At the recently passed gaming convention, PAX West 2024, The Outerhaven was invited to a The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom hands-on preview. This preview allowed us to play the game, from the beginning and then jump to a much later point in this brand-new installment in the Legend of Zelda series.
The Premise
As we have heard from the trailers and the information from Nintendo itself, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is about a mysterious rift that takes over various parts of Hyrule and even swallows Link. Zelda, with the help of her new friend Tri, now has a mission to save Hyrule from these rifts and restore the kingdom to its former glory.
We open up the demo in the dungeon where Zelda is blamed for the rift and is then imprisoned. Tri then meets Zelda and together they decide to remove the rifts from the Hyrule using Tri’s power. Tri places his power in a staff that he hands Zelda. This power is used to replicate enemies or items you find throughout the dungeon. There is a variety of uses you can find with these echoes. Each echo has a power cost that is signified by the amount of triangles that are below the echo in the selection screen. The amount of triangles over the staff indicates the amount of power Tri has in the staff and is available for usage.
You can mix and match echoes in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Some cost one triangle of power, some cost two triangles, and a few cost three. Just as long as you aren’t using more than the triangles of power Tri has, you can have them on the field simultaneously. Discovering the combinations you can use together is wild, and I don’t want to get too specific in what combinations I used but note, that there is a lot you were able to use in just the two dungeons we were able to experience alone.
Controlling Zelda
After you get through the depths of Hyrule’s dungeon, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom takes us to a Still World dungeon. In this dungeon, Hyrule’s people are all in stasis as stronger goo monsters take over this version of the world. We also get a new power in this dungeon as Tri lets us learn how to use him to bind to other objects. If you bind to objects, you can either move the objects with your movement or let yourself be moved by the object. This still world has a variety of puzzles throughout this dungeon and a lot of solutions to each one. The most fun of this game is figuring out different ways to solve puzzles. There is no specific solution to any one puzzle. I made it a challenge to myself to try solving most puzzles by using rocks in some way, shape, or form. To the game’s credit, it was possible as long as I tried to think outside of the box by using rocks.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom also had a huge twist in store when Link shows up to fight us. This was shown in the latest trailer of the game, and it was indeed a challenge to figure out a solution to this fight. As with most puzzles in the dungeon, there are a lot of ways to solve this boss fight. This freedom of creativity in playing the game will make each individual’s playthrough unique. Watching Let’s Play videos is going to be a common pastime in my future just to see how ridiculous you can get with some of these tools the echoes provide you in your repertoire.
Once you have defeated Link, you can take up his sword and unlock a new form, the swordfighter form. This form can be used to gain Link’s basic moves with his sword and shield. It is on a gauge however, once it is gone, you lose access to it.
This dungeon had one last boss fight. It was the last fight we experienced in the game with Pax West 2024. It was a Rock Boss. All my energy throughout this dungeon finding ways to accomplish puzzles with rocks and ending with a Rock Boss felt fitting. I had a bit of a struggle at times but overall I was able to accomplish the boss fight!
Playing The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was a blast. Even though I only had a limited amount of time with this build of the game, I wanted more. I needed to play this game more and figure out what else I could do within the engine of the game. There is so much freedom in playing as Zelda and she has an even bigger toolkit than Link usually has, which is saying a lot. I will be picking this game up for sure. If you are someone who also wanted a main game with Zelda as the protagonist, this is the game for you. It used to make me sad the only Zelda game with Zelda as the main playable protagonist was one of the CD-I games. They made this game be her own and it looked like the staff had fun with figuring out different monsters and items in this land of Hyrule that you can replicate as echoes.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom releases September 26th, 2024 only on Nintendo Switch.
