Zelda finally gets her time to shine! (Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom in review)

     Hey friends! It's not every day that you get to talk about a new top-down Zelda game! As a matter of fact, this is the first game in this style to come out since I started my blog, with the last one being the Link's Awakening remake back in 2019 before the last original game of this style, 2013's A Link Between Worlds for the 3DS. Needless to say, it has been a really long time since we had a game like this, and I'm very happy that this smaller, less life-consuming version of Zelda is here for us to enjoy. This alone is more than enough reason to celebrate, but it's also the first time that a full mainline Zelda title has allowed us to play as Princess Zelda, the titular character of the franchise. How does this game do to hold up against the legend? Let's talk a bit about this today while we delve into a Hyrule that shares a lot of similarities as well as differences to what we know.

Princess Zelda's first playable adventure!

    The story of this game has to be one of the weirdest ones in the series history, right off the bat. Link enters a dark dungeon and you play as him as he comes in to confront Ganon. He has captured Zelda in a crystal (giving real Ocarina of Time or Link to the Past vibes right away), but Link has come to rescue her. As Link, you defeat Ganon and are about to rescue the princess when a void opens up right below Link and swallows him. Fortunately before he is absorbed, he cracks the crystal that Zelda is in, allowing her to escape the quickly growing darkness absorbing this dark fortress. Following this event, you play as Princess Zelda, aided by a creature named Tri who gives Zelda a few major abilities. For one thing, she can create echoes, or copies, of nearly anything that she comes across in the world, including enemies that you defeat, which then allows you to make an army to fight for you. It makes a huge difference to the typical Zelda gameplay to have this change, as Link is always alone for his adventuring and uses a shield, sword, and whatever gadgets he picks up in his travels. The princess, as always, relies on her wisdom to decide what to use to complete puzzles and face dangers along the way. It's a really cool idea to have the central theme of "wisdom" be such a vital mechanic, on top of making the player work alongside her with whatever creative ideas they can come up with to overcome obstacles. This is a game that I feel like could have infinite solutions to almost any puzzle that comes along, just because there are so many different options for Echoes that can be created, in addition to the ability for Zelda to link herself to any of them, making pushing or pulling things as simple as walking. 

    In addition to being Zelda's first adventure (not counting Zelda's Adventure or Zelda: Wand of Gamelon, if you've heard of those), it's the first time several other creatures have been mentioned in a 2D plain. For the first time in a top-down Zelda game, horses are able to be ridden around the map, even though I didn't find that to be too helpful, since so much of the world is broken up into little pieces and the horse doesn't turn super reliably. It was definitely fun to have them along for the ride anyways! We also see many of the other species that are included in more 3D titles than 2D. We have the Gorons, Deku Scrubs (which I don't think have been seen since Majora's Mask, though I could definitely be wrong about that), Gerudo tribe, and both Sea and River Zoras, which I didn't even realize were meant to be the same species until now. River Zoras were all over the place in A Link to the Past, while Sea Zoras were the only ones that I remember from more modern titles like Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, even showing up in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. There was something so cool about seeing these two races of Zora co-existing in the same world, and that both worship Lord Jabu Jabu from Ocarina of Time. We don't have the Kokiri people, the Koroks, or the Ruto tribe in this game, but for all of the other races included in this version of Hyrule, it's really cool how much has been included.

    The map is also really interesting in this title. There was a lot of speculation and worry that this map was going to be identical to the map used in A Link to the Past, which was reused for A Link Between Worlds, which was a direct sequel. The fear was somewhat debunked as time passed, but it turns out that it was pretty well founded. It turns out that there are certain things directly from A Link to the Past that were included in this game, lending pretty strong evidence that it is, in fact, the same version of Hyrule. Before you get your pitchforks and torches ready to storm Nintendo's headquarters, however, this version expands the land pretty drastically. To the south, you can find the ruins of the Desert Temple from that earlier game, but past that, you can go all through the desert to a town of Gerudo women that wasn't in the SNES classic. To the north, you see the Chapel in roughly the same place as it was, but past that, there's much more to look at around this region that wasn't included. All through the game, you're seeing callbacks and references to the maps of games from the past, but it's done in such an interesting way, and with the echo mechanics built in, it's a very different place than a Hyrule than you're familiar with.

    If there's one thing that I could possibly complain about, it's the soundtrack. As a long time Zelda fan, I adore the music of Zelda games. In many cases, my favorite tracks exist inside the Legend of Zelda franchise, boosting the feeling of history involved in the series. This game unfortunately just doesn't meet the incredibly high marks of the score from other games in my opinion. There are a few good tracks overall, I like the Overworld theme that you get about halfway through the game, it feels like a nice theme for Zelda, throwing in a few bars of "Zelda's Lullaby" at the beginning before launching into a similar triumphant theme as you would hear as Link in that portion of the game (think after getting the Master Sword in A Link Between Worlds). What I wish we could have gotten from this game was a few more tracks that were a bit softer, leaning into the more quiet and thoughtful persona of the princess. The Staff Roll, which plays during the credits of games, is something that I always look forward to with Nintendo's flagship series, and pretty early on, I started looking forward to the end of the game to hear the excellent themes in place during the credits. Sadly, however, the music that played during the credits mostly just consisted of the same themes from the game, which was a huge disappointment for me. If you don't understand what I mean, please do me a favor and listen to the Staff Roll for Wind Waker or Skyward Sword, and you'll hear some of my favorite themes from video games all together. The music isn't bad, I would never say that, but it's not as strong as some of the other games in the franchise in my opinion.

    This game was truly a joy to complete, and though it didn't last very long, I was very happy with Zelda's first game behind the wheel, it's truly a much more creative and thoughtful approach to the series. While I wasn't sure if I would care for this approach upon going in, I quickly saw just how fun it can be to come up with an innovative and sometimes chaotic approach to your troubles. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom finally gave Princess Zelda a chance to be a hero, and she nailed it. Though she does obtain Link's powers to some degree, she dives into this unknown story with a sense of style and grace that you would expect only from her. It shouldn't be much of a spoiler to say that the game ends on a high note, with Zelda rescuing Link and them teaming up to defeat the great evil in Hyrule. One of the most powerful moments of the whole game, however takes place in the end. There's a moment where the king and all of the royal attendants rush over to thank Link for all that he has done, and wordlessly, Link shakes his head and looks over at Zelda. Something about this simple movement really moved me, and I ended the game cheering for the Princess right along with the people of Hyrule Castle Town.

    Thank you so much for reading this review, friends. I really hope you like this game if you give it a try. It's a weird one, don't go in expecting something that resembles Link's Awakening, just because the art style is the same as the remake from a few years ago, but it's a really interesting and thought provoking time that put a smile on my face for almost the entire duration of the adventure. I hope you're all doing well and thanks for all of your support as always! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed explorer of Hyrule, and I'll talk to you again soon.