When I went along to the Nintendo UK offices last week to spend a few hours playing the game, I was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong on all that. You can see my thoughts in the video above, or keep on reading for the written-out version!
Echoes of Wisdom is actually a very creative game, with every puzzle and every dungeon providing an opportunity for you to learn and experiment and try different things – it’s actually closer to Tears of the Kingdom than I thought.
Zelda appears here as a playable character for the first time, unless you count The Wand of Gamelon from 1993 on the Philips CD-i.
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In Echoes of Wisdom, Zelda has the power to create ‘echoes’, which are, essentially, reusable copies of everything from wooden stools to enemies.
You can, for example, create a bridge out of beds to help you get across a big gap — see what I mean about the Tears of the Kingdom parallels?
The game has lots of different gameplay types, from stealthy sections to puzzle-filled dungeons and even some outright combat. Zelda can call on the echoes of her previous foes, or even borrow Link’s sword for short stretches of time.
At one point in the preview, we even had to fight a dark version of Link, which was quite surreal! Luckily, we had echoes of some powerful previous bosses to overpower Link with.
The game has its own spin on classic Zelda dungeons, with our hero having to solve various puzzles to progress before facing a big boss at the end.
As well as the echoes, Zelda can also use her wand to move items around in the space. (For example, you could move a big rock to make a new path.)
There’s also a fairly free-roaming overworld, where you can wander off the beaten track and find lots of little surprises, from treasure chests to mini dungeons to shops and NPCs.
Every obstacle you come across is an opportunity for you to learn, to piece together the echoes you’ve found and try to find solutions.
The art style has that Game Boy nostalgia vibe to it, but the gameplay is much more modern than that.
This wasn’t a game I was particularly excited about, but the creativity showcased in this preview event really changed my mind! I enjoyed my time much more than expected.
The only thing I would have liked is some proper voice acting, but the music was pretty nice as an alternative.
I look forward to picking up the game later this year, collecting more echoes and seeing how the game develops over time — nothing I played seemed particularly challenging, but I’d imagine there’s a lot more to come later on.
Will you be playing Echoes of Wisdom when it arrives on Nintendo Switch on 26th September? If so, you can pre-order your copy now!
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