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...
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