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.
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.
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.
Earlier today I've been a good boy, who was following the game's directions into Jabul Waters, clearing some of the first main quests there. So, for the rest of the day it was time to test my boundaries again, which brought me high up on Hyrule's mountains, both hot and cold.
Yesterday I did a bit of a tour through Hyrule first, but today I wanted to make some progress by beating another main dungeon and opted for the Jabul Waters quest, since I've already been in the area. Also, I've been quite curious about the whole Sea and River Zora situation, because that's a rarity in the series. Only the Oracle games had done this so far...
As for the rest of my first day playing Echoes of Wisdom, things took a 180° turn, as I moved on to explore all around Hyrule. I went to Lake Hylia, into the Faron Wetlands, to Seesyde Village, to the Hyrule Ranch, Kakariko Village, the graveyard, and finally to the Eastern Temple, where an unexpected blast from the past awaited me.
It feels a bit odd to play this game already, maybe because this was only announced a little over three months ago, kept close to Nintendo's chest. But here we are. As always, I go through my experience and thoughts while playing the game, step by step.
In this first entry I'll talk about the beginning of the game, including the first dungeon, which is essentially what was demoed and shown by previews. I had a pretty good picture of what was awaiting me here, but not all of it, so it was interesting to finally experience it myself and as a whole.
Same as with Tears of the Kingdom last year, you can start playing Echoes of Wisdom with some fresh Nintendo Switch Online profile images based on the game, which will get distributed in four waves over the next month. That's always nice to have and a good use of your Platinum Points.
There are also icons available for the classic Link's Awakening this month, if you play Link's Awakening DX from the Game Boy collection. There are only four days left to do this, so grab them while you can.
So, I woke up today, ate breakfast, and then the door actually rang, where I got my package with Echoes of Wisdom. That's how it should be... Well, I still needed to clean my apartment and write this post here, before I get started, because I'm disciplined like that and wanted that out of the way. But I'm on vacation today and next week, so I will have plenty of time to focus on this game, from now on.
However, I personally don't like Thursday as the new release day of Nintendo games, which is a thing that began with the current fiscal year in April. That's because I don't work on Fridays any longer, for a couple of years now, so the Friday release was always quite ideal for me, but now I have to take vacation (again) in order to play on launch day. For those where it takes quite long to have their game delivered the Thursdays are better, of course, because then they still have a chance of getting their game on the weekend. So, I can see why Nintendo has changed this.
But then there are always those who get the games way earlier. In this case this seems to be quite extreme, at least from what I heard around the German communities. Amazon Germany send out the game one day too early, so a lot of people already got it yesterday. And the big retailers also have reduced the price already by 22%, days before launch...
With that in mind it looks really stupid to have ordered from Nintendo directly, where I've paid full price to get the game on launch day. But at least my money goes to the right company and only the right company, so that's a a small consolation... And I got some merch out of it, as you can see above.
The scroll is quite nice, a bit larger than I expected. It's also made out of wood and some water-proof fabric, so it's overall a very decent quality. And I really like the artwork, so I'm happy to have this and will probably put this up somewhere...
It's also quite rare that we're not getting some Limited Edition or Special Edition for a new Zelda game, not counting the Nintendo Switch Lite Hyrule Edition here, because that's separate from the game. The last time was actually Tri Force Heroes on the Nintendo 3DS. And if you count remasters, then there's also Skyward Sword HD, but that one came at least with a new amiibo and those Joy-Cons. Together with the early price drop, this makes you wonder how much faith Nintendo and other companies have in this making big sales.
Well, I don't mind, I thought it was nice not having to worry about preorders for once, and I don't necessarily need a Special Edition for every new game, though I like to get them for my collection. But it has been overdone on the Nintendo Switch, where it's fine that Nintendo doesn't add more to that pile in its last year(s).
If you can't get enough of the Zelda charity marathons, then you might want to check out the upcoming Zelda Fest by The Awakened Cast. It starts in exactly three days and lasts for a week, so it runs from September 28th to October 5th. There also shouldn't be a secret about how this is clearly inspired by the amazing Zeldathon, but you know what they say: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And that doesn't really matter, it's all for a good cause, I suppose.
The timing is also quite interesting, with Echoes of Wisdom releasing... right now! Maybe this was intentional, maybe this was coincidence (there was actually a German fan gathering planned for that exact time frame as well, by ZeldaChronicles, but it got cancelled). In any case, they will probably stream the newest Zelda game as part of the marathon... I will certainly avoid that segment and I will also be too busy playing the new game myself, but I will still check it out in between. And maybe this is something for you as well.
You may already be playing Echoes of Wisdom, because you were lucky to receive the game early or naughty to play some leaked copy, but I'm a good boy who has ordered from Nintendo directly, who (unlike Amazon and co.) make sure that you will get the game on launch day, and not any earlier. That's fine, because until now I was still busy with replaying the Link's Awakening remake anyway, as a preparation.
At first I was actually playing Link's Awakening DX via Nintendo Switch Online, because you can unlock some icons for doing that. But this didn't feel right, especially with Echoes of Wisdom coming up in the style of the amazing remake.
So, I had started this on Saturday and then played a bit each evening, beating the Nightmares today. It was a very casual playthrough, in Normal Mode, just for fun. No real goal, other than freshly re-experiencing the predecessor to tomorrow's Zelda title. Well, it certainly helps to get used to the frame rate issues...
But aside from that, it's my favorite Zelda title and I can't get enough of it. It's just such a good time with absolute fantastic pacing throughout the entire game, and it looks so pretty. There is something to find in every corner, which hopefully is a quality that will carry over into Grezzo's new game.
However, each time I replay this game I forget about at least one of the new Secret Seashells, this time it was the one under the large skull rock on the Ukuku Prairie. But I finally remembered the one from Christine, so that's progress.
There's also a new nitpick to be me made and that's how the get-item animation of more important things, like Pieces of Heart, is lingering a bit too long for my taste. It tells you what you've obtained and then it still shows Link holding the item for about two good seconds or so, while I already want to move on. A small stain on the otherwise great pacing.
I also had some oddities going on during this playthrough, all concerning the mini-games. The Cheep Cheep became available at the Trendy Game before the Angler's Tunnel for some reason, which was weird, because the figurines normally unlock with beating the next dungeon. And I also got the crane stuck with the Piranha Plant, unable to open at the end, which was funny:
For the first time ever, I managed to grab this figure on my first try and then this happens. But you'll actually still get the figurine in such a case, where it's great that the developers have taken care of such an edge case.
Maybe not the biggest oddity, but I manged to create a Chamber Dungeon where you can actually softlock yourself by entering your last key into the wrong door. It was in the "Sheathed Sword" challenge:
There you have the crossroad room with locked doors all around from the Key Cavern. I entered it with one key and if I had used it to go north, I would have been unable to finish the dungeon, because the remaining treasure chests were all behind the other two locked doors. This isn't a big deal, since you can always restart (unlike with normal dungeons, where this shouldn't happen), but it was still interesting to experience this.
Speaking of the Chamber Dungeon, I left out the twelve golden challenges for now. I also haven't purchased all of the Chamber Stones from the Town Tool Shop, but otherwise I have gotten everything, like all Heart Containers, all Secret Seashells, and so on. So, I have done the twelve basic challenges, but I'll most likely leave it at that, because I probably won't keep this save file and just delete it the next time I want to replay this game.
Well, I had a great time and I'm excited to see if Echoes of Wisdom can hold up to this gem. I will go to sleep now and hopefully awaken to the post delivering me my copy of the game. Read you tomorrow!
My egg path: ← ↑ ↑→ ↑←← ↑
Nintendo has released a series of four interviews in the "Iwata Asks" spirit about The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. You can find them all on Nintendo.com. They are featuring series producer Eiji Aonuma, as well as the game's two directors, Satoshi Terada from Grezzo and Tomoni Sano from Nintendo, where the latter gets highlighted as the first female director for the series – certainly fitting for the first mainline title with Zelda as the playable protagonist. Anyway, these interviews are quite insightful, so I wanted to go over some of points here...
First of all, it seems like Grezzo immediately started to work on a new Zelda game after the remake of Link's Awakening. You can even see prototype footage that uses the game world of Koholint to experiment with the new echo feature, so it's not like they had started working on another remake and went from there.
Of course they wouldn't talk about potential remakes of Oracle of Ages & Seasons during this, because the fans (including myself) would lose their minds about it. So, they may have even considered those in the early stages, but Aonuma clearly states that he wanted Grezzo to work on a new game after the Link's Awakening remake, because he wants to keep the traditional top-down Zelda games going, in addition to the major 3D games.
This is great, of course, and it's a well-deserved position for Grezzo to be in. But it makes you wonder how they will continue. Will they primarily work on new games from new on? Or will they alternate between new games and remakes? Remaking the Oracle games after Echoes of Wisdom certainly would feel like a downgrade for the developers, understandably so, but at the same time they are the most qualified for the job...
In the early development stages, it seems that Grezzo was coming from the Chamber Dungeon idea in Link's Awakening and wanted to turn this into something more filigreed, where you have more freedom. You were making your own dungeons by copy-pasting objects, such as candles and doors.
The idea evolved into something where you can learn new objects in the overworld and then use them to "fill" the dungeon that you were making. But then Aonuma got his very own Miyamoto moment, where he "upended the tea table", because he felt that copying things should be the core focus of the gameplay, as something that you can do everywhere, not just in dungeons. That's how the echoes came to be, but the "edit dungeon" idea was discarded in the process, after one year of development.
It's still very good to know that a dungeon maker concept is something that Grezzo was looking into, because many fans were certainly interested in this after the Chamber Dungeon. However, the announcement and release of Super Dungeon Maker might also have had caused Nintendo to go into a different direction with this, but that's not something that they would publicly admit... Maybe they will even go back to this idea in the future, given that they have enough to make it unique and interesting.
The interview also outright confirms a suspicion I had when they first announced Echoes of Wisdom: the echoes are the sole reason why you are playing as Zelda. The early prototypes still featured Link as the playable character. In the footage you can see him copying a Thwomp with a magic rod and placing it above the Mysterious Woods on Koholint. (This makes me wonder if Echoes of Wisdom will still have any of the Super Mario enemies present.)
But then they have realized that there is no point in fighting with echoes as long as you have sword and shield. Fighting with your sword is simply more practical. So, they decided that it's finally time for Zelda to shine, because for her it makes sense that she would primarily rely on the echo ability.
Interestingly, this led to developing the rest of the story with the rifts in Hyrule. They needed a reason why Princess Zelda would go on an adventure of her own to save the kingdom, instead of Link or anyone else in her stead, so they came up with the idea of the rifts, which are swallowing the hero, the king, and huge parts of the kingdom.
They brag a bit about how the size of this new Hyrule is eight times as large as the map of the Link's Awakening remake. If it's also as packed, then this will be a reason to be quite excited, because what makes the remake so incredibly good is how there is something to find around every corner, whether that's a Secret Seashell or a Piece of Heart.
And keep in mind that Koholint isn't actually all too big, because it takes about one minute to get from Dr. Write's house to the Raft-Shop without teleporting, and these places are on a horizontal line on opposing ends of the map. (I'm serious, I've just timed this.)
Well, Echoes of Wisdom is already out in the wild, so you have to be careful about spoilers. OatmealDome, who is known for giving technical insights to the Switch and Nintendo's games, has shared some interesting specifics, however.
First of all, we got the confirmation that this game was co-developed by GREZZO, which shouldn't be a surprise, since the main Zelda team was busy with Tears of the Kingdom. This is the second time that they have worked on a new Zelda title, the first being Tri Force Heroes. But this is certainly an upgrade. It's using the same engine as the Link's Awakening remake, of course, but that's not actually the Unreal Engine, but something developed by GREZZO in-house.
Also, the internal codename is "Edward", following "Richard", which was the code of the Link's Awakening remake. This is very interesting, because it was part of a code name leak from earlier this year... And that leak also talked about "U-King-O", a remaster of Breath of the Wild for the next system. So, that's all but confirmed at this point.
Anyway, it's less than a week and I'm excited! I will do my usual "play & blog" thingy, so stay tuned for Thursday.
Today we learn about another mini-game in Echoes of Wisdom, the dojo. As explained on X, this one will be very similar to Simon's Simulations from The Minish Cap. You will train in your sleep and in these dreams you will be clearing out rooms filled with monsters in a time-limit.
You are seemingly still allowed to use your Swordfighter form, but you might not be able to replenish it. Though, the environments do have these purple particle effects to them, like the Suthorn Ruins in the Still World, so it's still possible that you might. If you could rely on the Swordfighter form too much, however, it would remove part of the challenge. Finding the right echoes for the job will certainly be part of what makes this interesting.
In The Minish Cap this mini-game was overall quite fun, but it lacked variety. And that's something that should be addressed, but it looks like it's based on what dungeons you've already cleared. The two screenshots released by Nintendo are from the early game and based upon the Suthorn Ruins. The rooms already look different, which is good. But it would make sense if they were offering different challenges based on each dungeon, each featuring their unique layouts and enemy combinations.
You could even use this as a means to rebattle bosses, which is always nice to have in a Zelda game. It's still a shame that you couldn't do just that in A Link Between Worlds.
Nintendo has shared on X today what the guy with the acorn hat is all about: he will be the host of a mini-game, where you have to collect a number of acorns in the environment within a set time-limit. In one example you have to find 10, in the other 16, where both examples are set in quite different locations.
It's likely that you will meet the guy all over Hyrule, similar to Juney and her Sand-Seal game in Tears of the Kingdom. And a big part of the mini-game will probably be the usage of echoes to reach the acorns.
I'm also getting some Rupee Rush vibes here from A Link Between Worlds, but I doubt that this is going to be as addictive, mainly because you seem to have preset challenges and there is only so much that you can optimize. It's probably more like playing the Silent Realms in the Lightning Round from Skyward Sword, just without the looming terror of the guardians.
Following the recent previews and what Nintendo has showed us of Echoes of Wisdom so far, we have a nearly complete picture of how the beginning of the game is going to look like, up until and including the first dungeon, the Suthorn Ruins. It's all quite linear and tutorialized, so let's go through everything step by step. Most of the information collected in here comes from the previews by Good Vibes Gaming and Zeltik, as well as the gameplay footage provided by Nintendo Life.
Needless to say, this post will contain spoilers for the beginning of the game. If you want to experience everything first-hand yourself, don't read it!
You start the game by playing as Link in the Suthorn Ruins, where you have the Swordman's Blade, the Hylian Shield, and a bow in your inventory. You fight your way to Ganon and defeat him, in a mission to save Princess Zelda, which is a very strong opening for the game – it starts there where most other top-down Zelda titles end.
After his defeat, Ganon's trident makes the first rift appear, which takes away Link, but he uses his bow to free Zelda from the crystal that has her captured. This is where the player takes control of Zelda and will be playing as her from then on.
The rift swallows the Suthorn Ruins and you have to flee with Zelda out of the dungeon. You end up on a ledge south of Lake Hylia, which is where the game's title appears and you get a first look at the new old Hyrule. Two Hylian guards find Zelda and bring her back to Hyrule Castle.
There she meets her father, the king of Hyrule, as well as Minister Sadari and General Ugi. A rift opens in the throne room, however, and the king gets swallowed by it as he shoves his daughter to safety. The minister and general try to help him, but get swallowed as well as a result.
They are then replaced by evil doppelgangers, where the evil king orders the guards to lock Zelda away in the dungeon. This is where she first mets Tri and obtains the Tri Rod, giving her the ability to create echoes of objects around her.
In a classic stealth section, you will have to get past by some guards without being noticed. For this you will learn the table, box, and vase echoes, which you can use in different ways to achieve your goals. For example, you can throw vases to distract the guards or hide inside them, similar to the barrels in The Wind Waker.
Afterwards, you will meet with Impa, who takes out some guards for you. She also hands you the disguise, which is the same cloak that Link has been wearing in the beginning of the game. This activates the spin for some reason, which you can use to cut grass, but it won't hurt enemies.
You move on to another section in Hyrule Castle's cellars, where you learn the bed and the decorative tree, your first echoes to give you double the length or height. You need to use them effectively to get around the room with its high shelves.
Finally, you end up in a yard of Hyrule Castle, where you can enter a well. This leads into the "Royal-Family Shortcut", the first side-scrolling section of the game. Afterwards you have another sequence where you need to run from an expanding rift, which puts you into a water stream.
You end up on Suthorn Beach, a mostly isolated area in the southern edge of Hyrule. Here you will encounter your first two monsters and learn their echoes: a Zol and a Sea Urchin. You will also find rocks here, which you can use to throw at them.
From there you will enter the Beach Cave, another side-scrolling tunnel section, which leads to Suthorn Village, a Hylian settlement. You can buy a Piece of Heart there and talk with the villagers, which reveals that this is actually Link's hometown. Zelda doesn't know who Link is, though, confirming that this doesn't take place after some an already existing Zelda title.
You can even find Link's house, which has some neat details in it, like an owl statue or a spare hat. And now you can break his pots for a change.
The road north of the village, leading back into the central Hyrule, is blocked off by a rift, so you have to proceed into the Suthorn Forest. You can find some caves there, teaching you the Ignizol and Caromadillo echoes, which come with new utility. You can set things on fire and break through enclosed rows of boxes, which you normally couldn't get through inside the side-scrolling tunnels.
There are also enemy camps found in Hyrule, where you have to defeat all monsters to open a chest, just like in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. In these camps and the forest you will find your first stronger enemy, the Moblin, taking up two triangles.
After going through the forest, you will arrive at a rift that you can enter. This takes you into "Stilled Suthorn Forest", your first taste of the Still World. You will find a petrified person from Suthorn Village, who was taken by the rifts, and traverse the platform-like terrain. Tri says that it and its friends can restore things back to normal. And it also senses one of its friends nearby.
You will also fight the shadowy enemies here for the first time, which cannot not be used to learn new echoes.
Finally, you will enter the game's first proper dungeon, the Suthorn Ruins. You will immediately learn both Bind and Reverse Bond, which you can use to move around objects and enemies alike. This lets you move the giant boulders out of the way, a common obstacle within the dungeon.
In the dungeon's tunnels you will also learn the Strandtula echo, a new version of the Skulltula that will create a spider thread above it whenever summoned. You can climb on that strand and use it to reach heights more easily. And this is yet another new ability essentially, giving you access to places that you couldn't reach before... At least not as easily.
You can also find the Heart Pin as a first accessory, which makes hearts appear more often. And you will first encounter Darknuts as a stronger enemy, using up three entire triangles as an echo, your current maximum. So, overall you get a great sense of progression while playing through the dungeon.
Later on you will run into the mini-boss: Link himself, or a dark doppelganger version of him. This will be the toughest challenge yet and score you the Mysterious Sword, unlocking the Swordfighter Form. This lets you destroy the dark cobwebs found around the dungeon, as yet another new means of progression, where this is essentially the main item of the dungeon.
Eventually, you will find and fight the boss of the Suthorn Ruins, the Seismic Talus, which does have a purple orb as part of its body. It's likely that this orb is connected to Tri's friends and maybe even the game's primary key item early on, where there seem to be three of them, judging by the inventory. (It's even thinkable that each of them will give you a new ability for the X button, like Tri's Bind.)
Anyway, this is where the previews end and we don't know yet what happens next. But in other footage from Nintendo we can see on the map how the Suthorn Forest is fully restored later on and that the Suthorn Ruins can now be found on the overworld, so that's without a doubt the main goal of going for the dungeons: to restore Hyrule to what it was before.
However, if the Still World will be gone eventually, it makes you wonder how you will replenish the energy needed for the Swordfighter mode later in the game. Either there is a different way or there is always one last part of the Still World left, like Hyrule Castle... This could become quite inconvenient, however, so there is likely something that we don't know yet.
With the PAX East demo and the recent previews, we got a confirmation that Echoes of Wisdom will feature Hero Mode as a difficulty option. It's really the most basic variant, meaning that you take twice as much damage and you won't find any hearts.
Some accessory effects also won't be applied, which probably relates to things like the Heart Pin, which makes more hearts appear – but there are none. So, that would be different from the Medals in Skyward Sword, where the Heart Medal made hearts appear in Hero Mode, but since you can change accessories at any time, it makes sense not to have this any longer. You could just equip the Heart Pin, which you can find quite early, whenever you need to heal and then go with something else.
The main difference to Hero Modes of the past is that you can now switch between Hero Mode and Normal Mode at any time. The only Zelda game that did something similar was The Wind Waker HD, but even there you couldn't do it on the fly. You had to save and quit first.
This makes things more accessible, because you don't need to stick to a difficulty setting. If things get too easy for you, you activate Hero Mode, but if that gets too hard, you go back to Normal Mode. However, it does lack a sense of achievement, because without a fixed difficulty you won't have a completed Hero Mode save file in the end, unless the game will add some checkmark to your save if you stick to the Hero difficulty from start to finish.
Now, I personally will do the same thing as always: first beat the game in Normal Mode and then play it again in Hero Mode. Maybe there is still some sort of Second Quest or New Game+ that can be unlocked, in which case I will go with Hero Mode there.
The remake of Link's Awakening introduced so called "Fairy Bottles" to the series, which are your usual bottles, but they are exclusively used for fairies. Echoes of Wisdom will bring those back, but with a number of differences. This time, they are not set on the X or Y buttons, like an item, instead you will automatically put a fairy inside a bottle when you touch it.
That's actually a quality of life improvement. The following scenario has happened to every Zelda player out there at least once: you want to put a fairy in a bottle, but accidentally touch and use it up. This won't happen any longer in Echoes of Wisdom, so that's great.
Unlike the Link's Awakening remake, the fairies in your bottles now will also function automatically when you run out of hearts. They didn't do this in the previous title, because that's what the Secret Medicine was for, which probably won't return here. But maybe you will still be able to use fairies from the menu.
Speaking of, going by the key items menu, there will be a total of four Fairy Bottles in the game, which is one more than in the Link's Awakening remake.
There are also many other open slots in there. One will probably be for the Mysterious Sword. And the three round dots might be for the orbs from the early game bosses, like the Seismic Talus or Volvagia.
Echoes of Wisdom doesn't shy away from some good old nostalgia, featuring a ton of stuff from past Zelda games, especially with the enmies. And this shouldn't come as a surprise, because you want many classic enemies to be present, so you can summon them via the echo system. Unless you count Cadence of Hyrule, some 3D enemies even appear in a top-down title for the first time, like the Lizalfos.
Interestingly, Echoes of Wisdom will be the second Zelda game to feature the Camo Goblins (or Goo Specters), as seen in the Still World presentation. These were based on the Boo Blahs from Yoshi's Island and have only appeared in the Color Dungeon from Link's Awakening. But since they already had this enemy with the remake, Nintendo and GREZZO probably felt like bringing it back, where now it can also appear on the overworld.
You can also spot a Lynel in the Still World artwork, but they are now more similar to Breath of the Wild than what we had in A Link Between Worlds, which is good, because the Lynels in top-down Zelda games always were a bit lame. They need a power-up.
Also, Volvagia appears as a boss in the game, for the first time since Ocarina of Time, which should have many fans out there excited. Overall, the Nintendo 64 games seem to be one of the stronger influences here for the enemy selection and designs, where the Peahat also got changed to the Nintendo 64 version from what we had in Link's Awakening. The Redead is based on these games as well and not the more clay-like version from Tri Force Heroes.
Anyway, it's of note how Volvagia carries a green orb around its neck, which seems to be a common thing for the bosses. The Seismic Talus, the boss of the Suthorn Ruins, also such an orb as part of its body, though there it acts more like the vulnerable cube of a Flux Construct, meaning that it keeps changing its position within the body.
Both bosses are based on bosses from past Zelda, where hopefully this won't be the case for all of them. You want some novelty as well, where so far we haven't seen much of that with the enemies. It's mainly new variants of familiar enemies, like the Ignizol, a candle-like version of the Zol, or the Electric Sparks.
Dampé returns in Echoes of Wisdom in a new role: he's now a mechanic, crafting so called Automatons. This will be his seventh Zelda game and he is now only one appearance behind Impa, who will be featured for the eighth time. Already with the Link's Awakening remake I talked about how Dampé is on his way to become a rising star, and Echoes of Wisdom will certainly add to this, because again he has a very important role in the game.
This time he makes "Automatons" for you, which we've already seen before. They are mechanical versions of enemies with some crazy effects, e.g. an Octorok that shoots a lot of rocks in quick succession. They are an alternative to echoes, so they are also summoned with the Y button and selected by pressing left on the D-pad.
If they get destroyed, their icon will turn red, meaning that you won't be able to use them again or for a while. It's probably some sort of cooldown, but since they are much stronger, there needs to be a limitation. With echoes you can just keep summoning them, but this won't be the case here. How exactly this works, we don't know yet.
It appears that you will need to first learn the echo of an enemy, before you can get the automaton version. So, you show an enemy to Dampé and this will inspire him to craft a new "clockwork gizmo" based on it.
I like how the music in Dampé's shack is inspired by the one from Link's Awakening. Even though composer Ryō Nagamatsu has left Nintendo, it's good to hear that they carry on his style musically, because he did a great job for the series.
One of the big reveals that came with the Still World presentation is Zelda's Swordfighter Form, where she effectively can turn into Link – tunic, hat and Hylian Shield included –, but only temporarily. The gauge can be refilled with energy, but that energy is only found in the Still World and its dungeons. So, you have to use the Swordfighter Form sparingly elsewhere, where it acts like a joker, while you will be using it more often past the rifts.
It gives you a taste of how trivial combat used to be in games like A Link Between Worlds and Link's Awakening, making it similar to the Hypermode from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. You hit that button when things get serious and you have a much easier time fighting enemies. It even has the same blue glow to it.
At first, I was skeptical about this, because it will only emphasize how much more complicated combat with the echo system can be. By constantly reminding the player of how simpler things are with a sword, you will potentially get annoyed by fighting with echoes...
But judging from various previews about the game, which have surfaced last week (e.g. from NintendoLife), it may do the opposite. It highlights how much more of a challenge fighting with echoes actually is, which is a welcome change to the top-down series, where ever since Link's Awakening on the Game Boy the combat was rather easy. A bit too easy.
This gets even more apparent by how you obtain the Swordfighter Form. This is potentially spoiler territory, where Nintendo has only teased things, but if you don't care, then you should watch Zeltik's preview, which gives an excellent overview of the beginning of the game. Otherwise you should probably stop reading here.
The mini-boss of the first dungeon, the Suthorn Ruins, is none other than Link himself, or an evil doppelganger of him. It's not really a Shadow Link, but he behaves similarly. And if you've played around with the Shadow Link in the Chamber Dungeons of Link's Awakening, you will know that they can be quite the pain. He comes at you and destroys all the echoes you thrown at him with ease, so you have to get more creative.
Once defeated, you will obtain the "Mysterious Sword", which is different from the sword that Link has in the beginning of the game, where you fight against Ganon. We know for a fact from the PAX East demo that this one is called the "Swordman's Blade" (source).
The Mysterious Swords unlocks the Swordfighter Form and what's interesting here is that this behaves as the Suthorn Ruins' primary item. There are these dark cobwebs everywhere and the only way to destroy them seems to be the sword mode, so that's as classic as dungeon progression can get. It's possible that other dungeons will also put you against Link and that this will either make the Swordfighter Mode stronger or add new things to it, like the Bow.
And this would be a really cool system, where you gradually obtain Link's abilities as an upgrade. I doubt that it will go all too far, however, e.g. by giving a variety of Link's items, like the Hookshot or Boomerang. It's likely that you will get a "Mysterious Bow", since Link also has a bow in the beginning of the game and the X button is still free in Swordfighter mode. But it doesn't feel reasonable that this form will give you a selection of items. Both the sword and the bow will likely get upgrades, though.
The gauge also has a level attached to it, which certainly relates to how long you can stay inside the Swordfighter form, but we don't know how you will be able to increase this level yet. Maybe there is a new collectible, found within the Still World, that does exactly that. Or maybe this is something that you can get from the Great Fairy/Fairies.
PS: With this we also learn why Zelda was put into prison: the King, minister and general all got replaced by their evil doppelgangers, after they had vanished into the rift. And the evil king then ordered Zelda to be imprisoned.
In the Still World presentation we get a better look at what's most likely the first major dungeon of the game: the "Suthorn Ruins". We know that there is a Suthorn Village and Beach in the southern part of the map, where that area will likely lead to a rift that leads to the Suthorn Ruins.
I like how the name also gets written in Hylian and the new morse-code-like language, which you can also find on the walls or the Travel Waypoints, where the dungeon offers one right at the entrance, conveniently. It adds a greater sense of lore and it will be interesting to see it all decoded by fans.
It's visually also the same location where Link rescues Zelda from Ganon in the beginning of the game and likely the same place. So, we've seen this particular dungeon a couple of times now, where its stone golem boss was already featured in the second trailer.
So, the Suthorn Ruins are located somewhere south of Lake Hylia, but get swallowed by a rift right after Zelda escaped. And from what we know this is what happened to all the dungeons in the game, so you have to find them in the Still World first.
What's interesting is the camera angle, where it doesn't show you the southernmost wall. This is different from A Link Between Worlds and the Link's Awakening remake, which gave you much more of a top-down perspective. It's similar to Tri Force Heroes, but there you didn't have the traditional doorways between rooms, so it wasn't as noticeable.
The side-scrolling tunnels appear to be as flat as they were in Link's Awakening, however, but the rest looks a lot more layered and three-dimensional.
We don't really know much about progression, but this should also be the dungeon where you first learn Bind. In the footage, Zelda does have Tri on the X button already at the entrance, though, but they may have taken this at a later point. Curiously, Zelda always has five hearts throughout all footage, so this may not mean anything, because it's simply for demo purposes.
There are also some glimpses at a fire, water, and desert dungeon. In the latter there is a boss key chest, looking similar to the ones from the Nintendo 64 games, enclosed by some puzzle contraption with spinning parts. So, in the very least that's part of your traditional dungeon progression, which is already more than what Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom had with their Divine Beasts and temples.
For fans of classic Zelda dungeons this may look quite promising. And it's been 11 years since we saw new top-down dungeons, so that's already exciting in itself.
In the latest presentation about Echoes of Wisdom, Nintendo has shared a glimpse at what lies behind the rifts that are swallowing Hyrule. It's called the "Still World" and is made out of floating landmasses, ripped from Hyrule. You enter them via a portal and have to work your way through them from there, where each rift can lead to a thematically different part of the Still World, e.g. something with water blocks or lava walls.
In a way, this is Lorule taken to the extreme. In A Link Between Worlds the dark counterpart of Hyrule was heavily segmented, only three dungeons shared an area and the rest had their own. You had to find portals going into the different areas from all over Hyrule. With the Still World it's similar, but it looks to be much more straight-forward and linear, almost like levels from a 3D Mario game, offering a big contrast to the very open gameplay on the overworld.
It's kind of like the sky islands from Tears of the Kingdom, but the echoes hopefully won't give you same level as freedom as the Zonai Devices, which is a good thing. You don't want to have one trivial solution to everything, like the hoverbike was, because that makes things boring.
Visually, the Still World is also reminiscent of the Gate of Souls from Hyrule Warriors, with the purple borders and pieces of the environment mashed together. The shadow enemies also add to the similar aesthetics.
The Still World segments lead to the dungeons of the game and it's likely that solving a dungeon will return everything to normal for the corresponding rift. But this raises the question whether you will be able to return to the dungeons or not afterwards. Also, what happens to treasure chests inside the Still World that you haven't collected yet? Will they appear in the overworld, then? Let's hope that there won't be anything missable, because that's always bad.
