The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - Switch Review
"Caught myself grinning ear to ear!"
You know, being a Legend of Zelda fan during the Switch era has been a great time. I’m almost feeling spoiled now. I was sure that Tears of the Kingdom was going to be the last game of the franchise on the Switch, but then Nintendo surprised us not just with a new main game but also with something that so many Zelda fans have been wanting for decades: a game where we can finally play as Zelda herself: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom!
And you know what? Maybe Nintendo is spoiling us—because this was fantastic!
The Good - Old home, new decor!
Echoes of Wisdom takes great ideas from both old and new, and it’s an absolutely amazing mixture of mechanics, designs and fresh perspective. The UI is easy to navigate, recognisable from the open-world Zelda games and very pretty. Echoes of Wisdom took some of the better UI aspects like the quest markers and menu style, making it so that navigation is both clear and non-intrusive.
And boy, is there stuff to use that navigation on! Echoes of Wisdom is played mostly in the top-down view, but it also has plenty of little 2D sidescroller-like sections, BOTW-esque quests and good ol’ fashioned Zelda fetch quests. There are a whole lot of things to do, echoes to get and places to explore.
One thing that feels very welcome is how Echoes of Wisdom hits an incredibly satisfying gameplay balance between curated experience and freedom to experiment. There’s a more organised sense of progression, and dungeons are clearly more structured like the traditional ones, while still accommodating for the freedom the modern design philosophy is aiming for.
And, honestly? The world is just so charming and interesting in this game! Although it has the same basic map from previous top-down entries, the locations have developed and the way we can see Link through a different lens as a secondary character while seeing how Zelda interacts with the world as a princess is very, very fun.
TL;DR
- Great use of modern UI elements and old gameplay references
- Lots of fresh side content to explore
- Great balance of old and new design choices
- Uniquely interesting view on Hyrule and its characters
The Bad - Why am I still scrolling?!
A big selling point of the game is the sheer variety of echoes that Zelda can use in her adventure, but that’s also where it trips on its own two feet again. There are so many echoes to scroll through!
The BOTW-like item selection is great and non-invasive, but in a game with such a massive amount of options, scrolling through echoes to find the right one for the situation really takes the player out of the action. I never thought I’d be doomscrolling in a Legend of Zelda game! I ended up picking only a handful of Echoes to use repeatedly because it was easier that way.
And these repeated Echoes weren’t just because they were less of a hassle to find: some options are really unbalanced, being much more powerful and versatile than they have any right to be. It’s always going to be fun to roll through encounters by using a big water block or a massive roller, but it does take the shine away from the many different options. And don’t even get me started on how strong swordfighter form is!
And speaking of options, the final minor complaint I have... Making smoothies is really slow! They’re very important and necessary in many situations, so why do I have to watch the animation and slowly pick the same recipe multiple times whenever I need something to drink? Let me make multiples at a time, at least!
TL;DR
- There are too many Echoes to navigate through at all times
- Poor sorting options for items and abilities
- Certain abilities are wildly unbalanced compared to the rest
- Why is my smoothie order taking so long?!
Final Score: 9/10
Doomscrolling complaints aside, I had an absolute blast playing Echoes of Wisdom. I’ve been a fan of the previous open-world Legend of Zelda games, as you can tell by my other reviews, but there truly is something else about the old style games that was missing, and this game brought them back in a familiar yet refreshing way. I hadn’t realised how much I missed this style of gameplay until I was hours deep into Echoes of Wisdom and caught myself grinning ear to ear!
Thank you for checking out our The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Switch review, thank you to Nintendo AU/NZ for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:
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