The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the first Zelda game to feature the titular princess as the protagonist, and reviewers are loving her debut adventure.
In Echoes of Wisdom, Link has been captured, and princess Zelda must save him. She has the power to collect echoes, memories of objects scattered throughout Hyrule, to solve puzzles that face her in the 2D world. The game currently boasts an 86 on Metacritic based on 84 critic reviews.
TheGamer wrote “Echoes of Wisdom has me looking forward to the future, and wondering how The Legend of Zelda will grow in response to this experimental take on the traditional 2D formula that delves deeper into the Hylian monarchy and its machinations than any other game before it.”
Echoes of Wisdom has a daunting task ahead of it: being the first mainline Zelda game after Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. These games captured the hearts of many, and Eurogamer notes it “can’t help but come away feeling a little diminished by comparison”.
The site had high praise, though, noting “there were several moments where getting to grips with a new Echo put a big delirious grin on my face, and I haven’t seen such inventive uses of water and clouds since Super Mario Galaxy.”
However, not everyone loved the new systems. The Guardian wrote, “with 50 or 60 echoes in your library, remembering which ones are useful in certain situations feels like homework.”
Similarly, VGC wrote “Echoes of Wisdom eventually unravels into a surprisingly uneven Zelda adventure, which struggles to deliver on its initial promise. By the end, few of the game’s headline mechanics felt like they were utilised to their potential.”
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