What parents need to know
There are many Zelda games available on Nintendo Switch.
The most famous and well-known are the great 3D adventures in open worlds Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its sequel Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
The new title is called Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and uses the aesthetics and game engine of Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (the remake of the Gameboy title released in 2019).
That is to say that the game takes place mainly in 2D, in top view or side view.
However, some passages will require you to move vertically.
Legend of Link
As the game’s communication has highlighted, it is Princess Zelda that you play in this opus, instead of the knight Link of the rest of the series.
You move through a large map inspired by Legend of Zelda: A Link of the Past and Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, in a cartoon-like universe with characters at the crossroads between minifigures and Mii characters.
The main novelty of this opus is the fact that Princess Zelda has different skills than Link.
Instead of using sword, bombs, bow and boomerang, she has a magic wand (Tri Rod) that allows her to duplicate a wide range of objects and enemies, called echoes.
When duplicated, enemies are then rallied to the princess’s cause and attack other enemies in her place.
The duplicated objects allow him to overcome obstacles by jumping on them.
Zelda can also obtain Link’s sword-wielding abilities for a limited time to take down the most tenacious enemies in a more direct way.
Eventually, Zelda can synchronize her movements on an object, in which case, the object will follow the same trajectory as Zelda.
Or it can do the opposite, and automatically follow the path of the duplicated object or enemy and reach previously inaccessible locations.
That’s a lot of skill and sometimes it’s hard not to get tangled up in the buttons on the controller.
The adventure begins
The story of the game begins like this: After Ganon captured Princess Zelda, the knight Link rushed to her rescue.
After an intense fight, where he seemed to have defeated his enemy, but suddenly, a strange rift opened under his feet and engulfed him, causing him to disappear.
These mysterious rifts began to form all over Hyrule, taking other people with them, including the king and his advisors.
Alone in the face of this threat, Princess Zelda must now take the fate of her kingdom into her own hands in a new adventure.
Only the flaws suit me
Cracks, rifts or rifts are at the center of the game and are the main problem that players have to solve.
Indeed, at the beginning of the game, they have swallowed the environments of Hyrule, and Zelda will go to each of them, enter inside the Still World, find 5 friends of Tri (the magical companion of this episode) and close the crack.
The Still World is a kind of Dark World (from Zelda Link to the Past), an alternate world that is indeed a temporary level allowing you to teach yourself the use of new skills through the acquisition of new Echoes.
After closing 1 or 2 small cracks, Zelda usually takes care of the large crack which is then a classic dungeon like in the rest of the series, with small key, boss key and boss at the end.
Game loop
Echoes of Wisdom goes like this: Zelda discovers a new environment: ice, lava, jungle, desert, water, she takes care of one or two small cracks, and a dungeon at the end.
Once the rifts are closed, it allows a large part of the environment to be revealed and repaired and new paths to be unlocked.
Then Zelda can head to the new environment and repeat the same process.
If it sounds repetitive, explained in this way, in reality, the game lets you explore and choose your path, your side quests, or main quests or the objectives you decide in the order you want.
The world is still open, not totally, but enough to give the player the opportunity to do what he or she wants, while guiding him or her to the rest of the main quest subtly.
You can very well set out to collect as many heart quarters and chests as possible, and explore the entire map with very little progress in the story. This game was offered to us for free for review purposes, but that doesn’t influence our opinion.
Details
Level of experience required
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Evaluation
No problem
No problem
Lots of reading and instructions
An adventure with a strong female character who must restore order and peace to her kingdom.
Lots of buttons and stroke combinations to remember and use.
Some events can only be completed in a limited time, such as battles with enemies, so you will have to react quickly. There are also some visibility issues between 2D and 3D, especially when it comes to estimating how far it takes to clear certain precipices from above.
Luckily there is a view…
TOTALLY from above that is activated by holding down the button on the right stick.
We can then better understand how many “blocks” of echoes we need to invoke to reach the next platform.
Blocks of water are also often taken out by mistake because they are open on 5 sides and the view from above is at an angle.
Same, the right stick view, allows you to correct this.
No problem. It’s all in the game.
Local game modes
Only one adventure mode
Expansions/Add-ons (DLC)
Zelda Amiibo are compatible with the game and allow you to obtain temporary bonuses or outfits from other protagonists in the series to customize your little Zelda princess.
Amiibo are completely optional and it is totally possible to finish the game without them.
Which I did, by the way.
Our opinion
I’ve been playing the games of the Zelda series for more than 30 years and this one requires a little time to get used to.
First of all because I can’t stop humming the musical themes of Link’s Awakening when I explore the different environments while they have changed in this episode, and then because with Link we are rather used to rushing at enemies and attacking them with swords or projectiles.
Here Zelda attacks indirectly from a distance and in Echoes of Wisdom, everything is a puzzle: A precipice?
Which echo (duplicate object) can I summon to climb on and through it?
An aerial enemy?
Which duplicate enemy has the abilities to neutralize it?
A puzzle?
What should I do and how?
A boss?
What are the mechanics, enemies that allow me to defeat him?
The game lets the player improvise with the vast multitude of echoes it has accumulated and many solutions are often possible to solve each of the problems.
Defects of wisdom
It’s a bit frustrating to have to wait for duplicate enemies to finally start attacking enemies in every fight.
It is also frustrating to go through the huge catalog of duplicate objects and enemies that you accumulate as the adventure progresses.
This one unfolds like the materials of Tears of Kingdom, a huge horizontal list in a single line, where you look for the object of your choice with the right stick, holding down the left button of the D-Pad.
Note that you can also make this list appear with the LB button, which the game doesn’t tell you, and that I would have liked to discover earlier.
In terms of graphical performance, Echoes of Wisdom has the same flaws as the 2019 remake: the number of images displayed on the screen is constantly changing, regardless of the number of enemies, objects, explosions in the scene.
This causes slowdowns, and only the most expert eyes will be able to observe them, but we would have appreciated a smoother action.
After a few hours of play, you are immersed in the universe, and you don’t pay attention to it anymore.
Magical adventure
Either way, there’s something magical about seeing and seeing such a big world come to life and reveal itself in your hands on your Nintendo Switch.
We then dive into an enchanting world in which we do not perceive limits and we move from discovery to discovery.
I was constantly surprised at what Nintendo dared to change in its series.
The game captivated me from start to finish, as I wasn’t sure what to expect and had seen very few trailers.
However, I was afraid that I would have to combine a dozen objects again in the style of Tears of the Kingdom to access distant platforms.
It doesn’t work, Zelda can only summon 1 to 4 objects/enemies during the vast majority of the adventure, and most of the puzzles are solved easily, especially as soon as you have the water cubes.
In the end, Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom is a new game very well calibrated from Nintendo and suitable for everyone as soon as they are able to read and execute several commands simultaneously on the controller.
It comes out at the end of the year for a good reason: it’s a very good gift idea.
Those looking for a great and long adventure will find what they are looking for without any problem.
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