The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom | Traversing Hyrule Trailer

[Moonface]

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom | Announced
Link is missing, which means it's up to Princess Zelda to take the lead and save Hyrule in this new adventure announced during today's Nintendo Direct. Using the Trirod, she can recreate items such as tables, beds, boxes and water blocks to help traverse the world. Also, create echoes of monsters with the Trirod too to have them fight for you!



The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom releases for Nintendo Switch on September 26, 2024!

[Dragon Lord]

Man, this could have been SO GOOD but ended up just looking so... mediocre. When I was watching the trailer during the direct and saw Link get swallowed by the black hole and Zelda leave by herself, I was like, do we finally get a Zelda game where we play as Zelda and get to kick some ass?!?!?

Nope. We just get to stand there with a magic stick and copy/paste things to fight for us. Ugh. Thanks Nintendo, you had one job with this game and you blew it.

[ShiraNoMai]

I think it's kind of reductive to simplify Zelda's moveset as "copy + paste". I quite like they didn't decide to just re-skin Link as Zelda and gave her something unique; it really seems to change up the mechanics of how you would approach combat and encounters in the game, in my opinion.

I actually find the "creative solution" approach they gleaned from Tears of the Kingdom as something that's highly welcome. Having multiple ways to solve a problem versus the "one-solution puzzle" that old Zelda titles are known for is definitely how you keep the series feeling fresh and new.

[Moonface]

Clearly the best of both worlds is for Zelda to make a piece of furniture and do this with it:

[ShiraNoMai]

See, he gets it.

The art community pouring out the love and hype for this game has me all kinds of excited to see more of it. I still can't believe it's out so soon!

[Moonface]

It's hard to say without knowing exactly how the mechanic works but Zelda must have a way to fight things herself because otherwise if you opted to never obtain an enemy echo you'd essentially softlock yourself in boss fights, plus you probably have to kill an enemy to create an echo of it in the first place. Plus I'm sure there's going to be some sort of limit or cool down for summoning monsters otherwise why even bother with anything but the strongest thing you have?

[Moonface]

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom | Traversing Hyrule Trailer
Learn about some of the regions you’ll visit in Hyrule during your adventure––as well as a few other things that are sure to come in handy!

---

I really love the look of the overworld, but the big thing I took away from this trailer is some of the mechanics that are reminiscent of stuff from BotW/TotK. Bind reminds me of Ultra Hand (TotK) but greatly expanded, and the smoothies make me think of the cooking mechanics but simpler.

Combat still seems rather on the light side though. That may just be because the trailer was focusing on other things, but even the amount of enemies in the world seemed almost non-existent for everything we saw. For what we did get though I think it confirms we won't do any fighting as Zelda directly and all combat will involve using echoes or other abilities. My impression from the trailer though is the game is more about solving things than fighting things.

[queenzelda]

I like the fact that there are two different Zora's species. There always kind of was but seeing it in the game trailer made me very happy. Also very excited to see the return of the Deku Scrubs.

It's interesting seeing how you can traverse in this game with a horse vs the abilities (ultra hand) that Zelda uses too.

[Moonface]

I didn't notice the two different Zora types the first time I watched because I wasn't expecting a different design to show up after the first so stopped paying as close attention to the footage.
I knew the Zora design had changed at some point, but I figured it was just a redesign that stuck due to popularity rather than the two designs being of separate Zora races. I wonder if this will be the only game to do it or if having both will be a constant going forward?

Also, apparently there have been various short website clips of footage that hasn't been seen in trailers that someone spliced together here: https://streamable.com/ge1sn3
I haven't watched it yet but comments seem to indicate it has a lot more combat footage in it than what we've seen so far.

[queenzelda]

Yea, the video you linked shows some use of the abilities that Zelda has, as well as how she traverses Hyrule. They also show how she battles with monsters in her stead, which is nice. Kinda gives me Dragon Quest Monsters vibes but instead you're catching them and using the monsters as Zelda.

Personally, I love the Dragon Quest Monsters titles and seeing a Zelda title go that route where you can swap/trap any monster you like is really interesting to see. :3

[ShiraNoMai]

Yeah, it feels like a next-step in the evolution of what combat can be in this series post-BOTW/TOTK.

[queenzelda]

I can't wait to get my hand on this on September 26th. Should be interesting to see how things differ from being above ground and then heading into the darkness. (mwahahaha)

[queenzelda]

Update: Apparently this game has leaked online. So be careful if you're looking for it!