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...
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