"...too much on offer to pass up. Go buy it now and thank me later!..."
SWITCH
HOW I PLAYED: Purchased a physical version and I played on my Switch Lite.
STORY - 18/20
INTRO
It's time to let Zelda be the hero of her own story! We are met with a familiar setting with Link storming a castle and Princess Zelda held captive. Link manages to release her but is pulled in to a shadowy rift at the same time. It's now up to Zelda to save Link! First, you meet Tri, a helpful sprite, who will be your companion on this journey, assisting Zelda who wields a magic staff to summon items and creatures. I must admit I love this approach, giving Zelda the tools to play to her strengths and not turning her into a 2-dimensional "girl-boss who don't need no help".
CUTSCENES
Cutscenes are used quite sparingly but effectively, in that they save on written dialogue by showing something instead of explaining it. Some felt a tad long, but the game is so cute and the is world so gorgeous, I could handle a few longer cutscenes.
WORLD BUILDING
You won't be surprised at all that Echoes of Wisdom has amazing world building. The world is like a vacuum, pulling the player in more and more and immersing them deeper as they spend more time there.
OVERALL STORY
Echoes of Wisdom is a fantastic linear story of Zelda helping others and allowing her to save the realm, with a trickle of light-hearted jokes, and never feeling linear with how much side content there is to get lost in, but more on that later.
Can I just say how glad it made me that the story made sense of why Princess Zelda was allowed to go off, on her own, without armed guards, to complete her quest! Because some other games (Like God Of War 2018) seem to just do things like "well the wife died because of reasons!.. Don't question it!..." which really just insults the players intelligence at that point. Don't put information in front of me if you don't want it questioned....
GRAPHICS - 14/15
CHARACTER MODELS
The character models are absolutely to die for in Echoes of Wisdom. Cuteness overload and zooming in for dialogue allows us to appreciate the detail on display here. However, the models are the same as Link's Awakening from 2019. The issue being, 5 years later the visuals look the same from the same developer and it would of been nice to have seen a bit of a step forward here.
There is clearly an advancement with walls and areas underwater, showing a higher level of detail, from Link's Awakening 5 years ago and the environments are so beautiful and diverse, with each biome having its own feeling of being "somewhere else" in Echoes of Wisdom.
SPECIAL FX
Simply watching grass burn, or an enemy get frozen or electrocuted, I could tell how much love and care went into this games special FX and I cannot praise the studio enough for the work they did here, they really are able to do so much with so few pixels!
AUDIO - 15/15
AMBIENCE
The ambience was to die for, I could spend the whole day playing and just lose myself in the game. The background music was an absolute delight, and there was a warmth to the villages and NPC's travelling around, making the world truly feel alive. I really felt immersed, welcomed and at home in this game.
BOSS MUSIC
The boss music was a delight, each with what felt like it's own unique music which made the fight's that much more engaging and enjoyable. Too many games fail to amplify their boss battles with suitable soundtracks!
SOUND DESIGN
Each sound was an absolute AMSR session. The developers know how to make things sound just right and maintain player enjoyment with even the simple things like the pots breaking and picking up gems. Then, during combat, the sound of the helicopter plant chopping grass down, brilliantly done, absolute ear perfection.PERFORMANCE - 8/10
FRAME RATE
Lets be real, they should of locked this game to 30fps and given people a smoother experience.
STABILITY
I had one single crash during my playthrough. Which resulted in less than a minute of lost gameplay, thanks to great auto-saving! Lucky.GAMEPLAY - 36/40
CONTROLS
The controls felt clunky to begin with, but I will absolutely put this down to my hand size on the switch lite not being the best match. The movement and responsiveness felt so good! I just enjoyed myself galloping around on the horse, who I absolutely called Roach, sue me, and the platforming was a delight.
MECHANICS
The ability to kill any enemy to make it summon-able, is the fundamental base of Echoes of Wisdom that everything revolves around. These range from a stool, to a rock, to a snake and a shark, and all the way to a cloud and a cube of water. So, as you can imagine, there is a bucket load of choice here. This freedom to approaching enemies how you choose with the tools you gather is brilliant and also allows the player to approach most puzzles in their own way too. Now, of course I did just use the bed more than anything else, one of the first things you obtain, but the decision was MINE, and it was not forced. More games need developers to make games with choices like this.
If you follow just the main story it has great pacing, but the game is great at getting you side tracked and it will happen to you a lot, just wait.
UI/UE
The UI is clean and nice overall, but honestly, I wish there was a better way to filter the various summons you unlock. Even though I predominately used the same 5 over and over, it was annoying jumping between them. Imagine if I utilised more summons, I would be quite frustrated. Even if it meant adding more rows to view, instead of a single line.
Oh, and don't even get me started on having to make a single smoothie at a time! Echoes of Wisdom has a system where you gather resources and are able to make smoothies and potions for either regaining health, energy (for link form), or buffs and protection. These were forced to be made one at a time and had a cutscene slow it up more. Talk about not respecting my time. No matter how cute your game is, I am not here to stare at the same cutscene 5 times. Developers: Please update this!
BOSS QUALITY
The bosses are all extremely well designed and felt so unique. Each followed the general rule of "3 rounds", were a good challenge and were an absolute delight to go against.
ENEMY VARIETY
I was perplexed at the enemy variety the developers were able to jam into Echoes of Wisdom. Not to mention all of them had to be programmed to be an ally when summoned, kudos to the developers!
There is constantly something else to do around the place. With little side quest markers on NPC's heads just begging for you to spend 10 minutes doing something like walking a steak to their son, who has found themselves stuck in the mountain. Or maybe you prefer to challenge yourself with a minigame of picking up scattered acorns within a certain timeframe? The choice is yours and I just couldn't get enough of it all.
REPLAYABILITY
The game offers a large array of side content, as mentioned before, but as for replaying the game? I think this is unlikely for most as there isn't any real incentive to do so, except for choosing to play on the games "heroic" mode, the games harder difficulty. But even this mode is not very different to the base game. Developer suggestion: Please add another difficulty mode which allows for things like not being able to summon more than one item of each summon at a time, and cooldown timers on each item. For those who really like a challenge!
OVERALL - 91/100
INCREDIBLE
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is an absolute gem and hands down a game of the year contender. It has done such a great job of balancing freedom of choice for the player, without allowing too many strategies that feel too strong to not just use in every situation. Now, Nintendo get a lot of hate for having a 30fps, 720p machine, but I tell you this right now: They know how to nail fun and great gameplay. This game is a must play for me, even if you hate puzzles, just google the answers, it will still be well worth it because Echoes of Wisdom has just too much on offer to pass up. Go buy it now and thank me later!
TL;DR 91/100 (Incredible) - The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom nails what a puzzle game should do and from start to end it is an absolute gem, with what's lacking in its replayability, performance and user experience, it makes up for in everything else. There is no reason not to buy this game with what feels like limitless choice of how to engage with puzzles and enemies. Free yourself and enjoy what I feel is a game of the year contender!
PICK UP THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: ECHOES OF WISDOM HERE:
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