The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Reviews
The result is a game that is the definition of a truly mixed experience - but if you take the rough and under-developed with the smooth and innovative, there’s a lot of fun to be had. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is perhaps a victim of being part of a series that has one of the highest batting averages of any franchise out there - what is ‘good’ by Zelda standards is great to many other franchises and publishers. This is by no means the earth-shaker that some Zelda games are - but it sits up there with many other classic 2D Zeldas just fine. I just wish Zelda herself felt a bit more defined and present throughout, given this is her first true playable debut.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a triumph of both style and storytelling. Princess Zelda feels like a true protagonist and doesn't simply "take Link's place" in the adventure. The creativity of the "Echoes" system is wonderfully done for the most part, and most will definitely want a new adventure of this nature in the future.
Echoes of Wisdom is a great maiden adventure for the franchise's eponymous princess, marrying old and new convincingly, and setting up a foundation for 2D Zelda games to thrive alongside their bigger 3D cousins.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom takes the best things from its Switch counterparts—and a few of the bad ones—and creates an incredible unique free-form top-down experience.
Echoes of Wisdom is a fantastic game that skillfully redefines the classic 2D Zelda formula, while taking inspiration from other games in the series. These changes will be noticed mostly by veterans, but even new players will find lots of fun here.
Review in Polish | Read full review
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom elegantly bridges old and new Zelda with grace and gusto. The Echoes system is inventive, the dungeon designs are strong and the whole experience feels like everything a classic Zelda experience should be. While minor performance issues hold Echoes of Wisdom back from being everything it could be, they're only minor blemishes on an otherwise stellar adventure fit for a princess.
A perfectly-paced, delightful twist on the classic 2D Zelda formula, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom takes everything Nintendo has learned from the Switch era and condenses it into a tight adventure jam-packed with heart. Through its wonderfully magical Echoes mechanic, satisfyingly diverse dungeon design, and unique blend of modern and classic design elements, this is both a celebration of the franchise's history and a bold first offering for Zelda as protagonist. Performance issues aside, Echoes of Wisdom is impossible not to love for newcomers and series veterans alike.
The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom is a unique new addition to the Zelda family. It’s wonderful to see the same boundless creativity celebrated in a smaller-scale title.
Echoes of Wisdom lays the groundwork for the future of the Zelda series, offering a beautiful and exhilarating experience that blends classic elements with forward-thinking design.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Princess Zelda finally takes the stage in this magnificent farewell to the series' best generation, giving the top-down adventure a serving of the latest 3D entries' innovations.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is an utterly enthralling breath of fresh air for the Zelda franchise. Straying away from swordplay and quadrupling down on puzzles, magic, and monster summons is exactly what these games needed after decades of Link’s games adhering to a strict template.
Dungeons return to a quality we haven't seen in more than ten years and the musical presentation is excellent. Performance while consistently hitting 30 frames-per-second strains fruitlessly for 60. But ultimately Echoes of Wisdom excellently weaves itself into the grand tapestry of Zelda with surprising originality while being careful never to trample on what has come before.
This simple but effective fun formula, which I don't mind calling "pure Nintendo fun", combines with a bunch of toys you can use and drops you into an extremely cute looking playground.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
After cooking up extremely innovative ideas with the latest 3D entries in the series, it is great to see Nintendo apply this lust for originality to top-down Legend of Zelda, too. There isn't a lot to be said for difficulty, and, like Tears of the Kingdom before it, certain gameplay features can be abused to make the quest easier, but the key thing about Echoes of Wisdom is that it is so much fun to play. The 3D games got their much-needed shake-up, and now the top-down format has received it for the better, as well. It was far too long of a wait for Princess Zelda to get her playable role in the series that bears her name, but this is an excellent start to hopefully bigger things to come.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the perfect Legend of Zelda game. Where Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom took the series in new directions, to the point that they’re barely related to what came before them, Zelda’s first outing as a protagonist feels like it fits seamlessly in with the traditions of Ocarina of Time, Link’s Awaking and Link to the Past. Not only that, but Nintendo has built a gameplay system that is more whimsical and creative than any of those previous titles, making this a more complete and fully realised vision of what the series has always wanted to be. I desperately hope that this wasn’t just a one-off experiment, and The Legend of Link is here to stay.
Echoes of Wisdom is a solid game with fantastic ideas that will force you to reprogram that Legend of Zelda brain you've been shaping over years and years of practice. Grezzo has created an experience worth trying and a journey no fan of the franchise will regret starting. That being said, we can't ignore the fact that there are several elements in the game's design that fall short because they don't reach the level of maturity we see in era-defining games
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom feels like the perfect compromise between old and new. It incorporates some of the best elements of open-world design from the more recent 3D titles into the solid linear structures of the classic 2D instalments to create something that feels familiar without being too stale, and structured without being restrictive. No matter what your history with the series is, you’d be wise to check this one out.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a great adventure; its world is vast and its content is rich. The main idea behind the game is very inventive as it gives players unparalleled freedom to tackle challenges in their preferred way, and at the same time it re-introduces beloved, classic dungeons that many did miss from the latest 3D adventures.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom may not be a game for everyone. Maybe not even a game for every Zelda fan. It does things differently, turns the traditional formula on its head and asks you to do something other than traditional combat. But that's what impressed me about it. It's not trying to do the same thing that worked five years ago. It's building on that, but it's doing something new, something fresh and something interesting that's hard to tear yourself away from.
Review in Slovak | Read full review