With the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in 2023, we had a big year for the Zelda franchise behind us. It was such a massive game that you may have been playing it in 2024 still, so that rarely anyone expected a new Zelda game to follow this year... Especially not one that puts Princess Zelda in the role of the playable protagonist for the first time in the main series.
You could see the launch of Princess Peach: Showtime! in March as a foreshadowing, where Princess Peach got a game of her own as well. It wasn't her first, but it had been almost two decades since Super Princess Peach on the Nintendo DS. And she was setting an example here, giving a taste of what might follow in the later year.
But before Nintendo revealed the next Zelda game, they still had some open business with Tears of the Kingdom, which led to two announcements in May – the game was getting a nine-disc-long soundtrack later in 2024, and a more comprehensive artbook, called "Master Works". Both were also a thing for Breath of the Wild and are currently exclusive in Japan, however.
If you were looking for something completely different, then maybe the LEGO set of the Great Deku Tree had you covered. Announced in May and released in September, Nintendo's newest cooperation with the famous plastic brick company brought into the worlds of Ocarina of Time and Breath of the Wild, where you can recreate the Great Deku Tree from either game, alongside a variety of extras.
They had also announced the Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition back in May, picking up the mantle of NES Remix, scheduled for July. Here you can compete in a large number of speed-running challenges in 13 different NES games, which of course includes The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II - The Adventure of Link.
The Zelda series also played a role in other releases by Nintendo throughout the year, mainly in the audio department. There is the Alarmo alarm clock, which can get you out of bed with the sound of Guardian lasers. And there is the new Nintendo Music app for smartphones, which currently features the soundtracks of Ocarina of Time, Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, among others.
In June then came the big Nintendo Direct, the only one of the year. We finally got to see Metroid Prime 4: Beyond for the first time, which likely will become Nintendo's last big game for the Nintendo Switch. But we also learned that a brandnew Zelda title had been in the making in the style of the Link's Awakening remake for Nintendo Switch, which came out five years prior, titled The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.
It certainly left an impression, where the footage started off with Link fighting Ganon, only to be swallowed by a mysterious rift soon after. And then the player would take Zelda's role, which caused a lot of excitement all over the internet. This change came with a completely new gameplay idea for the series, where you can summon all kinds of objects and monsters to your aid. Nintendo kept this one close to their chest, where the game was already set to release three months later.
To entertain the Zelda fans in the meantime, Nintendo also released the Game Boy Advance classic A Link to the Past & Four Swords on their Nintendo Switch Online service, where it's possible to play this with friends online. This made the multiplayer game a lot more accessible than it used to be, so that some fans out there finally had the chance to experience it for the first time.
September 26th was the launch date of Echoes of Wisdom, where Nintendo also released the golden "Hyrule Edition" of the Nintendo Switch Lite on the same day. Otherwise the newest Zelda game entered stores without much fanfare – there was some merchandise to get, like a scroll, but no Special Edition of the game, no new amiibo, or anything else of the usual. But after Nintendo had done the full program with Tears of the Kingdom in 2023, this was a much needed break from straining the wallets of the fans.
The game itself offers the biggest world for a top-down Zelda yet, while giving a similar amount of player freedom like the recent 3D Zelda titles, thanks to its echo system. But it's still on a much more digestible scale, comparable to classic Zelda titles, which makes it just the right adventure after Tears of the Kingdom. It's also a perfect game to play after Christmas, before the year ends...
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