Echoes of Wisdom Adventure Log, Entry 8 ~ Hebra Mountain

Three large rifts have appeared over the goddess regions in Hyrule and the player can go for them in any order. I picked Mount Lanayru first, because the neighboring Hebra Mountain is the only area I hadn't fully explored yet and where Nintendo has shown almost nothing in advance... So, it was the most intriguing choice for me.

 

~ Meet Condé ~

Last time I visited the igloo in the Hebra Mountain, no one was at home and it was all a big mystery. But once you go there when you're supposed to, you meet Condé right away, who lives there and really is just a big Yeti, following in the footsteps of Yeto and Yeta from Twilight Princess. You're invited to his home and you can wait there until the snowstorm settles down in the area. (It only really changes around his house, though.)

You learn that his father has passed away (hence the grave behind the house) and that his brother is on an adventure, where Condé waiting for him to come back, because he is all alone now. Poor Condé. It's heart-warming to see how Tri gets attached to this character and cares about him, simply because he helped Zelda.

However, Condé is as simple as he's strong, where he's trying to fill the rifts with snow and you can't really argue with him. So, character-wise he truly comes after Yeto, though visually they are a bit different. Yeto had a tail and proper ears, while Condé has these antlers. I wouldn't necessarily call this a tribe yet, but then again, the Zora proof in this game how differently the tribes can evolve over the ages.

~ Tingle, Tingle, Kooloo-Stampah ~

The only other person you will meet on Hebra Mountain is the Stamp Guy, who is in a pickle, because one of his stamp stations got swallowed by a rift. It's actually a wonder that this has never happened before, as frequently as they appear by now...

It's yet another side quest where you have to clear a rift to retrieve something or someone, where these mini rifts are a nice diversion, so these are certainly better and a lot more interesting than the "bring me something via an echo" quests.

But back to the Stamp Guy, I'm sure that many Zelda fans must be thinking the same thing about him... This really could have been Tingle. It would have been the perfect role for him in this game, but it seems that Grezzo or Nintendo were too afraid to bring him back. I don't mind getting a new quirky character here and I like the design, but there are many parallels between the two.

The stamps also remind me of Macho Tingle from the intro of Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love, where he's looking all manly and muscular in his spandex. I've completed my fourth stamp card with this and this caused a funny moment, where the Stamp Guy first runs off, only to appear right above me afterwards. How is that even possible...? He must be truly as athletic as the stamps picture him.

~ Snowpeak in Disguise ~

So, Mount Lanayru is a different mountain top, a bit further to the north, and you have to make your way there from the Hebra Mountain. Why they have chosen the naming like this, especially since the regions on the map only mention Hebra, is beyond me. Why not call the entire thing Mount Lanayru? It's even a good fit, as the mountain right next to the Zora region.

Well, they probably wanted the Breath of the Wild reference in there. But when it comes to such references, "Snowpeak" probably would have been a better name, since this feels a lot like the same area from Twilight Princess, with the isolated atmosphere and the single Yeti roaming around. Just without an old castle...

Unlike the rest of the game world, they didn't bother to include any classic areas from A Link to the Past here. It's clearly meant to be the old Death Mountain in shape and location. It even has that broken bridge between the two mountain sides (where now you can go under it in the lower Hyrule, which is pretty cool). But that's pretty much it... Where is the Spectacle Rock? Where is the Tower of He(b)ra? The latter would have been an amazing location for another optional mini-dungeon.

They are essentially treating the classic Light World dungeons worse and worse the further you go. Eastern Temple? Now a very cool mini-dungeon. Desert Temple? Completely in ruins... Tower of Hera? Gone entirely!

And overall there isn't much to this area. I get why Nintendo didn't make this part of their marketing, unlike all the other main areas and their dungeons, because there is effectively nothing interesting to show here. Well, there is Condé and I'm happy that they haven't spoiled his appearance, but not much else otherwise.

 

~ Cold and Cloudy Echoes ~

On your way up the Hebra Mountain you can find a cave with the Ice Spikes inside, an accessory that prevents you from sliding on ice. It's the same the Snowshoe Ring, where it makes sense to have actual snowshoes instead – or spikes for your shoes in that case, where you can put them on your Gerudo Sandals and then the Zora Flippers above all that. (Imagine that.) But this accessory is even more useful than the sandals, because there are a lot of slippery surfaces all around Hebra.

You can also find a variety of new ice enemies in the upper areas of the mountain, including an Ice Wizzrobe, which became my second echo worth five triangles. The first one, the Sword Moblin Lv. 3, has proven itself very useful here, because it can't be frozen. It also shields itself from the Freezards, so it can approach it safely. It's too good, really.

The return of the Moa then surprised me quite a lot, the flying eyes from The Adventure of Link. They act differently, however, because they are always defending another enemy. And when there are none around, they will be idle. That doesn't apply for your Moa echo, luckily, because it's defending you by default.

It's the second enemy from Zelda II to make a revival here, the other being the Aruroda. So, I probably have to add this game to the nostalgia list as well. If Echoes of Wisdom has Fokka in it, I'm going to lose it, in a good way.

Another surprise was all the cloud stuff in the Stilled Hebra Mountain / Mount Lanayru. Well, the mountain top is surrounded by lots of clouds, so it makes sense, but it felt a bit random to have this here, like suddenly you're in the Cloud Tops area from The Minish Cap, while everything before was about snow and ice. I was also reminded by The Dark Cloud from Four Swords Adventures, because there were some side-scrolling sections... and it looks very dark.

The cloud echo is quite crazy, though. In a platforming section you can even place them below you, similar to the cloud power-up from Super Mario Galaxy 2. They will dissolve if you stand too long on them, but you can just keep jumping to prevent this from happening.

I also like the giant snowballs as an echo, because there's a lot of evil stuff that you can do with them...

~ Lanayru Temple ~

New ice dungeons in the Zelda series will always have a hard time, because they have a lot to live up to. They may be rare, but most of them are quite fantastic. Despite being linear, the Snowpeak Ruins from Twilight Princess are an excellently designed dungeon. And the Ice Ruins from A Link Between Worlds is easily one of the best top-down dungeons in the series, next to the Eagle's Tower. It just has this level of complexity that makes it really satisfying to play through (or utterly confusing for some players).

Sadly, it doesn't look like Grezzo is able to bring such complexity on the table. You can't sugarcoat this, but their dungeon design is simply too straight-forward. And that's a shame, because they had some really good ideas for new mechanics in this dungeon. It even comes with a "fire and ice" dynamic, similar to the Sword & Shield Ruins from Oracle of Seasons.

There are these giant fans, which work like an extreme air conditioner. You can power them with crystals, but you can make these crystals hot or cold with either ice or fire. And this will make the fans heat or freeze the room. Part of the Lanayru Temple is even a water dungeon, essentially, because you are thawing all the ice and then can swim through some of the rooms. And then you can freeze the water again to walk on it.

It's very excellent, but it never truly lives up to its true potential, because the dungeon is simply too straight-forward. You never have to think about what you need to do next, because you're invisibly guided all the time. This may be to your liking, where some players certainly prefer such a dungeon experience. And that's okay. But I personally don't find them challenging enough because of it.

Another great idea in the Lanayru Temple are the dual switches, where you have to walk on them simultaneously. Maybe other dungeons have them as well, but it's the first time that I have encountered them and they make good use of the ice blocks for this. It's a very smart answer to the echo system, which allows you to hold down switches all the time, but it was underutilized. There were only two puzzles with it, if I remember correctly, and only the second made me think for a while.

One of the side scrolling sections also had me confused, where you have to go up through the ceiling between two ice streams. But I simply forgot that Strandtulas are a thing... I'm often in the headspace of using the things that the current environment gave you, scrolling through the "Last Used" and "Last Learned" lists in the selection menu, but naturally the dungeons now can presume that you have all the important things from the areas and dungeons before. They don't necessarily require it, however, because this was just for an optional chest.

The dungeon's mid-boss was a lot like the Slime Eye from Link's Awakening, but you have to freeze the slimes, which also reminded me of the Mad Jelly (Gecko) from Majora's Mask. They can even shoot heat streams to thaw each other up, so this was a good battle overall, if a little annoying.

Afterwards you will find a single Fire Keese in the middle of the dungeon, which is odd, but the game makes sure that you obtain it as an echo here with a puzzle that makes use of it. Since I haven't proceeded at Eldin Volcano yet, I didn't have one, so I needed this. And at first I wondered why both the Fire and Ice Keese are worth four triangles each. They are just Keese, after all, but the game puts them on the same level as a Ball-and-Chain Trooper.

Well, I would learn why that is soon after. They can be quite powerful due to their elemental effects. You have to face a group of Wolfos later on, which included my first White Wolfos, and the Fire Keese obliterated them... I almost felt sorry for those wolves.

The Fire and Ice Keese are also the MVP for the excellent boss of the dungeon, Winston Skorchill. The Yeti monster puts on different helmets for fire and ice attacks, where you need to attack it with the opposing element. And the easiest way to do that were the Keese, at least from what I found. In a way the Fire Keese was like this dungeon's main item.

I thought that the boss was an imposter version of Condé's brother and that you would free him from the Still World afterwards, but it seems like his brother has left off for good and Condé is still alone... Poor Condé!

Doesn't matter, I have Nayru's Sanctum now and can move on. Good bye! (Well, there was another side-quest where you have to help Condé move around a snowball, but this seems to be it here.)

So, you're getting MacGuffins this time, where they look a lot like the Pendants from A Link to the Past or the Pearls from The Wind Waker. Same things, really, just that you're collecting them in the second half of the game and not the first.