Castle and most of Hyrule Castle Town gets swallowed by a giant rift. Well, Nintendo had shown this in their trailers, so it couldn't have been part of the endgame. And I'm happy that we won't get a form of Hyrule Castle as the final dungeon for the fifth time. While it's always a great location for a dungeon, it has been overdone a bit.

In case of Echoes of Wisdom it's following the pattern of A Link to the Past: you escape from Hyrule Castle at the beginning and return to it at the mid point of the game. Part of this also takes you back to the beginning, where you have to do the stealth sections in reverse, this time with shadow Hylian soldiers. Well, this should have been easy enough with all the different echoes that you have in the game now, but I accidentally was building a bridge out of soft beds, not realizing that they cost two triangles instead of one, and crashed right down...

If they catch you, they will imprison you into some groovy chamber with shadow monsters. This reminded me a bit of the room where you fight the Nightmares in Link's Awakening, but this may be mainly due to the shadow enemies, which use the same particle and shader effects. Speaking of, I usually put on the Link Mask whenever you are fighting these things, because they give back energy, lots of it with the right accessories. So, there is no need to hold back with them.

Otherwise the dungeon isn't terribly exciting. You get a Ball-and-Chain Trooper as a new fighter, as well as the level 2 Darknut, but that's really it. And Hyrule Castle always fakes its choices. If there are two pathways ahead, one of them is usually a dead end, like Zelda's room, so overall the dungeon was fairly linear again. Why not make this a much larger and more open dungeon where you have to fight tough foes?

Out of the four dungeons I've played so far, I only found the Gerudo Sanctum to be decent. So, it seems like this will be one of the major points of criticism about the game, which it shares with its two predecessors on the Nintendo Switch. At least the dungeons here offer a bit more variety in gameplay and they are certainly more classic than the Divine Beasts and Sage Temples.

Another reward in the dungeon awaits you in its treasure chamber: the Frog Ring. This makes you jump higher and this is one of these accessory items that is simply too good not to have. It was also a problem with the Magic Rings in Oracle of Ages & Seasons or the Charms in Hollow Knight, where there are certain rings and charms that you might always want to use.

Unless I'm diving or riding my horse, I don't see why I wouldn't want to equip this. It gives you the same jump height as Link and this makes traversing the environment so much easier and quicker. You don't have to place tables or beds any longer to get on a ledge or a box... Last time I showed you how to best place tables in the Mango Rush mini-game – completely trivialized with this ring!

It's a must-use, but at least you can equip multiple accessories at once. If it worked like the Magic Rings, then I would rarely ever make use of any other effects.

~ A Greater Evil ~

The highlight of the Stilled Hyrule Castle is of course its boss, where you get another match against Ganon, this time as Zelda. Tri already spoils the biggest surprise here in advance, however, by saying that this isn't actually the real deal. You're fighting an echo of Ganon.

It's your Lv. 2 Ganon echo, however, because it comes with the fire bat attack, where he twirls his trident in front of him. They already had the animations for this from the Link's Awakening remake, where I felt like this was missing during the first battle, but the bats mainly serve as a way to refill your energy.

Well, I tried to fight him with using Link mode as little as possible, wanting to prove that I can do this without transforming into the hero of legend. After all, I already had fought Ganon like that in the beginning. And while this is possible, it's the most convenient to use your sword during the Dead Man's Volley.

Echo or not, it's an extraordinary Zelda game that lets you fight Ganon in its beginning and middle. It will also be extraordinary if a Zelda game with Ganon in doesn't have him as the main antagonist. Well, A Link Between Worlds kind of did this as well, but he was still part of the final boss, after becoming one with Yuga. And usually, whenever there is a new villain introduced to the series, they often turn out to be the henchmen of some incarnation of Demise and his curse. Onox, Veran, even Vaati in Four Swords Adventures, Zant, Ghirahim... Arguably also Cole, if you count Malladus as a Ganon variant (I do). It happened to the best of them.

So, to have this greater evil, which potentially defeated Ganon to take control of him, sounds tremendous. I'm very much intrigued by where this story is going and I don't recall that I ever found the story of a Zelda game this exciting... You have to give it to Grezzo here – they may not know how to make good dungeons, but they know how what buttons to push on a Zelda fan otherwise.

Well, what was shown here looked a bit like a shadow version of Volvagia, where I already know from Nintendo's advertisements that this boss is going to return... But I really want to find out who or what is behind all this.

This is also where you meet the real Link again for the first time, who fights off that evil like a boss, equipped with nothing but a club. And it's important to do Link justice in all this. It would have been easy to cast him aside and act like Princess Zelda was the real hero all along, making a Zelda game for the "woke" audiences so to speak, but they found a very good path of explaining why Zelda is taking action herself in this game, without belittling Link in any way

Funnily enough, finishing the dungeon brought Tri to level 5, where the costs of the new Ball-and-Chain Soldier already gets reduced from four triangles to three. I used him quite a bit during the Ganon battle.

~ Prime Priestess ~

After your efforts, Hyrule Castle and its town are fully restored, the King of Hyrule has returned, and you get a well deserved rest in your room. This is where a new adventure begins... with a fancy new bed. (The main theme on Hyrule Field now also starts with a rendition of Zelda's Lullaby, which is a nice touch.)

It's a bit random what beds you can learn in the game as echoes, but I'll take it. And I'd love it if there was some room in Hyrule Castle or somewhere else in the game where you could use echoes to freely decorate it. Maybe there is even the dungeon builder later in the game present somewhere, which where the whole idea for the echoes came from... That would be the icing on the cake for this new gameplay mechanic.

Anyway, you proceed to the king and it already clears up a concern that I had previously: I was worried that there would be no Lanayru region, because I had only found the Eldin Volcano and the Faron Wetlands. It would have been a major oversight, but luckily the oversight was on my end, because I didn't explore Hebra Mountain area far enough. Apparently, Mount Lanayru sits on top of it...

And not only that, they didn't use these names just to throw in some old references, but it has actual relevance to the story, where this new evil seems to be targeting the "Prime Energy" left by the ancient Goddesses with rifts. They are probably talking about the Triforce here, though it looks like you're going to collect three orbs, because Volvagia has one around its neck and there is this space for three orbs in the key items menu, so the Prime Energy might something related.

After three whole Zelda games without the Triforce (not to be confused with the "Tri Force") being mentioned, a story about it would actually be refreshing. This could add some interesting lore to the series and I'm once more intrigued.

Since Zelda is the only one who can mend the rifts and has proven herself to be the priestess of legend, who fights the evil together with the hero, the king puts all his faith in his daughter and sends her on official mission to save the kingdom Hyrule. What could possibly go wrong...?

Well, it's not any less ridiculous than when a young Link was sent by the king to save Zelda on his own in The Minish Cap, because only children could see the Picori. Still, you would expect Zelda getting full escorts of Hyrule soldiers from now on, but the story had to take some leeway here, where I'm happy to look the other way for the sake of my player freedom.

General Wright also talks about giant monsters that you can find in certain areas, which feels a bit like Gralens from the Monster-Control Crew in Tears of the Kingdom. He did recognize that I have defeated already one of them, but not the Lanmola for some reason, even though I got the green one and all sandstorms are gone now, which is weird... And he totally spoiled that Barinade returns as a boss in this game, too.

~ The Princess's New Clothes ~

With Zelda's good name cleared, you don't have to wear the disguise any more, where it's been hilarious how well this thing was working. Puts hood on. "Who is this strange woman?" Puts hood down. "Princess Zelda?! No way!"

You receive the Royal Travel Attire instead and this is where alternate clothing becomes a thing, so you can now switch your looks and also find alternative outfits, which I couldn't before.

At first I thought that this was only for the looks, where this would have been fine, since the accessories already give you different effects. That way you could freely combine the abilities that you need with the look that you want. However, some of the clothes do actually give unique effects, as I found out a little later...

It also unlocks the possibility to receive alternate colors of the costumes via amiibo, where I've started using them today. Previously they only gave smoothie ingredients, which wasn't very exciting, but now I have a reason to scan them on a daily basis.

But... maybe I shouldn't yet, because it's a total spoiler of what costumes you can find in the game. It gives you their alternate colors, even if you don't have the original yet. In my case I got the following today:

• Red Tunic from the Link's Awakening amiibo
• Black Cat Clothes from Mipha's amiibo
• Blue Attire from the Smash Bros. Zelda
  

That you can obtain Link's tunic was probably the biggest spoiler here. But wait, I can put Zelda in a cute kitty outfit now? Totally worth it... It's also one of the clothes with a special ability, where in this case you can talk to cats. There really should be a dog costume as well, but it doesn't look you can talk to them.

A side quest at Hyrule Castle Town, where you have to look for the girl Romi, then lets you get the royal attire back, the one you've been wearing at the start of the game. But during this whole quest I was already wearing its blue variant, so it didn't really feel like an achievement.

I would further wait with using amiibo, but the problem is that it only lets you scan for three outfits per day. Depending on how many color variants there are, it may take weeks to unlock them all if I don't start right away. And that sucks. It's understandable that they have such a limitation for the smoothie ingredients, but why for clothing as well?

Update: these three amiibo clothing colors are the only ones in the game. You need any Link amiibo for the Red Tunic, any amiibo of Zelda for the Blue Attire, and any other amiibo from the Zelda series for the Black Cat Costume. So, you can unlock them all at once and then don't have to use amiibo ever again!

This is overall a good reward for amiibo, though, because you're still getting something "new", but won't be missing out if you don't have or don't want to use any. I also find it funny how Mipha, a fish woman, unlocks a cat costume.

~ Among Us ~

While the Anouki may not be part of the game (I'm going to find out tomorrow), at least the hunt for a Yook is there in spirit with the whole imposter side quest with the additional soldier in Hyrule Castle Town. And together with the search for Romi, these are two of the better side quests in the game.

But the whole imposter scenario has me so paranoid that I honestly considered Beecher, the soldier who you're helping with the investigations, to turn out as the imposter at the end. The solution was more lighthearted, though...

Echoes of Wisdom Adventure Log, Entry 5 ~ Gerudo Desert

Today it was time to enter and explore the Gerudo Desert, so I can progress in the story after my most recent detour through Hyrule's mountains. And it was a delight, probably my favorite part of the game so far.

 

~ Echoes of the Desert ~

After the Jabul Waters I thought that it will be hard to top the utility that you get from there, because you obtain both the Bomb Fish and the Water Blocks, which are very useful. But when I replay Echoes of Wisdom one day, I will certainly go for the Gerudo Desert first. Not only is it right next to the Suthorn territory, you get a ton of good stuff there, lots of echoes with very different utility.

You also don't need bombs anywhere in the area, where this part of the game was designed so that it can be completed independently without any backtracking, at least for the most part. Well, I suppose the whole game was designed like that, it's just that I got ahead of myself before.

Anyway, it starts with the monsters, where there's lots to find here. There are the Tornandos, which essentially are your Whirlwind item in this game, so you can blow away piles of sand, for example. There are the ReDeads, which let you stun groups of enemies. Gibdos on the other hand don't use the stun scream, so they are very similar to their Link's Awakening counterparts.

This area also gave me my first encounter with the Boarblins, where the northern top of the desert even featured the level 2 variants (and the Energy Glove, a weaker version of the Energy Belt). Unlike in Link's Awakening, they don't use the same weapons as the Moblins any longer, instead they have clubs and boomerangs. So, they are like the Goriyas, basically.

There also the Arurodas, which are returning for the first time since The Adventure of Link, as well as the new'ish Sand Piranhas for your typical "go under the sand" enemies. Curiously, there are no Leevers in the desert, instead they are home to the Hebra Mountain and come now in white. But they are still useful in the sand and were actually quite effective against the other sand enemies.

The most interesting addition was probably the Platboom, however, which is the replacement for the Thwomp. The Thwomps were showcased in some early prototype footage by Nintendo, so I was wondering about them, but it makes sense that they aren't actual Thwomps any longer. You need to be able to defeat them, so they now have a weakpoint. And you need to be able to quickly get on them, so they are only half as flat. That's why they look like a sandwich now...

But you can use them quite effectively to stomp things and to reach high places, even higher than what's possible with my four water blocks right now. They are not as convenient, however, because you require some elevation in order to get on them. (Or you just quickly go into Link mode.)

You also get the Beetle and the Beetle Mounds, where the latter spawns them infinitely, like that hole near Kanalet Castle. They were quite a curiosity in Link's Awakening, but they don't seem to be much more common in Echoes of Wisdom either... There was one cave with them, where again caves are so very interesting to explore in this game.

There is another cave with Pathblades, which you can use like the Spinner, and finally there is the Holmill, your mole enemy, which you can use to dig and create dropholes in sand. This is the ability I've been expecting out of this area and it's nice to now have this as well, because there were quite some suspicious spots all over Hyrule.

But that's not all, you also get some environment echoes with utility, like the Wind Cannons, which let you create gust streams. And there are the classic Flying Tiles, where you can jump on them and fly through the area like on a flying carpet. It doesn't work all that long, but you can cross some bigger gaps with this. They give you a similar lift horizontally as to what the Platbooms offer vertically. They are also said to have been installed by ancient Gerudo as a trap, interesting...

If you think about, a lot of the contraptions inside the dungeons in Ocarina of Time came from the Gerudo, in the very least you have all those blocks with Gerudo symbols on it. So, it's actually possible that they've installed them in the old Fire Temple, for example. Master Quest even put an Iron Knuckle there for more Gerudo stuff.

~ All the Ingredients ~

Enough talk about echoes, let's talk a bit about the less useful stuff that you collect in the game... When you enter the Gerudo Desert, where it's impressive that the old Desert of Mystery from A Link to the Past now simply serves as the entrance, you will eventually come across the oasis. This is where you can play the Mango Rush mini-game, where for a second I was hoping to get my true Rupee Rush successor, but it's not that. Instead this mini-game focuses on your spin ability, which you have to use to collect mangoes, while dodging thorns.

In the second variant, if you place the tables like I did above right at the start, you should have no troubles to collect all 60 at the end. Nothing will grow in these spots and you can then use the tables to quickly jump on the elevations when the mangoes appear there.

The third tier hasn't unlocked for me yet and it's a bit questionable how the host wants you to help her collect the mangoes, but then charges you ten Rupees for it... Come on! I'm doing you a favor here!

But with the Tough Mango, which increases your defense, I have now all 16 different smoothie materials and a good overview of all the different main effects, though the smoothies don't cover everything that you can do with accessories.

The second-to-last were the Chilly Cacti for me, which make you fire-proof right away. You also don't need any heat protection in the desert at all, so the Hebra Mountain is the only area where need a status effect to traverse it, unlike in Breath of the Wild, where there's cold, heat, and flames...

However, I did expect things to be similar. There is a Gerudo outfit in the game, which I haven't obtained yet, but I thought it would give you heat resistance for the desert. And maybe later you'll get some nice fur coat for the princess, so she doesn't have to freeze on Hebra. But that might not be the case.

Maybe only accessories give you effects and the only one I've found so far in this region are the Quicksand Sandals, sold at the Gerudo Town shop. They cost 400 Rupees, but they are worth every one of them, because they are very helpful with all the bosses around here...

And yeah, they are the equivalent to the Quicksand Ring from Oracle of Ages & Seasons, where the accessories really are like the rings, just with more variety and the option to equip more than one at once. Oh, and there is no randomness in obtaining them... So, they are like the Magic Rings, but better in every way, I'm a big fan!

~ Same Side Quests ~

If there's one bigger point of criticism for me right now about Echoes of Wisdom, then it's how similar the side quests all feel. It's a general problem with the more recent Zelda games that side quests can be quite lackluster. "Bring me ten crickets!"

In this case it's not crickets, but usually just an echo of something. It's especially boring if you've already obtained the echo in question. For example, in Gerudo Town an inhabitant wants to see the ghost that she met inside sandstorms, because she thinks that she is plagued by an evil spirit. Then you show her the Tornando and all is resolved... It can't get simpler than that.

That is a shame and an aspect where The Legend of Zelda has fallen behind other Action Adventure series, like The Witcher. There are some more interesting side quests in Gerudo Town, but equally short-lived. In one case you have to play tag, but I didn't even have to put up any obstacles, because spinning around was enough to catch her...

In another case you have to bring a tumbleweed to a Gerudo and I made that much more interesting than it actually is. You can't pick them up or even touch them, so I thought that you have to blow them there with wind. And with a Tornando you can blow them high up, even on top of the rock walls on the border of the desert... So, I tried to blow one above the town walls, which seemed like this is what you're intended to do, because the game kept spawning a tumbleweed that was going towards the west wall, where the Gerudo in question was waiting.

You can imagine that this didn't go so well, but after a number of tries I realized my own stupidity: I keep forgetting that Bind is a thing and with it this task is completely trivial as well. Well, this ability of Tri gets a lot more utility later in this part of the game, so it should hopefully be in my blood after all of this.

As a nice detail, you can find one of the elephant statues from the Face Shrine in one of the houses at Gerudo Town. It's shown from the side and a colored version later becomes available to you as an echo. But there is so much to find in the interiors of the houses that I'm thinking about making a special for this.

~ Desert of Doubt ~

Story-wise, the Gerudo Desert also has been my favorite part so far, because it's more serious than what they had done with the Zora. The Gerudo are getting exhausted from the all the rift monster attacks and while Zelda claims that has the ability to seal the rifts, she is not allowed to access the big one, while she is unable to prove herself with the small ones, because Tri can't enter them.

The Gerudo Chief Seera has an advisor, Facette, whose name reminded me of "Facade", so I immediately connected her to something evil. But while it may or may not be quite clear that she is another imposter right away, her motives were actually understandable and she did have some great points there.

It felt very rash and hotheaded how the chief's daughter, Dohna, put so much trust in Zelda and how she was quick to defend her from the start. But ultimately – the fact aside that apparently no one outside Hyrule Castle Town knows who Princess Zelda is – she is a Hylian sorceress, who comes to the desert in a time of despair and makes claims that she cannot prove. Who is to say that she isn't causing these rifts to begin with and now aims to make things worse...?

So, this part of the story was well written – for a Zelda game that is –, and I'm really liking the whole imposter idea so far. It's such a great story device to seed all sorts of doubt, because ultimately you can't really trust anyone... And if they make it a little bit less obvious, like in this case, then all the better.

Ultimately, you can prove yourself at an increased rift above the Desert Temple Ruins and free the real Facette to clear up any remaining doubt, which was a satisfying moment. This also should leave little doubt about the timeline placement. After seeing these ruins there hopefully won't be any timeline theorists left out there who putting this game before A Link to the Past or even Between Worlds. This story is clearly meant to happen long after those games, but on the same branch.

And I personally like that they are doing it this way. It's melancholic to see the ruins of old places, like the Temple of Time in Breath of the Wild or now the Desert Palace. It's symbolic for how these new Zelda games come from a series with a rich history.

~ Gerudo Sanctum ~

Well, here is our first main dungeon that isn't called "ruins" and certainly the most interesting dungeon so far. It's straight-forward for the most part, but still more open than the Suthorn Ruins, while offering its better qualities.

First of all, you can find new foes with the Mothulas and Poes. The Mothulas are just normal enemies here, similar to The Wind Waker, but with a completely new design. In the top-down Zelda games they only ever have appeared as bosses so far, so that's a bit of a downgrade for them. And I also haven't found their echo to be useful either.

The Poe is also a bit strange, where it essentially creates these fire traps, but I haven't found a good way of using this yet, at least not in this dungeon. Especially not against the dungeon's mini-boss, who fights with a bow...

Imposter Link is back and as expected, you get the Bow of Might from him in the second battle. He has lost his sword, however, maybe because you took it from him, where next time he probably will fight exclusively with bombs, I'm guessing at the Eldin Volcano dungeon. It would be cool if you were to get a battle against him where he uses all three weapons, though.

The second half of the fight, where he tripled himself and started using the charged triple shots for nice arrows all at once, was quite terrifying, but only for a moment. With three Fairy Bottles, various smoothies and potions, and the soft Gerudo beds there is probably not much to be afraid about at this point in the game. I'm even considering to swap to Hero Mode, but I want to save that for a second playthrough.

Unlike the Sword of Might, the bow didn't really get used much in the dungeon, however. The only obstacle that seemingly requires it can be bypassed, where I did it with a Platboom. And I didn't find it useful for the boss either, but I'm sure the bow will be great to have for all the other flying enemies.

Otherwise, the Gerudo Sanctum does explain why Grezzo did things the way they did with re-entering the Still World after you've completed a dungeon. I had previously complained that this could have been solved in a more elegant way with the Suthorn Ruins, but this would probably not have been possible here. The Sanctum is this big pyramid that's meant to be under the sand, where the Still World allows you to access its outside parts.

Unlike the Suthorn and Jabul Ruins, you even start at the dungeon's entrance this time and then get into the Stilled Gerudo Sanctum – the outside of the pyramid – only later, which was a welcome change. This also makes it a dungeons with multiple entrances, similar to the Skull Woods, which is another rarity in the series.

The boss key puzzle then was sadly a disappointment. When Nintendo had first shown this room, I expected this to be something more sophisticated, maybe even that requires you to travel to different rooms. In the very least the mechanic could have worked like at the Isle of Songs from Skyward Sword to give you a challenge. Instead, you had to turn the wheel two times and that's it... Lame.

But I liked the puzzle with the different statues before it. This reminded me of Link's Awakening, where you had to find clues with the stone slabs or owl beaks, before you could make sense of something. Or the Nintendo DS Zelda games also had some puzzles, where you first need to find the right information. This is in the same spirit.

Again, Tri obtains another upgrade at the end, where now the triangle costs of various enemies got reduced. I guess that Tri won't have that many triangles in the end, maybe only what the strongest enemies will cost to spawn. But I'm still not able to use that Lv. 3 Sword Moblin yet.

~ Ends of the Sands ~

The desert is back to normal and the Gerudo are happy, at least for now, where I should be able to proceed in the main story, with rifts above the Faron Wetlands and Eldin Volcano coming up next, or maybe Hyrule Castle as the game's mid point. Nintendo has advertised the Gerudo outfit, however, while I'm still incognito, wearing that hood with no access to other clothing. Maybe this will change once you free the king and go on official mission. But I feel like I'm missing something right now...

There is also the west tower of the Gerudo palace, which I was not able to access yet. The guard above says something that she fixed up a tile with sand only, but you can't get her to move away. So, right now I'm thinking that you will have to return here, maybe to all the areas, later in the game. There wasn't anything like this in the Zora region, however, save for one side quest that requires you to have prettier boxes, but that felt insignificant in comparison.

But there was still one more thing that I had to do and that was to fight the Lanmola, a boss that was taken straight out of the Link's Awakening remake. Well, it was modified quite a bit and there is also a stronger green variant now, but the overall model and design comes from the predecessor, like with many enemies.

They seem to have a similar role to the Molduga in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, where they act as an overworld boss in the desert. In addition, they cause the sandstorms that make your map go blank, and defeating them will clear this up. But this seems to be more of a random encounter... The Gerudo who is talking about them at the oasis even mentions how it's possible to fight multiple at once, which has yet to happen for me.

The green one also dropped two Monster Stones for me, so it might be a good idea to fight them regularly. I'll have to see how this works... But the Quicksand Sandals really make the fights easy enough. The Club Boarblins also keep jumping on the quicksand, so they are smart enough not to sink in it right away and are therefore quite helpful here.

That's enough playtime in the sand for now, so I'm off to Lueberry. I also have over 30 Might Crystals and want to use them, which wasn't possible before...