The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the latest game from Nintendo and, as the name suggests, it is the continuation of this beloved and established franchise in the world of gamers. Released on September 26, 2024, the game arrives with a strong approval in the market, mainly for bringing very innovative aspects beyond exploration and combat with Link, the great hero of the series.

That's right, for those of you who haven't read anything about the game yet, this will possibly be a big surprise factor: Zelda will be the main protagonist. Of course, the princess has always been important, but throughout the 38 years of this franchise, we had never played with her. And I can tell you in advance, the surprise in this case is quite positive.

I mean, even though it is a name already established in the market, with a loyal audience who would love to buy into the ideas of the Zelda universe, it is necessary to innovate, and the news, I must say, came at the right time, with a strong impact on gameplay and possibly here, if the success of the game is confirmed, it will be possible to give a special touch to our princess. So, congratulations to the developers for having the courage to break the paradigm of the need for only one protagonist, a major positive point.

Furthermore, it is very interesting that Nintendo is starting to adopt different measures to create a story, here we will not experience a linear story, in which we only carry out missions from the main narrative in search of an objective, but we will have side missions and, after a certain point, we will have a free world style to follow the path we desire, with two or more options of paths to be completed. Thus, for the latest great game of the Nintendo Switch 1, with a style that allows the player to choose their path beautifully, expectations have been created!
 

The narrative inversion

The beginning will be normal, with Link trying to save Zelda from a giant monster, however, everything changes from the moment we defeat this villain and manage to 'save' the princess of Hyrule. After that, purple rifts begin to open on the map and people start to disappear, including Link, who will need to be rescued by Zelda, reversing the roles.

For this, our newest main character will need to investigate these rifts, alternating between the two worlds, the real and the inert (inside the rifts), to find out what is happening and save the people, including her father, the king. We will count on the help of Tri, who provides powers that completely change the gameplay we know from The Legend of Zelda.
 

Basically, all of Zelda's strength and maneuvers will be concentrated in a staff, which will give us the power to reproduce things, named echoes, that we memorize in the real world, such as monsters (to defend ourselves), chairs (to climb and jump over high objects), and others. In addition, we will be able to connect to these objects and mimic their movements or make them imitate us, for example, by connecting to a statue and moving to the left, the object will follow the movement, being able to press a button on the ground.

Furthermore, these interactions with the environment are the great charm of the game for me so far, the puzzles and exploratory elements of the game grow a lot with this way of dealing with mechanics, climbing to unreachable places, imitating spider movements to climb walls and many others, this enriches the gameplay and brings a feeling that there is a universe of possibilities beyond the main narrative, thus, we will have multiple solutions to a problem, requiring the player to think before acting. This, combined with the fact that there is, indeed, after some gameplay time, a perspective of an open world, where you start following paths that will not lead you to the main mission, finding sidequests, brings a huge complement and adds positively to this release.
 

It is worth noting that Nintendo spared no effort in making it clear that, even with all these differences, there are indeed great references to other games in the franchise, such as side missions, design, and even the discovery of maps, maintaining great similarities that have already proven to be positive (as in Breath of the Wild or Tear of the Kingdom), but with greater freedom. Thus, the great magic here is being able to solve a problem not only in one way, but with more than one shortcut or mechanic to be used, in other words, be creative!

Moreover, there are other items to be explored that we will find, including being able to reach places on the map that you simply wouldn't imagine! Climbing mountains and discovering that there are caves to be explored, visiting locations and, after completing missions, acquiring items that we never thought we would have (here, I will avoid spoilers) and many others. Still, we will find small missions that we can repeat in exchange for collectibles, such as picking mangoes within a time limit or dealing with monsters also with a time limitation.

In this context, we will also be able to make changes to Zelda's equipment that will help in a certain way in the gameplay, like a clip that helps find more hearts to increase our health (although it is possible to recover just by lying in a bed) or even a glove to find more energy. Anyway, the big issue is that we will not be able to combine these items, although in other games we could do that, here we will be limited to 1.

Charming as always

There is not much to say, but again the art of EoW is beautiful! The environment, the shapes created, the change between the two dimensions is all very clear, very well-drawn and with detailed tones. I constantly notice the change in the soundtrack, but I think it makes sense, after all, here it is not just sword fighting, now, despite there being an ability where we temporarily transform into Link at a cost of energy, most of the time we will have to use our heads to progress, and I think that calls for a different musicality.

Still, it is worth mentioning that at times, with the changes in the environment, we will find totally different scenarios to continue our adventure and close the rifts, like the desert that caught my attention for its beauty, with monsters and people in different attire as well, following the arid look, performing a kind of 'miracle', making everything beautiful even with the limitations of an older console.
 

In addition, something that surprised me a lot was the 100% translation of menus and subtitles, for the first time in the history of the franchise, into Brazilian Portuguese, using creativity in the names of characters and collectible items. We will be able to use fruits, juices, and others to empower our character in battle, we can still collect heart clips around the map that will increase the total amount of health, and, not to forget, we can pick an item to increase the power of the sword.

Echoes of Wisdom, therefore, is the perfect way to close the cycle on the Nintendo Switch, maintaining this huge consistency of quality, with a gameplay that in my opinion may have surpassed many other names, with a free path to be taken by the player, but keeping what is expected from this franchise, a high-level gameplay and, of course, that touch of nostalgia (we will find, including, many references to other Zelda games), maintaining creativity as in Tears of The Kingdom and Breath of the Wild, even though they are very different from each other.

We thank the Nintendo PR team for providing The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and making the creation of this content possible.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is available for Nintendo Switch.