‘The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’ Sells New Tricky Tropes

Nintendo, after nearly four decades, is taking over The Legend of Zelda somewhere new. With Echoes of WisdomThe video game company is not only building on its latest release for the Switch, Tears of the Kingdom-And it does something that no other Zelda title has done before: Give the princess powers that were previously only given to Link.

“They gave Zelda a sword” was the refrain Echoes of Wisdom as announced back in June. But that’s not all that makes the game unique. Instead, it’s part of a top-down 2D franchise, with a different look and feel Tears of the Kingdom that still uses the freedoms players got from previous games—like the ability to create everything from Korok dungeons to giant mechs.

In Echoesthat means being able to take various pieces of the world itself to reproduce and remake them. For series creator Eiji Aonuma it means that players will never get bored of Zelda (games). “We started to feel,” Aonuma said recently, “that fans might not continue to play this franchise unless they can think independently and try different things freely on their own, rather than following a set path.”

It may not be intentional, but this change also means that players won’t get bored of Zelda (the character) either. Here, the namesake hero can do things and fight his way out of dungeons in ways Link can’t.

The game starts as many The Legend of Zelda games that do: Zelda has been taken, and Link is on his way to save her. However, this time, after fighting off his captor, Link is pulled into a deep, purple abyss and Zelda must free herself. He does, but his happy reunion at home is cut short when Zelda is accused of a crackdown from all over Hyrule. Now a fugitive, he must figure out how to close the rifts and save Link with the help of a magical new friend, Tri, who gives him the ability to make copies—“echoes”—of objects and enemies.

Zelda is not a strong fighter, so spells become her main weapons, her main everything. Beds make good stairs when stacked like that; flying tiles that can shoot Zelda across large spaces; pots thrown in the opposite direction create distractions. The joy of Echoes of Wisdom it’s figuring out how to use everything you get to your advantage. In one puzzle, for example, I saw the pieces the game was waiting for me to use: two prominently placed stones perfectly aligned to cut off steam from two holes that would prevent me from moving forward. I skip everything with a few carefully placed cubes made of water. I swam to my freedom and moved on, feeling like a genius.

Intelligence is at the heart of Echoes of Wisdom. Because there are so many ways to solve many of the game’s mysteries, going through them sometimes gives players the feeling that they’re sneaking into a section right under the noses of the developers. Places I had no business being in were accessible with a few cleverly placed beds, a trampoline, and childlike persistence. I called upon warlords like Keese to fight my battles for me while Zelda slept nearby. Is this how I was meant to play? Maybe, but it felt cruel all the same.

The game’s echoes are so effective that I didn’t use abilities like Zelda’s Link, except in situations where the game needed me to. The princess can transform into a blue, sword-wielding, arrow-shooting bombshell, but time spent in this form burns energy that needs to be replenished with intent. It is intended to be used sparingly.