CHENNAI: I do not consider ‘Echoes of Wisdom’ as just some minor spin-off game in the Legend of Zelda series. For the first time in a very long time, Zelda is herself the main playable character in the series. And I am quite upset that we’ve completely slept on her druid abilities for all these decades.
In Echoes, Zelda holds the powers of a priestess that can work her magic through her staff. She can summon creatures in an instant and command them at will. It’s Pokemon for those unwilling to engage in its turn-basedness. I think Echoes is pivotal. If Nintendo was just testing this game out to gauge our reaction to Zelda’s unconventional skills, then by all means, they must make more of these.
Both the story arc and the overall universe of Echoes are no different from your usual Hyrule adventure. It starts as all the games in the series do — with someone important being kidnapped, and something unspeakably terrible affecting the lands of Hyrule.
In this game, there are rifts being created, with people, creatures, and houses being sucked into a void. It also eats up our well known hero, Link. So Zelda rises to the occasion — as only the princess has the ability to traverse between the living world and the void.
Zelda cannot engage in typical combat. And this works well for me, because that means that the entire focus of the game is solving environmental puzzles. You see, Zelda’s staff has a magic ability of copying the ‘echoes’ of items and creatures that it encounters. So if Zelda meets a trampoline, she copies its abilities, and summons its echo at very difficult moments. In this instance, the difficult moment would be when she comes across a wall that is too high for her to climb over. The trampoline helps her jump higher.
The echoes are fairly diverse and serve different purposes. The keese echoes let you glide from high-up mountains over rough terrains. My personal favourite combat support echo is the Lizalfos — a giant lizard with a spear, which attacks enemies faster than they can even spot you on the map. There’s a version of the ‘ultrahand’ mechanic from the recent Zelda games. They call it ‘bind’ in Echoes.
Attaching yourself to a spider using ‘Bind’ allows you to follow it as it crawls over bushes and tiny trees. You see how this might be helpful in navigation — there’s no need for Zelda to build a complex trampoline stairway now that she has the spider taxi. The only problem is that the creatures you follow have a mind of their own. Things can get quite hairy if the spider leads you straight to a pit of lava.
There’s also the frankly overpowered ‘bed’, which serves as a multipurpose echo. Multiple beds can line up to make a neat stairway, and lying down on it even replenishes Zelda’s hearts. This mechanic feels like it shouldn’t exist — it makes things almost too simple sometimes. And this is why I believe that Echoes of Wisdom almost seems to be treading a little too carefully with this new mechanic.
Consequently, the game is ridiculously sized-down in comparison to the recent titles. I could actually complete it to a hundred percent in a week’s time. It is scaled down in terms of the size of the map, number of quests, and the average difficulty.
Even visually, it simply takes the top-down angles of its 2-dimensional retro predecessors and brings it to the 2020s. Now that does not mean it’s always too easy, and if you are familiar with the dungeon based puzzles in the series they are diverse and complex enough to keep you engaged through the game. Echoes of Wisdom is a must-play if you are a beginner to the series, and is a Nintendo Switch exclusive.