| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| Nintendo Switch | 9.20 |
| Overall | 9.20 |
|
New open style Zelda is obviously all the rage now, the series abandoning its more linear focus for creative gameplay. Echoes of Wisdom is Nintendo’s best attempt to bridge the old and the new. Zelda’s first foray as the star is an excellent return to classic style Zelda while keeping the creative spirit the newer games deliver. The big change with this Zelda game is you play as Zelda and the mechanisms she has is different than Link. She carries a wand that allows her to copy any enemy and loads of different objects which she can summon at any time as long as she has the required amount of tri power. Later she gains the ability to grab objects much like the ultra hand in TOTK, this in conjunction with the ability to conjure nearly anything anywhere creates all the free form gameplay you need. If you saw any of the trailers you saw she gets a Link sword fighter form as well which uses a meter to stay powered, this allows for some direct combat. All these elements work in tandem to create a game that extremely interesting to play. Let’s start with the echoes, the main gameplay element, which works like a free form item system. It’s really cool to be able to summon a bed to reach a higher place, or a pot to throw at an enemy, or a flaming slug to burn down spider webs and so on. For the most part these echoes substitute the usual Zelda items, you get an echo that lets you reach higher places, you get echoes that let you bomb things, echoes with elemental properties, echoes that create large heavy objects to put on switches and so on. This isn’t TOTK, you aren’t building a mech, this system allows for the classic Zelda item system to be more open and allows those items to combine in unique ways. With over 130 echoes to collect there is basically an echo that mirrors nearly every Zelda item in history, so just imagine having every tool across Zelda history, it’s fun. One odd choice though is that even though you end up with 130 echoes they are selected across just one massive bar of echoes with a few ways to sort them. You can’t save favorites, you can’t have a cross bar with multiple bars to differentiate types. It’s clunky but you learn to maximize the sorting options like use your favorites a lot so they appear in the most used sort. Despite the free form gameplay Echoes manages to keep the 2D Zelda because progression happens as it did before with a twist. You start with no echoes, as you traverse the first area you gain the first few which allows you to reach a few new areas that give you better echoes to reach more and so on. If you stay on the main quest path it feels totally like a classic Zelda adventure. But if you want freedom no 2D Zelda since the original allows you to go anywhere in the world right away like this one. The echo system is so flexible that you can manipulate echoes to reach end level places and get echoes you probably shouldn’t have early on if you’d like. No other 2D Zelda lets you jump on the boarders of the world, every mountain and forest can be climbed over, what were barriers before are now just obstacles to be traversed. I could not get enough of this overworld, I was finding hidden heart pieces and caves all over. The overworld itself is massive for a 2D Zelda even though it is a modified version of ALTTP. Take that map and spread out the fields, lakes, deserts and that’s kind of how this map was extended. It’s so large it’s the first 2D Zelda that lets you ride a horse, it’s not really needed but it’s nice to have and there is a fun horse mini game. Honestly it felt more like a 3D Zelda game in how you visit each of the different inhabitants of Hyrule areas and solve problems before reaching the areas dungeon. This is a quest heavy Zelda game with multiple story quests to accomplish before reaching each dungeon and loads of side quests to do from the many many NPCs. Some of the side quests are standard fetch quests but many of them lead to a mini game or some secret cave leading to more puzzles. There is just stuff everywhere, I was so excited to explore every inch of this world and it happens at such a great pace, the pace of 2D Zelda. Puzzles are the focus of this game, the twist being there are now multiple solutions for puzzles. Some of them involve manipulating an object to another spot, this can be done with the grab option but to move it you need to be able to move along with it and many times you need to create that path using echoes. There are twists in the light multiple torches puzzles, now the spots that need to be lit are harder to reach so you need to figure out how to get fire to those spots. You can summon a flaming blob which can be carried and thrown but if the torch is high up maybe summon a fire keese, grab it from the air and move it to the torch. There are 2D sections like in the old GB Zelda games, this also presents all kinds of unique puzzle opportunities l, usually navigation puzzles like creating boulders to block air vents, using spiders to create web vines to climb and so on. Grab has a reverse feature which allows Zelda to have the object take her, say there are floating platforms, you can latch on and go for the ride even if you can’t reach the platform. Once you get a spider which climbs any wall you can summon the spider, reverse grip it and the spider will take you up any wall, shows the freedom of this system. These twists on classic puzzles kept me engaged for most of the game, especially the first half as I was gaining more and more echoes. Each new echo creating a new way to solve these puzzles, it was exciting and fresh. That said as the game went on some repetition set in, the kinds of echoes started to repeat, it became more about finding better ways to do an action rather than a new action. Like so many Zelda games and Nintendo games in general, this game doesn’t ever reach the second layer of complexity for these puzzles. A bunch of these ideas can fill an entire puzzle game, just one element, it’s always a shame when Nintendo just stays on the surface of what can be done. Combat is different with Zelda not having a direct attack unless in Link mode. Instead the best way to dispatch enemies is to use echoes of enemies you have defeated, creating a sort of Pokémon style collect them all and use them in battle effect. I saw some complaints about the combat in a few reviews, they couldn’t be more wrong, this games combat is a joy and it might be hard to go back to standard 2D Zelda combat. If you want to be boring you can just summon a big darknut and stand around while he slowly kills enemies or you can be creative. Some enemies fly out acting like a projectile missile like the snakes or one of my go to echoes a rolling armadillo enemy which bounces off walls. Want to overwhelm an enemy quickly summon a horde of crabs, you can push them out so fast that they become a crab wall between you and the enemy. Part of the fun of exploration can be finding higher level echoes and killing them so you get a powerful summon. Early on there is a giant pea hat hidden in a cave, get that and you have this flying chainsaw of death early on. It doesn’t just stop with summoning enemies, you can use all kinds of environmental echoes to help as well. See enemies near a cliff, summon a giant fan and blow them off. At one point a bird was pecking at me while I was in water defenseless, fish summons couldn’t reach it, so I used the grab feature and dove down into the water dragging the bird with me drowning it. Once I knew that was possible I went full sadistic drowner and summoned water blocks and dragged enemies into them for sudden drown kills. Elemental enemies are obviously weak to their counterpart so having echoes with each element is key. The ultra hand feature can be used to hold enemies in place or move a slow summon around yourself. It can be used to pull shields off all kinds of shields and armor as well. To top it off if you want you can just transform to link mode and you have the classic moveset which can be combined with an army of echoes. The combat system is at its best during the great boss battles, some of the best I’ve seen in 2D Zelda. Most of them require use of the grab to stun them or hold them in place while you use an echo to hit them enough to stun them where you can then go into Link mode for a damage phase. All these bosses have multiple stages and many use the main echo found in the dungeon, though it’s usually optional, having all these different strategies really adds to the spectacle. One Ganon fight in particular was so great, I was summoning giant fans to blow back his fire balls while sending darknuts at him, switching to sword mode just in time to get a few hits in. I found everything about the combat to be fresh, dynamic and exciting. Dungeons return, classic style dungeons with a map and locked doors and keys. Now there are some really great ones later on but overall these are middle of the pack dungeons at best. For the first half they just seem to lack a central puzzle, it feels more like it’s a gauntlet of rooms, each with a neat puzzle or combat situation to solve but not something where you have to think about the layout of the dungeon. The last two I did finally had really interesting unique mechanisms, like powering up different rooms with electricity, giving that feeling of having to learn the layout. The way the echoes are used does allow some leeway in how to navigate the dungeons, I know one of them can have sections skipped by clever use of echoes. I am a completionist so I never wanted to skip but it’s cool for speed runners, I can’t imagine the paths to save time they will come up with. There are eight total major dungeons and a few smaller optional dungeons which houses some quality optional bosses. Throughout the world there are rifts that need be closed and to do so you go into the still world, a sort of chaotic dimension where pieces of the world are broken up and floating in time. These areas will have pieces of land floating in space requiring some bridge making or clever jumping to reach. Sometimes a piece of land is on its side and you climb up horizontal trees or float upward in a sideways body of water. Your goal in these is always the same, find 3 or 5 tri pieces, so all you do is navigate this small area looking for these pieces which glow. Most of the time the puzzle is how to reach it, just the right echo will do. Sometimes you kill an enemy that holds one within. The quality of the puzzles vary, as I said before early on the kinds of situations you find feel unique and interesting but by the like 10th one of these it starts to feel repetitive. Also the still worlds all look alike, I wish more time was put into standard caves and dungeons than this. With such a massive overworld to explore, tons of side quests and even optional dungeons to find there has to be a good amount of rewards, sometimes that reward is worth it and many times not so much. Heart pieces are the big ones, I still don’t feel complete until I have every heart filled in, this always feels like a big reward especially since on hero mode the game is actually dangerous. Rupees also have great use as upgrading different gear and buying certain accessories costs a lot of money. Zelda can wear different accessories to get bonus effects like defense up, longer lasting sword mode, no knockback, faster swim speed and so on. On top of that is an entire smoothie potion system where you find ingredients around the world and mix them at a smoothie stand allowing you to carry like 12 different smoothies on you. The amount you can carry really is overkill but it allows you to have a potion for every situation like prevent freezing, prevent fire damage, refill hearts and sword energy, or just boost defense. On hero difficulty I was getting hit HARD, I used quite a few smoothies to stay alive, maybe I’ll try a no smoothie run for a big challenge. The problem with the ingredients is that they become a very common reward, rather quickly you will be swimming in more ingredients than you will ever need. But you will keep finding loads of chests where you get your 50th piece of butter. Oh there is also a robot maker which creates these automatons based on enemies which are much more powerful versions of enemy echoes but they break if hit. These also take a certain item you find in the world and yeah after a point you will have way more than you need. I found this robot ability to be underbaked, for one I discovered the house halfway through the game after I already had powerful echoes, this just seemed rather pointless. It came in handy with some tough enemies but it’s annoying when they break as you need to travel back to Dampe to repair them. And there are only 6 of them, seems really limited. But hey it’s another neat collectible, like many things in this game it’s optional, all there to let you play as you play. Overall I loved exploring, I found this game to be more rewarding to find everything than say ALBTW and far far less annoying to get around than LA and the oracle games. A big complaint I read in many reviews is the performance. Yes there is the occasional slowdown but nothing that hinders the game experience. To me it was pretty smooth at 30fps, any slow down was very quick. I still love this art style which was used in Link’s Awakening remake, the world and the colors pop so much. There are a few times where you see camera move closer to the ground and it gives you a more traditional 3D view of the world and it looks stunning. The music is great, the main overworld theme of this game will be stuck in my head forever just like all the other great Zelda themes. This is probably the largest and longest 2D Zelda ever made, took me a good 35 hours which is more on par with traditional 3D Zelda games but I also did everything. Echoes of Wisdom is a triumph, it shows that Nintendo can evolve the 2D formula as well as it did the 3D one. Better yet this one doesn’t abandon the structure as much as the newer 3D Zelda’s did, it manages to feel classic and fresh all at the same time. Link is quite possibly my favorite video game hero and somehow this game makes the case that he isn’t as interesting gameplay wise as the heroine he is constantly saving, the gameplay additions are fantastic. I really feel that Nintendo’s lack of wanting to push the puzzles and not have dungeons that frustrate players is really holding this game back from true greatness. Halfway in I thought it would be a top 5 Zelda game for me, sadly it never reached the highs it should so now I feel it’s right in the tier of ALBW and the oracle games. Regardless it’s a joy to play from start to finish and another memorable entry into gaming most prestigious franchise. |
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Posted by Dvader Fri, 11 Oct 2024 03:28:42
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