Echoes of Wisdom Adventure Log, Entry 4 ~ Mountain Hike

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.

It started in Kakariko, because I wanted to check out if there's anything new in the dojo. Well, yes, there was one new level based on the water dungeon, where I suppose that every main dungeon will add a new test.

And then I thought that I should give Eldin Volcano another try, where it's easy enough to go up there via a Crawltula, maybe a little bit too easy. It's ridiculous how far this echo lets you climb, I could go straight to Goron City afterwards:

The Ocarina of Time memberberries are strong in this game, though they've mixed some of that Breath of the Wild feel in there as well. I especially like how all the Gorons look unique, which wasn't the case with the River Zora. But what's up with their bellybuttons? I hope that this isn't some form of Goron cancer...

Anyway, I ventured out to the west border of the map from there, where I found the Fairy Flower accessory in a cave. And from there I explored more of the west part of Hyrule Field, scratching the border of the Gerudo Desert, well knowing that my next destination lies behind it.

Around there I found my favorite variant of the acorn mini-game so far, a rocky area with some Mini-Moldorms in it. You can easily ignore those and if you don't have to deal with the enemies as much, this mini-game is really fun. It's what I wanted out of this – a test of quickly traversing the environment with your echoes. Well, I suppose that dealing with enemies is part of that test and things will get more reliable with better echoes, but I could have done without that part.

Also, while exploring I really miss the Hero's Path from the previous two games and I keep hitting X on the map for this feature... like all the time. Sometimes I can't tell whether I've been to a cave or on a ridge before, because you can come into an area from pretty much every angle and things can look a bit alike. And in those cases it would be nice if the map gave you information about where you've been exactly. Maybe this even gets unlocked later in the game, because it makes so much sense to have this...

During my tour yesterday I came across a bombable wall at the northeast of the forest and I remembered this cave, so now that I have the Bomb Fish I could finally enter it. To my surprise this turned out to be not some optional cave, but the Hebra Mountain Trail... And I couldn't resist.

This and the Eternal Forest are the only areas that Nintendo hasn't used heavily for their marketing, in fact there was only one scene with Zelda freezing in the snow and that's it. We didn't know anything about this beforehand, not even the name, so it's the most exciting part of the game to explore for me. It was also subject to lots of speculation from my end.

One of my suggestions was that this is now called the "Hebra Mountains", instead of Death Mountain, and this turned out to be right, which is interesting. It's still quite deadly there, however, because you are taking freezing damage.

But then I thought that the name probably wasn't the only Breath of the Wild inspiration here and that you should be able to bypass this with fire. So, I carried around an Igneozol and this allowed me to explore even further and fight the basic enemies. The snowmen, called Snomauls, here seem to be the replacement for the Pokey, where the different ball parts of the part start flipping around individually. The Leevers from the Yarna Desert also return here, but come now in white.

My main goal was to find some signs of civilization. Since this is now Hebra Mountain, meeting the Rito could have been a thing, which would make timeline theorists go haywire... Another possibility were a comeback of the Anouki from Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, or the Yeti from Twilight Princess.

Eventually I found a mysterious hut, which is called "Condé's House" when you save your game there, but there is no one there currently. Well, judging from the inside it's definitely not the Rito:

Whoever lives here seems to be in Christmas mood, much like the stores in the real world right now. This is the first time a Zelda game features something like a Christmas tree, which is curious... And judging by the paintings on the wall, this Condé character and his family are probably closest to the Yeti from Twilight Princess.

It's (probably) not the Anouki, because they didn't have arms, their bodies were like a mix of reindeer and penguins. And since this seems to be only one isolated family, a callback to Twilight Princess or something new entirely feel like the most sensible answer. I have yet to find out, because I was not able to proceed much further.

Behind the house is also something that looks like grave, so it's all very mysterious at the moment... But it's not like I'm supposed to be here yet.

Still, I found some peppers on my way, which can be cooked into a chill-proof smoothie, so that made it possible for me to fight the Moblin camp nearby. With a Golden Egg you even get freeze resistance as a power-up, kind of like the set bonus effects from Breath of the Wild. I have yet to obtain any outfits and was hoping to find something against the cold here, but that wasn't the case, so for now the smoothies will have to do...

However, beyond the Moblin camp was just a cave with a very big Moblin, a Lvl. 3 Sword Moblin. I've already met one in the Eternal Forest yesterday, but didn't bother with defeating it, because it appeared way too strong. You can't even pull off their shields with Bind, like you can do with the Lvl. 2 variants or Link.

But here I tried cheesing it with fire, which worked eventually and earned me the first echo that I cannot use. It requires five triangles and the Y button simply gets greyed out in that case. But I also got the Energy Belt for my efforts, yet another accessory, where this one lets you earn more energy from fighting shadow monsters.

This is as far as I went here, so I haven't reached the mountain top yet. It also didn't seem trivial at this point, because you can't use water blocks in the freezing cold and the top is much higher, surrounded by huge trees... In hindsight I could have tried the Crawltula again, but that didn't work the first time there either.

In order to warm up I returned to Eldin Volcano to explore its top a bit instead. I should have done this before going into the Hebra Mountains, naturally, because the fire enemies that you can find here are more potent. Especially the Fire Octos seem useful (they are even what I had used to defeat the big Sword Moblin in the end, so there was some back and forth between the two areas).

Anyway, there I've finished my third stamp card already, where the prize was my third Fairy Bottle. And I've done some side quests with the Gorons: the gliding mini-game and the fireworks stuff. It's hilarious that you can summon them everywhere now.

I'm going to have too much fun with this... But I think that's enough of a detour by now. If you look at my map, then you will see that I've uncovered most of it, the big exception being the Gerudo Desert:

So, I will definitely go there next and proceed with the story. Tomorrow I probably won't be able to play much, so the next entry will happen on Sunday, I guess. Just to let you know.

From what I have on the map, it doesn't seem like there will be a Lanayru region anywhere. There is the Eldin Volcano, like in Skyward Sword, and there are the Faron Wetlands. But then you have the Hebra Mountain, the Jabul Waters, the Suthorn Forest, the Gerudo Desert... This feels like an oversight to leave out one of the goddess regions. Or it might be intentional and there's more to it, since Nayru is the Goddess of Wisdom after all. But if it's an oversight, they probably should have called Hebra Mountain "Mount Lanayru" instead, or the Gerudo Desert the "Lanayru Desert".

It's also curious how the Hebra Mountain is shown in green. It might simply because of the trees, or maybe there will be a way of thawing away all the snow... But right now this looks like another oversight.

Echoes of Wisdom Adventure Log, Entry 3 ~ Jabul Waters

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...

On my way there I got some Monster Guts from my 50th Moblin or so... I don't know the exact number, but it seems to be a very rare drop, which is not something that I like in a Zelda game, or games in general. Hopefully there will be a more reliable way to get them, maybe as a prize in one of the dojo challenges, or so. There are also the Monster Stones, which are part of a list of resources that aren't used for smoothies. But I don't know what they are for yet.

Anyway, fighting became a bit more fun during this section of the game. It mainly helped that I've already acquired the Lvl. 2 Spear and Sword Moblins during my tour yesterday, where they can hit a bit harder and the spears are especially useful against flying foes. It all feels a bit like Pokémon to me...

"Go, Spear Moblin!"

"I chose you, Peahat!"

"You can do it, Octorok!"

The Piranha from the Faron Wetlands also gave me an edge early on, but you're learning all sorts of fish monsters here anyway, which includes the Bomb Fish on your way to the River Zora Village. I'm sure that there are other explosive monsters in this game, like the flying bomber mushrooms, but if you want bombs early on, then this will probably be the best choice.

In the River Zora Village you can also find both the Zora's Flippers and the Silver Brooch as new accessories, as well as the Zora Scale later on. So far I only had the Heart Pin from the Suthorn Ruins, and the Ancient Charm (I think it was a reward in the dojo), which increases your defense. And I didn't have to decide between them, because I already had two slots, since I've visited the Great Fairy at Lake Hylia.

I failed to mention this yesterday, but this location is very similar to A Link to the Past, just that instead of increasing your capacity for weaponry (which you don't have), the Great Fairy can make you equip more accessories at once. It's quite pricey, the second slot costs 100 Rupees, the third 300, and the forth 500... But it's always good if there is need for Rupees, because it makes finding them feel rewarding. Lots of Zelda games got that wrong in the past, but ever since A Link Between Worlds Rupees became a lot more valuable.

And with more than just two accessories in my pocket, this feature also becomes more interesting now, because I have to pick the right ones for the area or situation. I probably won't swap them all the time, but in Jabul Waters you certainly want the Zora's Flippers equipped for more swim speed. The only other way to swim faster seems to be spinning, which also works on land. It's not much, but I'm pretty sure it gives you a slight boost. So, spinning is the new rolling.

You'll quickly learn that you need to make the Sea and River Zora clans play music together, where I found Tri's disillusioned comment that they in a hurry hilarious. Welcome to a Zelda game, Tri!

This yellow ball has the potential to become my favorite sidekick in the series, which isn't hard to achieve, since I never liked any of them that much to begin with. That I'm not annoyed by my sidekick, but entertained, is an achievement in itself, however, but it will take a second playthrough to really evaluate that. If I still play for the story, then the interruptions aren't usually that bad.

It's a bit weird that both Chief Dradd and Queen Kushara, or any of the Zora for that matter, don't know who Zelda is... They only say that her name sounds familiar, but you would think that they had more contact with the Hylian royalty. Luckily, they didn't bother with hanging up her bounty poster past Seesyde.

I also like the different areas here, with the classic Zora River to the beach to the ocean – the environments are mostly well done. Of course, the sea has large empty parts with nothing but water, but it's supposed to be an ocean, so it comes with the territory.

This is another thing that reminded me of Oracle of Ages, where a lot of screens on the map are filled with water in the south of Labrynna. The worlds of the Oracle games generally felt emptier than Koholint and to a degree this is true for this Hyrule as well, but I would say that it's not as bad.

What's really well done are the caves, because they all offer interesting challenges, thanks to the echoes. And you often learn new echoes inside them, like the Bomb Fish.

As for the main quest itself, it also comes with lots of throwbacks to past Zelda games. The Zoras are very focused on music, like in Majora's Mask, just less rock band and more ceremony. Lord Jabu-Jabu returns here for the first time since Oracle of Ages, he even swallows some people up. And of course there is the distinction between the classic River Zora and the Sea Zora.

You would expect that their quarrel has to do with something more serious, like different world views on how much salt water should contain... But they simply trash-talked the other's music style and are now mad at each other. It's a heart-warming quest that takes you all over the area, up and down, but the whole premise is a bit silly.

And from what I have seen so far, the nostalgia is really focused on the SNES, Game Boy (Color) and Nintendo 64 era of the Zelda series: A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Oracle of Ages. Nothing really from Seasons yet, but that may come. This hits a sweet spot for me, because those are the Zelda games that I grew up with. And I bet it's the same for many of the developers at Grezzo, who are said to be fans of the series since their childhood as well...

In the Stilled Jabul Waters you get to learn the water blocks, finally, something that I already wanted out of the smaller water-based Still Worlds that came before. But it's essentially the biggest upgrade in this part of the game, next to the Bomb Fishes, and the most powerful traversal tool yet. The water blocks let you freely move all around Jabul Waters and beyond its boundaries. It feels overpowered.

They also taught me that it's probably best to wait with the acorn mini-games. In case of the Zora River you have an area with lots of Tektites, but not enough time to fight them all. They will trash anything you are building, so when I first played this I was heavily frustrated... But with water blocks I could get the single time reward (100 Rupees in this case) on my first try. Would be great if it also marked on your map which of these you've already mastered.

I'm not sure what the Gerudo Desert will have to offer, but it will be hard to top bombs and water blocks, where going to Jabul Waters first is probably the preferred choice. The only important ability I feel that I'm missing right now is digging, which means that I want to find a mole or something similar... Maybe that's what the Gerudo Desert will have in store.

Finally, I had the opportunity to play another dungeon in this game, the Jabul Ruins. Will all main dungeons in this game be called "ruins"? Is this the new "temple"? Thematically this was heavily inspired by the Angler's Tunnel from Link's Awakening, where this is certainly one of the prettiest water dungeons.

You have to activate four switches to raise a geyser, which lets you reach the boss chamber. You can pick between two switches at a time, so there's some choice here, but the individual sections were very linear again. I did like the emphasis on side-scrolling sections, however, where in past Zelda games they usually served as smaller tunnels from point A to B (except for The Adventure of Link). Here they are a lot more sophisticated and make up the majority of the dungeon, even the boss is fought from the side.

It was also nice to see a completely new boss here, called Vocavor, because I was afraid that they will be overdoing all the throwbacks and solely rely on nostalgia. This boss gave me some Metroid vibes, however, with its crystals on the back and the side scrolling perspective. There is also this Diggernaut moment in the beginning of the dungeon, where you have to get away from a giant vortex that is chasing you...

The dungeon was otherwise quite simple, sadly, so much that it made the Suthorn Ruins feel sophisticated. You find a map, you find the boss key, you activate the four switches, that's it. You could probably even skip the switches entirely and rush to the boss key with the right echoes, but I haven't tried that... The Suthorn Ruins at least gave you some progression in the form of new echoes and the Mysterious Sword.

There is no mid-boss battle, though you do get the battle against the Imposter Jabu-Jabu before the Still World, which was another well-made boss battle. But I suppose you will only be fighting Link again for the bow and bombs, so three times in total, and then maybe one final time. All the upgrades to your swordfighter form are then obtained via the Might Crystals...

Tri did not get a new triangle with her third level, instead it unlocked the power to summon from a distance, which will be useful with a variety of puzzles. If there are at least five dungeons in the game, then you would have gotten to eight triangles in total if the levels only were about triangles. Maybe that's a bit much, but you're already at four after the tutorial... So, let's see. And I hope that there will be more than just five dungeons.

(From what I'm guessing it's probably seven: the Suthorn Ruins and one in all four of the marketed areas. Then potentially another on the snowy Death Mountain. Plus, the Stilled Hyrule Castle, that has to happen. It's nice that I don't know this already and was able to stay relatively spoiler-free, Nintendo's heavy marketing aside.)

Big happy family at the end. Despite its silliness, I did like the Zora quest line overall. Let's see if the Gerudo will be able to keep up...

Echoes of Wisdom Adventure Log, Entry 2 ~ Hyrule Tour

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.

My main complaint about the tutorial phase was that it is too linear, but after the Suthorn Ruins the game really opens up, almost to the same degree as in Breath of the Wild, meaning that you can go pretty much wherever you want. The trampoline echo lets you bypass most of the basic borders made out of trees and such. And already in the Suthorn Prairie, the old swamp region from A Link to the Past, which lies right next to Lueburry's lab, you will get your first Crawltula, which then lets you climb up high walls at ease... (The game is really nothing for people with arachnophobia, by the way.)

There are still some boundaries, though. For example, I tried going up the snowy Death Mountain, but there you receive freezing damage and have to leave. Luckily, there is also no fall damage in the game, you can jump down from any height. Also, I have yet to find some echo that lets me blow up stuff, where I probably should have focused on Jabul Waters first to find a Bomb Fish. But you know me. When the game tells me to go either to the Gerudo Desert or Jabul Waters, I will go anywhere but, simply because I want to check out what's already possible.

Otherwise the game also sets limits via stronger enemies, similar to the modern 3D Zelda titles. If an attack takes off three hearts from you and you have trouble defeating an enemy with any of your current echoes, then it's probably best to go somewhere else...

But let's start from the beginning of my journey. First I checked out how returning to dungeons works and it's very simple, but also doesn't make much sense. The entrance to the dungeon can now also be found in Hyrule, but inside the way is blocked off. Instead you will find a portal into the Still World in front of the entrance, where you can also repeat the section before the dungeon, in case you missed any treasure chests there.

It's a bit weird, because thematically it would have made more sense if everything from inside the Still World got returned to the overworld, patching Hyrule back to normal. They could have placed the treasure chests and what not also into the areas that were initially missing... Well, the Still World is your main source of sword energy, so it's convenient to still have it around. But there are also the small rifts spawning shadow enemies everywhere, which will drop energy as well, so it wasn't really necessary. And you can refill your energy via smoothies and probably by other means.

Curiously, you can also heal yourself everywhere at any time via a bed, but it works in a weird way. Resting once restores half a heart, but you can just repeat to do it. Rise, rest, rise, rest... Why not just make it slowly heal you up while resting? (Update: it does actually work that way, but very slowly. Too slow. You're much faster if you keep rising.)

It's also weird to see all those old places of importance from A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds, stripped of their importance. The floodgate ruins are gone and replaced with a simple pillar... The location of Link's old house also doesn't have anything there, which is something that we already knew from Nintendo's footage.

It makes the world feel a bit emptier than it was, though it probably isn't. But it certainly can't match the richness of Koholint in the Link's Awakening remake, where you can find something like a Piece of Heart of a Secret Seashell around every corner. Echoes of Wisdom has a lot more junk to collect for you with the smoothie ingredients, which isn't as interesting or rewarding.

You can repeat those monster camps, however, to get more of everything, which is a difference from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Once you got the skull chests there, they were gone for good. But this way I might not even bother with playing the camps if there technically isn't anything to achieve, other than getting more materials that I currently have no need for.

At Lake Hylia I discovered my first "Mini Still World", which is a rift that you can enter, but which doesn't have a dungeon inside. Instead you will need to find three pockets with Tri's friends inside to restore the area. I was not able to learn the water blocks here, however, even though they were a feature in this rift... Or maybe the actual water blocks will be different and this was just floating water, don't know, but it didn't feel intuitive.

In general I haven't learned many new echo objects. Most of it were new enemies and I got lots of those, starting by going into the Faron Wetlands in the southeast, where you can find Hydrozols, some singing frogs that will make it rain (called Drippitunes), Piranhas, the Giant Goponga Flowers, Lizalfos, the Goo Specters from the Color Dungeon, and more... It was quite the haul.

But it's also something where I'm already getting a bit tired of the whole mechanic. It's really the opposite situation of the tutorial, where I enjoyed the echoes, but the game was too funneled for my taste. Now it's completely open, but fighting with echoes has lost some of its appeal, especially when the targeting doesn't do its job. I tend to respawn echoes all the time, just to have them immediately attack what's in front of me...

But I didn't really go into the Faron Wetlands to collect more echoes, my goal was to say hello to the Dekus, because it's been so long... Good to have them back and they are as freaky as ever. There isn't much you can do here already, other than checking out the main smoothie store, where I suppose you first need a large rift to appear in the area for the story to be going.

As a small surprise I also found my first Might Crystals in the wild, making them essentially the equivalent to the Secret Seashells, which means that you can potentially find and get them anywhere, not just from finishing dungeons. But they are bit like the Gratitude Crystals from Skyward Sword, where you can find single ones around Skyloft, hidden at night, as well as bundles of five for completing side quests.

You can display both the Might Crystals and Pieces of Heart on your map, in the same style as in Link's Awakening, but it's not a separate screen this time, but part of the proper world map, which is a nice improvement.

There is also a third collectible with the stamps from the Stamp Guy, which are just downright the same thing as in Spirit Tracks. The main difference is that you don't place them manually and that the motives are all just these weird depictions of the Stamp Guy as the most athletic human being ever. It's funny for the first time, but it completely lacks the charm of the stamps from Spirit Tracks, where you get something based on the actual locations. Here I can't even tell where I got the stamps from...

The stamp cards also take up the five slots below the Fairy Bottles in the Key Items menu, so there's that. It's also clear where the bow and bombs will go, but I have no real clue what the three slots next to the Tri Rod could be for. Which is nice, I want some surprises.

While I went to Seesyde Village after my tour through the Faron Wetlands, I didn't stay there all too long, because I still wanted to explore more around Hyrule Field and Hyrule Castle...

There I played the acorn mini-game for the first time, which turned out to be atrocious, because it immediately respawns all enemies around you and even adds some more. I expected this to be something more like Rupee Rush, but if you have to focus on dodging enemies that you can't actively fight, then this mini-game isn't going to be much fun.

Later I went to the ranch and got a horse there. Then I got chased by a Wolfos, who matches the speed of the horse, which was a bit frightening... I moved on to the north to check out Kakariko Village next, where I was greeted with the traditional Cucco collecting side quest for another Fairy Bottle. That's how you do the Ocarina of Time callbacks (take note, Minish Cap).

There is also the dojo there, which turned out to be more fun than the acorn stuff already. At least you can't actually die while playing it. And there are different conditions, where in the first challenge you have forgotten all your echoes and can't use swordfighter mode.

The second challenge overwhelmed me at first, but that's because I made the mistake to activate the switch. If you leave the bars up and simply spawn a Peahat behind them, it will take care of all the Carmadillos, while you can watch safely. Fight smart, not hard.

I took a sneak peek at Eldin Volcano, but the Moldorms were annoying me, so I kept going clockwise around Hyrule Castle. The Lost Woods, which are called the "Eternal Forest" now, have a similar barrier around them like in Breath of the Wild, so you can't just enter them from any side with your echoes. I did explore most of them nevertheless, where the barrier feels a bit pointless, but I don't know yet what I have to do here.

Same with the weird tombstones inside the Still World for the graveyard. So, I will have to return there as well... But it was nice seeing the cathedral in such an ethereal place. It does have stained glass at its back now, so the old secret passage is definitely gone.

At least this is a place from A Link to the Past that has kept its importance, somewhat, so that's great to see. The witch's hut is gone as well, but Dampé's new shack seems to be close by. He wasn't there yet, though.

And then we have the Eastern Palace, which is now called the "Eastern Temple". As far as I know, it was always called "East Temple" in Japanese, but they could have kept things consistent in English. This is where I found the first major surprise in the game for me, so better stop reading if you haven't checked this out yourself yet...

This turned out to be a mini-dungeon focused on Sparks, where you need to redirect them into some containers to power them up. Already in the first room with such a puzzle I thought that this felt quite similar to the Smog boss battle from Oracle of Ages...

But I quickly figured out that you can use Octoroks to defeat the Sparks, which trivializes these puzzles, because you can simply create echoes of Sparks right before the container. The dungeon also teaches you this shortly after, so it's even intentional.

And wouldn't you know it... At the end you have to fight Smog from Oracle of Ages, which is the first reoccurrence in the series. I had a feeling, because there was this voice telling you that it wants to play a game, and then you had these puzzles in the same vein.

And it makes so much sense to have this boss return in Echoes of Wisdom, since the Tri Rod is effectively the Cane of Somaria on steroids. The battle is also a lot more challenging, because Smog keeps firing at a higher rate and the environments are bit more complicated, since you can place more than just a single block.

But this is such a great throwback. This is for me on the same level of fan service as when they put Phantoon into Metroid: Other M, for example. Of course the Zelda series has brought back classic bosses countless times, but it's usually your Gohma, King Dodongo, and so on. This is more special, but also a very good fit. And that's how you do nostalgia!

They could have just thrown some Armos or Eyegores into the Eastern Palace and that would have been nice, but they decided to use this place as a celebration of one of the most unique bosses from Oracle of Ages.

It does make me wonder if Grezzo was secretly working on a remake of the Oracle games after all and now have re-used those assets. But I suppose there is simply a big fan of Oracle of Ages somewhere in the development team, since you also get the Sea and River Zora differentiation.

Smog also just flies away and you will meet again. My best guess is that this will happen at the old Desert Palace Temple, where they could have mini-dungeons in all of the three classic A Link to the Past dungeon locations.

That's it for today. Not much progress made, but I've seen a lot of the new Hyrule. I also wanted to highlight the new save system, which is probably the best of all the Zelda Switch games yet. You get five auto saves, one manual save, but also two different save files. And you can't accidentally overwrite the other, as you could in Link's Awakening. Once you've loaded a save file in the beginning, it sticks to it. The only complaint I have here is that it defaults to "no" when selecting a save file in the beginning. That's a bit unnecessary...

Apropos loading, I have this weird flickering whenever the screen gets dark and it loads an area. Not sure if this is a problem with my Switch, or my TV, or a general issue, but I don't have this with any other Switch game.

Echoes of Wisdom Adventure Log, Entry 1 ~ Suthorn Ruins

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.

And I must say... I didn't like it. It's not because of the game mechanics – I enjoy both the echoes and the Swordfighter mode so far, and it's quite fun to "collect" all those things from the environment to make them part of your arsenal. But because of this new ability Grezzo felt that they need to make it heavily tutorialized and very linear, which is the opposite of how I want a Zelda game to go.

It's not that it needs to be 100% open from the start. It makes sense to set some boundaries and steer you towards one dungeon, especially in the early game. Link's Awakening does the same and that's my absolute favorite Zelda game, after all... The difference is that within those boundaries the Game Boy classic usually gives you some good amount of freedom. The Mysterious Woods are quite open, for example, and the Tail Cave always offers you multiple directions to take. It makes things more interesting.

In the beginning of Echoes of Wisdom, however, you are funneled on every step of the way. There are some optional caves at the sidelines, but otherwise you are following a line. The Suthorn Ruins are probably the most linear dungeon that I have played in quite some time and that's sickening. At least they didn't force you to play a mini-game where you have to herd goats, but it was getting close to that territory. It even took me two whole hours to get out of that tutorial phase...

In that sense it probably wasn't the best idea to replay Link's Awakening before this, since that game handles its linear approach a lot more nicely. Also, it took me a while to get used to the controls, because here you jump with B and the sword is on Y, while it was the other way around for me in Link's Awakening, which allowed Ganon to kick my butt quite hard, though I still managed to win. But I do actually prefer the controls of Echoes of Wisdom, since "attack with Y, jump/dodge with B" is quite common in Action Adventures these days.

It also surprised me to see that you have the Swordsman's Bombs in the beginning of the game as well, which are used with the A button. This somehow has completely eluded me from all the preview materials, but that's of course another upgrade that you will get for the Swordfighter mode at some point. I also love how overpowered the Swordsman's Bow is, where you can charge it to shoot three arrows at once.

That's a really good system, I'm not sure why they have never done this before, because this feels so natural. The triple arrows were either some general bow upgrade, or a special bow, a perk from a costume (the Kokiri Clothes), or something similar. Well, the Slingshot in Four Swords Adventures worked like that, so I guess it was done before... just not with a bow.

Arrows and bombs are also unlimited, like in all the multiplayer games, but that makes sense here and only adds to the feeling of power. You could spam arrows at everything like a madman and it felt great. This is, of course, to give you a good taste of what Zelda's swordfighter form will offer later on, just more balanced due to its timer.

Anyway, despite being so linear I thought that the opening sequence of Link fighting Ganon was really strong. This game starts where many other classic Zelda games end and that's epic. You even get 20 full Heart Containers for the battle, and some of Ganon's attack will take away three hearts at once. This was a really cool sequence.

Then you take control of Zelda and run from a rift, where I was inclined to see what happens if the rift catches you, but too afraid that this might result in a Game Over... There is no damage from falling into an abyss in the game, however, which has been done before, but it's a rarity.

Afterwards you are brought to Hyrule Castle Town and can look around for a bit. It's so much funnier to go into people's houses and break pots as Zelda, especially since people react to it in this game. It's one thing to do it as Link, but as the royal princess it's just hilarious to act like a crazy person. In my case it was probably deserved that they have thrown her in jail right after...

It was also fun to mess around with the guards during the stealth section, where I like how it's not immediately over when they spot you, like it used to be the case in pretty much every Zelda game with a stealth section before. Ocarina of Time or The Minish Cap come to mind here. But it's noteworthy how both Zelda games that let you play as Zelda somehow, the other being Spirit Tracks, start off with sneaking out of Hyrule Castle...

Well, this is where you learn you most basic building echoes, but after reaching the Suthorn Village, it seems like many of the echoes you learn afterwards are purely optional, like the Peahat. They are found in the caves on the sidelines that I've mentioned earlier... And this makes me already wonder about something like a "minimal echo run", where you learn as few echoes as possible for beating the game.

Though, this idea only sounds fun on paper, because it might make the combat very awkward if you limit yourself like that. I found the Peahat to be especially helpful, which made it easy to take care of enemies like the Darknuts. And then the Darknuts turned out to be quite helpful fighting Link. Dropping Sea Urchins into an enemy's face works quite well, but I wouldn't want to do it for the entirety of the game. But with that particular echo it felt right to have them on the same button as your sword, because I was effectively going into melee combat.

As for the first dungeon, I already mentioned that it was simply too linear, but I do like how they have changed maps to include the side-scrolling tunnels. Finishing a dungeon also does a number of things at once. Most importantly, it restores the surrounding area to what it's supposed to be, where I was surprised to see that Tri's friends are simply lots and lots of little Tris.

Curiously, I found Tri to be the least annoying part of the tutorial. It showed up and talked to you a couple of times, but it always felt appropriate and I like the humor they are going with here. "You can't go through bars? Oh..."

Tri also receives another triangle for summoning echoes, and you get some Might Crystals, which can be used to either upgrade your Mysterious Sword or to extend the duration of swordfighter mode, your choice.

This is done at Lueburry's lab, this game's Sheikah scientist, who is exploring the rifts and has been doing so together with Link for quite some time, with the most Asian background music possible. You also learn here that Link has lost his ability to speak from the rifts, as an explanation why he doesn't talk in this particular game.

But other than Tri's triangles and the Might Crystals, which are both used for powering you up, there doesn't seem to be some MacGuffin item to collect from the dungeons. It's simply about clearing the rifts and that feels very natural.

Now, at this point you're given two destinations: large rifts above the Gerudo Desert and the Jabul Waters. So, I'm hopeful that my big complaint about the beginning of the game will resolve itself and things get more exploration-friendly from now on. I'll keep you posted...

Echoes of Wisdom ~ Nintendo Switch Icons

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.

Got Echoes of Wisdom

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).

Zelda Fest 2024

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.