The Legend of Zelda has been a hit franchise for Nintendo going back to their launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System. When it comes to Nintendo, there’s Mario and Link, and for as long as The Legend of Zelda has been around, there’s only been one thing players haven’t been able to do: play as the titular Zelda. That all changed with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Players can now use and control the legendary princess for the first time in franchise history.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a fairly straightforward game. If you’ve played The Legend of Zelda before, then you understand the concept of what you’ll be doing throughout your time in Hyrule. The biggest difference between this game and any previous The Legend of Zelda title is the ability to play as Zelda and the ability to create echoes of things you encounter within the game. Think of an echo as a duplicate or a copy of something. Here’s how they work.
Let’s say you come across a table, you can now copy that table and then place up to three copies of that object anywhere on the screen. If there’s a gap you need to cross, you can place three different echoes of those tables on top of one another going in a line so you can create a makeshift bridge. You can also create echoes of enemies to do your battling for you since Zelda only has a limited fighting ability, but that doesn’t mean she is anywhere close to helpless.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is structured like any other The Legend of Zelda title. There are a total of eight dungeons you must conquer — I know, shocking. — before you can access the ending. There are also a total of three mini-dungeons you can do as an optional side quest, but these come with really great rewards that are sure to make the rest of your quest easier.
One of the things my wife pointed out concerning the fighting in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is that you either have to run away while your echoes fight for you or you have to use your Link abilities which are limited in scope and take a minute to regain. She said it was kind of lame to have a female character that has to run from enemies to beat them or use the powers of a man and honestly, I’m finding it a bit hard to disagree with her on this one. It’s nice that Zelda has those powers, but it would have been much cooler if she had her own fighting style.
My wife is far from the only person to complain about Zelda’s lack of fighting ability. It especially seems out of place when you consider that Princess Peach: Showtime featured Princess Peach (duh!) taking on all sorts of baddies with a variety of different weapons and outfits. I guess they teach women to fight in the Mushroom Kingdom, but they only teach them to copy and cook in Hyrule. In her review for The Guardian, Keza MacDonald penned that the inability to fight as Zelda was a major reason why she liked the game, but could not love it.
The echoes themselves can also be a bit problematic as you can only put down three at a time in the early going and while there are over 127 different echoes in the game, most people find themselves using a specific variety of them more often than not. In many cases, it feels like there were a lot of good ideas, but nothing truly great, and greatness tends to be what defines this series as a whole. That doesn’t mean this game isn’t worth grabbing.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom may not be great, but neither was the original The Legend of Zelda when compared to some of the later entries in the series. It took time for the series to build up to its greatness and there’s no reason why Nintendo can’t do the same with Zelda at the helm instead of Link. If you enjoy solving puzzles or love the The Legend of Zelda series as a whole, then you’re absolutely going to love The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. I know I did.
BSO Review: 8.75-of-10
