GamerEscape

When it comes to the Legend of Zelda series, I’ve always found myself gravitating more to the 2D iterations rather than the more modern 3D ones. Sure, I’ve had my fun with Ocarina of Time and such, but I will happily pick Link’s Awakening or the Oracle games over it any day. And, it pains me to say, the direction of the more modern entries – Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom – have turned me away completely.

As such, seeing Nintendo announce a new Legend of Zelda entry that sticks closer to the classic 2D formula immediately caught my attention. Not just that, but a seemingly-puzzle-heavy entry that flips the usual script on its head, putting the player in the shoes not of perrenial series protagonist Link, but of the namesake character that’s usually sitting on the sidelines: Princess Zelda herself.

At this year’s PAX West, we had the opportunity to go hands-on with the opening hours of this upcoming title, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. What I had the chance to experience confirmed to me that not only is this the kind of Zelda game that I’ve been looking for, but its core systems are practically made for a player such as myself – one that has always preferred the puzzle side of the Zelda franchise.

Considered as the newest entry in the mainline series, Echoes of Wisdom takes place in a brand new Hyrule. While you may see some familiar faces and places, this is an entry that is unconnected to previous versions of Hyrule.

Unusual “rifts” have suddenly started appearing across Hyrule, otherworldly cracks in reality that are stealing away both the land and the people. After nearly escaping being caught in a rift herself, the game begins with Princess Zelda being suspected as the catalyst for the rifts beginning to appear, and is imprisoned in Hyrule Castle.

This is where my demo began, with Zelda in her jail cell meeting an etherial creature that calls itself “Tri.” The creature gives Zelda the “Tri Rod,” a weapon that lets her create “echoes” – essentially being able to copy objects and creatures in the world and paste them back in as a clone wherever she’d like.

A quick tutorial on the use of echoes quickly gets me out of jail and into the first real gameplay portion, where I’m tasked with avoiding castle guards to escape. This was my first chance to flex the echoes system, as there were mulitple approach options presented. Maybe I could stack up some echoes of tables and beds to climb up and over the guards? Perhaps create a pot echo and throw it to distract them? Toss down some box echoes to hide behind? Right from the outset, I was rather impressed by the number of possible approaches.

After leaving the castle and exploring a local village a bit, I was then taken to the second part of the demo: a full dungeon experience. This part saw Zelda jumping into one of the rifts and into the “Still World,” an area where everything taken by the rifts drifts in some kind of stasis.

Up to this point, there was one real question I had about Echoes of Wisdom. While it is definitely a more puzzle-focused game, gleaning from trailers and my hands-on so far, there is still combat in this game. But what would it look like? Going through this dungeon revealed the answer, which is that it is just as varied and puzzle-like as the rest of the game thus far.

Aside from being able to cast echoes of creatures, I was introduced to a few more mechanics. First was “Bind,” in which Zelda throws Tri at an object and is then able to push/pull it around. Related was “Reverse Bind,” where Zelda can hook onto a bound object and be moved along with it. Lastly, and most directly for combat, was “Swordfighter Form,” where Zelda can temporarily take on an alternate form that looks strangely like Link and attack directly with a sword.

Mixing and matching all of these abilities created a wonderfully varied approach to combat. Summon a bunch of snakes to ram your enemy to death? Sure. Summon a spear-throwing enemy, bind it, and move it around like a mobile turret? Go for it. Light something on fire and drag it into your enemy? Have fun!

There is a bit of a trade-off here, in that (at least in the portions of the game I played) the combat here is a bit slower than in past Legend of Zelda games. The game seems more about planning your approach to any given encounter rather than simply slashing your way through, so the pacing feels more deliberate.

As I worked my way through the demo, there was one concern I had: juggling echoes. By the end of the dungeon, I had 15-20 different echoes I could use, and this was just a snippet of the opening hours of the game. Voicing these concerns, I was pointed to a sorting option the game offers.

When you pull up your list of echoes, there are options to sort them by most used, most recently acquired, category, and a few other options. A full menu can also be opened to pause the action, flip through all of your echoes, and equip one directly. While sorting options seem like a good addition, I still have concerns about how well they’ll work once exponentially more echoes become available to use. While this does seem like a slower paced Legend of Zelda game, having to do a substantial amount of menuing still doesn’t sound like a great time.

Even with that concern in mind, what I experienced of Echoes of Wisdom left me pleased and a bit excited. It’s been over a decade since Nintendo has released a top-down 2D-formula Zelda title that wasn’t a remake (2013’s A Link Between Worlds), so I’m glad to see that my personal favorite style of Zelda hasn’t been forgotten. The shift to a more deliberately-paced puzzle-heavy system may give some fans pause, but as a fan of the puzzle-heavy entries (Oracle of Ages in particular), I say bring it on.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is set for release on September 26th, 2024, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.

Screenshots courtesy of Nintendo.