The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - A Nostalgic Return to Hyrule

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom review - "A refreshing, magic-filled retool of the Link's Awakening engine"

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy. At its best, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom lets players go off script to create a-ha moments that Zelda games genuinely haven't seen before. Slotting a magician into the shoes of a longtime sword-and-shield hero is mostly amazing in action: convert longtime Hyrulian monsters to do our bidding, then manipulate the world to redefine where, when, and how we can go. At its worst, Echoes of Wisdom runs out of good ideas too quickly; what could have been a classic 12-hour game instead slightly drags at the 18-to-20 hour mark. The results feel like a higher-budget take on the portable-first Zelda games of old - think Link's Awakening or Minish Cap. If you're looking forward to Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, expect a modest helping of Nintendo-caliber adventure inside an interesting, albeit imperfect, balance between the familiar and the new. We start with a Link fake-out. Don the usual green tunic, destroy monsters, and defeat the Zelda-kidnapping big-bad, Ganon. This intro loudly assumes we know classic Legend of Zelda archetypes in order to break them apart - much like how Zelda smashes her way out of a Ganon trap after, surprise, surprise, Link has been sealed away in the game's first few minutes. The focus immediately shifts to Zelda, at which point we learn that Link's fate isn't isolated. Rifts have opened across Hyrule, and in some cases, the people trapped inside their time-frozen realm have been spat back into the real world as sneaky doppelgangers. The royal guard, including Zelda's father, is now in its evil era, demanding Zelda's imprisonment. As Link's traditional gear (sword, shield, bow, bombs) has also disappeared, Zelda's only hope to free her subjects and save Hyrule is the Tri Wand, a gift from a Navi-like spirit named Tri. This tool activates the game's two core abilities: conjuring new monsters and materials, and "binding" (grabbing) existing ones. The former are known as echoes, and Zelda can add these to her spellbook whenever she first encounters any non-living material that Nintendo deems echo-worthy. Yes to things like pots and blocks of ice; no to rupees, bridges, or larger boulders. Zelda can learn how to make echo versions of nearly every enemy, who battle on your behalf, with larger, boss-sized monsters being an exception. You can spin up unlimited echoes, so long as you stay within whatever maximum number of points Tri can muster (this number goes up as Tri gains power). This is the primary limiting factor throughout Echoes of Wisdom. In traversal, you can only build so many parts to a makeshift bridge or ladder; make it too big, and the very first echo vanishes to restore your Tri points, thus collapsing your creation. In battle, one armor-clad, sword-wielding Moblin is the same as four wimpy, flying, homing-attack Keese. Each option is effective, and fun, for different reasons. The bind function offers two ways for the Tri Wand to grab echoes and other objects in the wild. The first is a basic grab, with the object or echo following Zelda's movement. Need to lift and move something heavy, particularly if it could solve a puzzle or it's otherwise out of reach? Want to use an echo as a shield? Bind to it, even at a reasonable distance so long as you have line of sight, and you can move it. The second type of bind is best described as a "follow," as it lets Zelda tag along to an echo's default movement. If you want to follow a crawling spider up a wall or a moving platform across a gap, use the "follow" bind. That's a substantial combination of tools to play with on Echoes of Wisdom's canvas, and I could reliably expect satisfying rewards and feedback whenever I pushed the game to its magic-casting limits. Treasure lines the map's furthest reaches, tallest cliffs, and most hidden paths, always confirming that, yes, we were supposed to build a rickety bridge-ladder-thing over there. And the act of dropping ideal enemies in a frenetic battle comes with satisfying visual and audio feedback. Conjure an upgraded Lizalfos, then watch it insta-strike with a long spear, followed by a swift leap-dodge while staring your foe down before attacking again. In its first few hours, Echoes of Wisdom teaches the Tri Wand's powers through a neatly choreographed range of linear and open-world quests. New echoes appear at a satisfying cadence, each opening up new reasons to flip through Zelda's collection and experiment, while dungeons focus Zelda's attention on puzzles where only a few echoes, and/or a clever use of the bind function, will lead to a solution. Figuring out what to conjure, bind to, move, and battle is a frequent Echoes of Wisdom delight - and knowing I could sometimes deal with a puzzle or battle in dozens of ways accentuated the choices I made. But once my deck exceeded 60, I slammed into echo fatigue. This is due in large part to Nintendo's excruciating lack of echo sorting options. Players can't tap "like" on a favorite to quickly access it. They can't create smaller radial wheels of 8-10 grouped echoes (ie "combat," "traversal," "stealth," "fire," "ice") for easier reference. A few sorting options like "most used," "last learned," and "type" help a bit, but they just order the full echo roster in a left-to-right menu. Since Echoes of Wisdom revolves so heavily around this menu system, especially during combat, these extra seconds add up and get in the way - enough so that I eventually picked a few "good enough" echoes and spammed them for most of my adventure. Not helping matters is the iffy AI attached to the echo monsters Zelda generates, which makes many of the available echo monsters either redundant or unappealing. In particular, targeting enemies with an echo often doesn't work. Echoes will "home" at their targets by rushing in a straight line, but if they take too long to attack, or bump into an immovable object like a wall or stone, they'll meander away in confusion. Zelda eventually unlocks a timer-limited way to transform into "swordfighter" mode - with Link's sword, shield, and a few boosted abilities - and in moments of echo frustration, it's easier to just turn into Link. I didn't love that conclusion as an occasional Echoes of Wisdom takeaway as instead of feeling rewarded for leaning into Zelda's exciting new series identity, I took the easy Link way out. The Hyrule in Echoes of Wisdom is largely defined by smaller-stakes stories spread across its landscape. Zelda and Tri are tasked with healing the biggest rifts breaking the land apart, and each has some kind of plot attached, usually defined by interpersonal conflict. These stories range from amusing and memorable (particularly a Zora village feud over musical instruments) to floaty and generic, and they might have landed better if Zelda and Tri's own journey had weight. I found myself surprised and crestfallen by how little redemption Zelda enjoys on her first-ever rise to magic-wielding, Hyrule-saving superhero. Spoilers aside, the ending left a bad taste in my mouth - perhaps because a lot of missions saw Zelda merely running from point A to point B, no clever puzzles or echoes needed, in order to read pages of unskippable dialogue. We learn much more about an abominable snowman named Condé and a cotton candy-obsessed village of Dekus than we do about Zelda's realized potential. The 3D engine that powered 2019's Link's Awakening remake has apparently been reused to build Echoes of Wisdom, and it doesn't add much new to that game's pleasing toy-world aesthetic. Traditional Zelda series biomes (lava, ice, desert, swamp) are reused with little in the way of exciting new visual trickery, while the game's framerate fluctuates often enough to be at best distracting and at worst debilitating in the middle of frantic action. The biggest positive exception is the Still World, a satisfyingly hallucinogenic space where Zelda and Tri must traverse and puzzle-solve to reach each of the game's dungeons. Nintendo should honestly consider making an entire game in the Still World, which slaps random terrain into floating, outer-space levels like something out of a Super Mario Galaxy fever dream. If you like the Zelda series for music, Echoes of Wisdom may be worth buying just for its soundtrack. Its songs are careful to draw inspiration from classic Zelda leitmotifs while charting entirely new, surprisingly pleasant melodies in every single biome - and the full, live orchestration is top-notch. It's the game's biggest surprise by far; do not play this game on mute. But nitpicking Echoes of Wisdom is easy, and I have others like arguably unsatisfying bosses who can be spammed with simple tactics instead of requiring clever echo use. Celebrating the game's most clever moments is trickier, whether because I want to avoid spoilers or because the possibilities inside Echoes of Wisdom's best puzzles, dungeons, and open-world sequences are truly so vast. The end result is as good of a compromise as I could imagine between the tight confines of a classic, top-down Zelda game and the wild, massive potential of something like Breath of the Wild. After beating Echoes of Wisdom, I began dreaming of a sequel - one where monster and traversal echoes feel more differentiated, where echo menus work better, and where new limits on certain echoes might force more creativity. To the game's credit, those thoughts came after many of my major Zelda series dreams had already been fulfilled: I got the top-down series remix I'd been dying for since 2013's Link Between Worlds had only hinted at such ambitions. In all, Nintendo and Grezzo have pulled off a surprisingly refreshing retooling of the Link's Awakening engine. All hail Princess Zelda.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Review - A Wink to the Past

"Why are the games called 'The Legend of Zelda' when you always play as Link?" is an inescapable question asked by pretty much everybody who encounters Nintendo's beloved series, and yet, the company has never really provided a satisfactory answer beyond, "Uh, just because." Well, this four-decade-long confusing state of affairs is being resolved (for now) as The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom finally gives the Princess herself a starring role. This also marks the first original 2D Zelda title since 2013's A Link Between Worlds, so a lot of longstanding fan requests are being satisfied at once here. Is The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom another properly-epic entry in the franchise? Or does the game take some unwise steps? Time to shine the spotlight on Zelda's big debut... The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom begins on a familiar note, as Link, controlled by the player for a few brief minutes, battles Ganon in order to save Princess Zelda. Ah, but upon taking down the big pig, a mysterious rift opens open, drawing Link in. Just before our green-clad hero disappears into the depths, he manages to free Zelda from her crystalline prison with a well-placed arrow and she escapes with an ever-growing rift on her heels. From this point on, the player takes on the role of Zelda, and it becomes clear this version of Hyrule isn't in great shape. The land is beset by numerous rifts, which have a habit of sucking in innocent citizens and producing evil copies in their place. This happens to Zelda's dad the King, whose doppelganger promptly sends her to the dungeon. Thankfully, Zelda's adventure doesn't end there, as she soon meets Tri, a little energy sprite eager to help with her quest, and gets her hands on the Tri Rod, a powerful wand that allows her to create "echoes" of various objects and enemies. It seems Tri's spherical friends have long been tasked containing Hyrule's rifts, which connect to a dark alternate dimension known as the Still World, but somebody or something has been trapping them, allowing the rifts to spread unchecked. Armed with the Tri Rod and Tri's ability to enter the Still World at key locations, it's up to Zelda to clean up the rifts, find Link and the King, and figure out what's behind all this turmoil. It's certainly great to see Zelda step out of her usual supporting role in Echoes of Wisdom, but if you're expecting a plot that feels markedly different from what this series has served up in the past, you may be disappointed. The game doesn't really do much with Zelda as a character, nor does it do a lot to develop her relationship with Link. While Nintendo does throw out a bit of a mid-game twist, the overall plot is short of big shocks or emotional stakes and its big finale feels like a minor letdown from a storytelling standpoint. Of course, most Zelda stories are relatively simple, but the best ones still manage to deliver occasional affecting, memorable moments. Echoes of Wisdom's story, by comparison, just kind of washes over you, leaving little behind. All that said, while Echoes of Wisdom's story doesn't quite captivate, it's version of Hyrule does. 2D Zelda worlds have often felt a bit lonely, but Echoes of Wisdom brings a Breath-of-the-Wild-like vibrancy to its Hyrule. This take on Hyrule includes around half a dozen towns, each bustling with unique and charming NPCs worth getting to know. The quirky side of Zelda is on full display here, as you can indulge in pastimes like dressing up like a cat to talk to Hyrule's feline population, finding stamps for a distinctly Tingle-like collector, and more. This is all brought to life via the same charming toy-like presentation as the 2019 Link's Awakening remake, albeit with a new level of detail and variety. Thankfully, while you'll still encounter some stutters and stumbles, Echoes of Wisdom also runs better than the Link's Awakening remake. So, even if EoW's story didn't always grab me, I was eager to get back to the game's Hyrule and its many colorful residents even after rolling credits. Echoes of Wisdom's Hyrule is larger and more open than past 2D entries in the series (it's at least twice as large as A Link to the Past's map), but make no mistake, those looking for a bit more structure after back-to-back "open-air" Zeldas will be pleased. While there are certain points in Echoes of Wisdom where you can choose the order in which you tackle a handful of regions and their dungeons, the rifts covering Hyrule allow the game's developers to lock off parts of the map and lead you through a fairly specific campaign. While I don't deny that clever fans may eventually discover something, I don't think there's a way to jump directly to the end of the game or skip any key steps along the way. That may irk some, but, personally, I've increasingly begun to feel the "finish the game whenever you want" gimmick of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom hurt those games' campaigns more than it helped. Most of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom's campaign follows a set formula - venture to a new region, meet the people that live there, then complete two or three smaller tasks in order to access the entry spot to that region's large rift, which contains its dungeon. The most common of the lesser tasks you have to complete is clearing out small rifts, which almost feel like platformer stages (EoW gives you a full-on jump button). These small rifts task players with navigating floating debris in order to free several of Tri's friends (usually four of five bunches of them) which does bring to mind the "collect X number of things" approach of BotW and TotK's dungeons in a way that may illicit groans from a segment of the Zelda fanbase. That said, small rifts are generally brief (most don't take more than 20 minutes) and don't wear on you. In addition to the small rifts, other challenges are mixed in - stealth sections, puzzle-filled caves, ect. Once you've completed your three-or-so lesser objectives, it's time to enter the large rift, all of which contain a dungeon. And yes, for those concerned, these are real, full-on dungeons with small keys, a boss key, map, and the whole deal. In fact, these dungeons feel notably old-school, like a modernization of the labyrinths you may have once tromped through in A Link to the Past or Link's Awakening. Needless to say, the "Bring back real dungeons!" lobby should be pleased by what Echoes of Wisdom serves up (a hearty seven full dungeons and some other dungeon-like experiences beyond that). Zelda may be new to this adventuring thing, but she has no shortage of tools for exploring Hyrule, the Still World, and its dangerous dungeons. Of course, Echoes of Wisdom's spotlight tool is the Tri Rod, which allows Zelda to summon echoes of mundane objects tables and beds, more fantastical things like floating cubes of water and flying floor tiles, and basically ever non-boss enemy you encounter in the game. Your summoned monsters can be siced on other baddies or, in some cases, used for other purposes (you can glide while clutching a Keese and spiders create climbable threads, for example). Tri can also "bind" to things you create, and a few other objects, allowing you to move them around at a distance much like Ultrahand Grab function from TotK, adding another layer to EoW's puzzle-solving toolbox. While I haven't carefully counted them all, I've probably collected nearly 100 echoes, and while it's cool to have so many options at your disposal, sifting through them all can be a minor annoyance. The game does give you limited options for sorting your echoes -- by last one used, most used, the last acquired, and so on -- but there are going to be times where you're stuck just scrolling through your increasingly-long list for the thing you need. That said, the game does pause when you're navigating your list and in most areas and dungeons you can get by with a half-dozen-or-so key echoes of your choice. Nintendo has heavily hyped the freedom the echo system give players, but in my experience, Echoes of Wisdom's puzzles are a bit less open-ended than something like Tears of the Kingdom. Typically, there is a set solution to a puzzle -- move a rock that's behind a gate onto a switch, for instance -- with the player having some freedom about what specific combination of objects and enemies they want to use to proceed. It's rare that you're able to fully short-circuit or skip a puzzle as you can in BotW or TotK, or at least I wasn't able to. Again, I don't discount that particularly clever fans will figure out things I didn't, but generally speaking, EOW feels like it provides a healthy measure of freedom within the confines of a more traditional Zelda structure, which actually felt like a nice balance to me. I realize some may miss the giddy "do whatever, all the time" ethos of the open-air Zeldas, but the series' classic approach to puzzle and world design is something many fans, myself included, find satisfying in its own right. There's room for both approaches here in 2024. While I enjoyed The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom's approach to puzzle and dungeon design, I wasn't always captivated by its combat. As mentioned, players can summon any number of different monsters and direct them to attack other enemies using a basic targeting system. This works, but only just, as your AI allies are pretty stupid, attacking slowly and often getting stuck on or behind objects. They'll eventually get the job done, and you can pitch in by tossing rocks and other objects at baddies, but the process feels too drawn out, particularly early on when you only have low-level monsters at your command. But Echoes of Wisdom doesn't force you to rely entirely on monster echoes to do your fighting. Relatively early on, you'll gain the ability to transform into Swordfighter Form, which allows you to tackle enemies head-on with a sword, and later, a bow and bombs. Unfortunately, you can only get to wield a sword for a fairly limited time, with an energy bar quickly dwindling while you're in the form. Limiting the use of Swordfighter Form is a somewhat questionable decision to begin with, but it can be downright frustrating at times given the limited amount of energy the game gives you. Floating bits of energy are found in the Still World and are dropped by some enemies, but it's surprisingly hard to come by, even at times when a lot of energy is required like during boss battles. You can keep your energy bar topped up by consuming various "smoothies," which you can create via a simple crafting system. This is a cute idea, but you can't mix up a smoothie just anywhere, as they're only produced by a handful of vendors scattered around Hyrule. This resulted in me frequently having to back out of dungeons just before the final boss so I could go back to a town and craft additional smoothies for the energy I'd need. A fairly generous checkpoint system makes this not too much of a trial, but this whole system feels like it could have been smoothed out a bit. Now, before you get too worried, I'm not saying combat in Echoes of Wisdom is bad. You will likely get the hang of it eventually, Swordfighter Form can be leveled up to give you a longer energy bar and stronger weapons, and you can even find gear that makes energy easier to come by. By the end of the game, I was quite comfortable with combat, but I can't help but feel like the developers overthought things slightly. Simply giving Zelda the ability to use traditional weapons and summon echoes all the time might have been better. As is, Echoes of Wisdom is a 2D Zelda, which have typically thrived on their simplicity and playability, that can feel a bit fussy at times. Ultimately though, any fussiness doesn't obscure what Echoes of Wisdom is at its core -- a really good, modern take on the traditional Zelda format, with excellent old-school dungeons and an enticing world. And really, it's some of the game's less-flashy new features I enjoyed the most. The more responsive-feeling controls and platforming, the addition of a wide array of engaging sidequests, the ability to ride a dang horse in a 2D Zelda! This is the old-school Zelda you love, polished up to meet modern expectations. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdoms brings a lot of different things to the table, and in large quantities. The game is easily the franchise's biggest 2D entry to date, offering up a story that took me 25 hours to complete and enough side content to keep you playing a dozen or more hours beyond that. Zelda's first adventure as a headliner is no mere morsel, it's royal banquette that ought to leave most fans feeling satisfied for some time. This review was based on a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom provided by publisher Nintendo. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom brings some new ideas to the table, but in the end, the game is more about modernizing the classic 2D Zelda experience. The attention-grabbing echo copying mechanic has its pros and cons, but where Echoes of Wisdom consistently hits is in the tried-and-true design of its world and dungeons, which are as good as any the franchise has delivered in the past. This may be Zelda's first starring adventure, but past Legends still echo strongly here.