Thank you Nintendo for sending us this game to review!

Nintendo have often been at the forefront of establishing or perfecting game genres. Whether that be platformers with Mario, metroidvanias with... Metroid, and of course adventure games with Zelda. When The Legend of Zelda released back in 1986 in Japan, it immediately set the new standard for most adventure games, and by extension RPGs. It was well-reviewed in Japan, and praised for its approach to storytelling, adventure, graphics, and its world and setting. And in the nearly four decades since, the story of Link going on a grand trek to rescue a princess from a grave evil has been repeated cyclically in dozens of titles. But that right there is what many have noted for almost 20 years at this point. Link is always the one going on these adventures. What about the title of the series? Isn’t this supposed to be the Legend of Zelda? Where’s her adventure? Well, this year during what used to be known as E3 season, Nintendo finally unveiled a long-rumored new title in the Zelda series: Echoes of Wisdom, developed by Grezzo, the studio behind 2019’s Link’s Awakening remake. Not only was it the first new 2D entry in the series in almost a decade, but it showed that Nintendo had finally heard fans and were answering their dreams: Zelda would be the playable hero. So, how did they achieve this after so many decades of neglecting to do so? Did they live up to the expectations of fans?

When you first turn on the game, you’ll wonder if it’s all been a bit of a tease. You’re not Zelda, you’re Link again! But after a brief crawl through a dungeon, followed by a short fight against Ganon, you’ll find Zelda trapped in a purple crystal. Ganon collapses, but not before seemingly bringing on a purple void that consumes both him and Link. In his last moments before disappearing, Link frees Zelda with a shot from his bow. You escape the cave in a short chase sequence, before being dumped out to a hill overseeing the entirety of Hyrule. A bit later, you are told that the same things that took Link, known as rifts, have been popping up all over Hyrule and consuming people, animals, buildings, and more. You’re then introduced to a yellow-orb spirit named Tri that accompanies you and provides you with the Wand of Gamel- I mean, the Tri Rod. This Rod lets you produce Echoes, perfect clones of designated objects, items, and enemies whenever and wherever you need, for a price. You only have so much energy you can use to produce these Echoes. Some you can make three of, some only one, and some you still don’t have enough energy for. As you go around the game, closing rifts, you’ll gradually increase the amount of energy Tri has and decrease how much certain Echoes cost to make.

The game also has a Breath of the Wild-like grabbing feature, though I found this game implemented it in a more interesting way. You can choose to manipulate enemies or objects, moving them to solve puzzles or finish battles easily, but you can also lock yourself to their movement, making Zelda stay stationary as they take you for a ride. Sometimes this was an obvious solution to a puzzle, and sometimes it was so complicated to pull off I wondered if I was simply doing it wrong. Later on you’ll also receive the ability to briefly transform into an Echoed form of Link, giving you some of his abilities for more traditional combat rather than just using Echoes. Also, since the game doesn’t tell you this explicitly until much later on, you should know if you hold down the button to cast an Echo you can spawn them further away from you. There are a few puzzles that require this and the game won’t tell you until you encounter one in a main dungeon.

From a gameplay perspective, Echoes of Wisdom brings the series back to its golden age of top-down isometric adventuring. The game feels heavily influenced by A Link to the Past, both in its dungeon-centric gameplay and world map. You explore the world, find dungeons or rifts to enter, and then go through a series of puzzles or battles to reach the end, something many fans have been wanting since Breath of the Wild released. Hyrule Castle and its surrounding villages and fields are as recognizable as they were back then, though the appearance may have changed. But now we have new areas and races familiar to later 3D titles, such as the Sea Zora, the Gorons, the Deku, and the Gerudo. It truly makes exploring the world feel like something out of Ocarina of Time, but now back from an isometric perspective. However, it wouldn’t make sense for Zelda to go around like Link, slashing and bombing her way across the countryside. The team at Grezzo had to come up with a new solution that was as fun, and I think they delivered with Echoes; perhaps even improved it.

Echoes provide more than just a way of combat for a defenseless princess; they are a solution to puzzles, a solution to movement, a way for exploration, and my favorite of all, a way to absolutely break the game. But that’s where Grezzo really impressed me. Throughout most of the early game, I chose to shirk the story and just explore the map. It was incredibly interesting and captivated me more than playing the main game. Even though it doesn’t seem like I did, it truly felt like I was breaking the sequence of events. I could explore the map, unlock fast travel waypoints, solve puzzles, get heart pieces, learn about NPCs, and just generally break boundaries. I don’t know if I’d say you should play this way, but I found that exploring before engaging with the story let me experience some characters and locations in an untouched way before things happened later on. And that’s kind of the magic of Echoes of Wisdom, the freedom you feel you have. If you want to cheese a jump with bed stacking and trampolines, you can. If you want to cheese a fight by summoning an enemy to fight for you, then freeze the other one in place so it can pummel it, you can. Some puzzles even let you solve them earlier than expected, in a different way, or by sheer brute stupidity. That said, and this is something I do have a slight issue with, most of the solutions to puzzles or fights will come down to using only a part of your Echoes. Even with my style of experimentation, I probably only used 20 Echoes more than once, and even then I mostly stuck to a trusty 5-10. The game has a total of 127.

There are also some supporting systems that help emphasize Echoes or provide an alternative. You can craft smoothies with different items you pick up during your journey for a fee of 10 rupees, letting you craft healing items, as well as buffs to climbing speed, damage reduction, and more. You’re also later given access to craftable automatons, mechanized combinations of Echoes that you have to spend some time winding up before they’ll move. There are side quests to bring Echoes to people to solve their curiosity, to craft smoothies, to explore the world collecting Stamps, and so on. While these are less notable, and might be possible to ignore completely while going about the game, I found them fun and a good distraction from the grind of dungeons.

But aside from the gameplay, how is the rest of the game? In terms of controls, I was largely satisfied with the game. There were some occasions where the controls or mechanics felt like they were fighting me, which I’ll go into later, but overall it was extremely responsive and natural. Sound design was another strong point where Grezzo helped immerse me in the world and give each creature and interaction a realistic response. The music, on the other hand, is a bit of a mixed bag to me. Grezzo continues what they started with their remake of Link’s Awakening, aiming to create a world that feels like a child’s diorama. As such, the music features instrumentation reminiscent of children’s shows or classic animated movies. Flutes, cheerful strings, music boxes, clackers, shakers, horns, and much more make up an eclectic soundscape that really hones into a younger, innocent tone and (likely) demographic. Some tracks were incredibly remarkable to me. In particular, a theme for a dungeon involving the Dekus is probably now one of my favorite tracks of the entire Zelda series. Others, however, range from good, to unremarkable, to unpleasant. Nothing reaches the depths of New Yoshi’s Island, and I’d say most songs are at least good, if a bit uninteresting.

Graphically, Echoes of Wisdom is also a bit mixed. The art style certainly makes a statement, and I’d say it delivers on its premise of making a world that looks like a diorama, but the actual fidelity of the models and materials feels like it could be pushed higher. Games such as Yoshi’s Crafted World and Yoshi’s Wooly World have done this style a bit better, in my opinion. Visual effects add to the magic of it, and the intense depth of field completes the diorama perspective. But unfortunately, the presentation of the game is heavily undercut by its performance. Being rather frank, the game looks fine. Similar to the music, it’s polished and executed well, but it’s boring. And we must now address the elephant in the room. Despite its limited artstyle, and at times sub-GameCube asset quality, the game is a performance nightmare. The game runs at an uncapped 60FPS, and will often drop to 30 or below. This isn’t like “A few times a minute it might drop some frames” (which is already hard to swallow), but instead “Every time you start moving in the world map the game drops to 30FPS.” In boss fights, while walking around, when you go into your Echoes menu, when you summon an Echo, when you retrieve an Echo, when you use your grab hand, when something is lit on fire, sometimes doing nothing at all–all of these examples and more can push the game below 30FPS. Because of how slow the gameplay is, you don’t really “feel” the drops, but you can absolutely see them, and it’s really disappointing. Nothing in this game is impressive enough to warrant such performance issues, and it's unacceptable that Nintendo let them push the game out in this state.

Finally, some other complaints I have with the game, as well as a discussion on morality. I didn’t feel the game was difficult at all throughout playing the main campaign and some extras. I am not trying to gloat when I say there was little challenge, but rather bring up a point: it feels way too simple. Almost every boss I defeated on the first try, most puzzles took a few seconds to solve, and enemies are more of an inconvenience than a threat. To emphasize my point, the game never tells you you can rest on beds to recover hearts, so throughout the entire game I only relied on heals from heart pieces or consumable items, and it still wasn’t hard. Even so, there were times I was absolutely struggling, but it was because the mechanics of the game were fighting me. Echoes weren’t behaving as they should, enemies were messing up my attempts at platforming or solving puzzles, and so on. Echoes of Wisdom never feels difficult, only frustrating, and that’s a bit of a disappointment.

And that brings me to my warning on morals. Echoes of Wisdom feels more connected to spirituality than games before it, which is concerning to me. The game is actively involved in the story of three goddesses who created the world, and you will be spoken to and taught the history of the world by these goddesses occasionally. Tri, your helper, is said to have been created by the goddesses and speaks fondly of them. But the goddesses in this game are not like Hylia in other games; an eternal force of good constantly battling an eternal force of evil. Instead they’re just largely stupid. A bit of a spoiler here, but:

This is, if I may be honest, “baby’s first Zelda game.” It feels heavily designed for kids, with an approachable artstyle, music, difficulty, and story, and that’s my issue with the presence of goddesses and spirituality in this game over other Zelda titles. Beyond that, it’s your typical Zelda game. Some violence, no blood, no language, and the Gerudo might be seen as being a bit suggestive but nothing beyond that.

Overall, I did greatly enjoy my time playing Echoes of Wisdom, and I would highly recommend it. It didn’t give me as much freedom as Breath of the Wild or especially Tears of the Kingdom did, but I actually like it more than both of them. Those games are a bit too free in what they allow you to do, which left me more bored than anything. In a sentence, Echoes of Wisdom is focused, tight, creative, and a breath of fresh air, but it doesn’t impress in all areas. My only hope is Grezzo can improve on their artstyle, improve on performance, and continue to innovate with future titles.