The Hyrule Fantasy

I finished Echoes of Wisdom during the weekend and I absolutely loved it. I personally think that the characters and dialogue is pretty cute, even if it’s a bit simple. Had tons of fun being a little gremlin person running around mischievously bullying monsters and trampolining over the scenery. The final boss and the parts building up to it were top notch too, especially the music. Gotta love when they really hone in on the leitmotif like that.

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I had a lot more free time to just hang out with EoW the last two days and it has really grown on me. My assumption after the first 10 hours was that the game was trying to do more than it initially let on, so I was rushing to get to “the good stuff”. Once I slowed down and met the game on its level, and I started having a very good time! It’s not really a matter of the dungeons or puzzles getting harder as the game goes on, it’s that you get more options as you go.

It’s a very nice low-intensity game for when you’re a little sick or traveling. Unlike TOTK, I am getting a lot of joy from exploring the map and checking off checklists and sidequests. The size of the open world is excellent and so much more approachable. I feel like I could 100% it in 30-35 hours and feel great about it.

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Glad to hear that you’re vibing with it more now after coming back to it. I also found it to be a lot of fun to travel and explore the map. There’s something breezy and fun about it. You can also find some mini dungeons out there, some of which have their very own monsters for solving puzzles inside. That’s the stuff we need more of in the series to be honest.

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i was hankering to play the new Zeldy but i have Skyward Sword HD from a friend that i’d never loaded up so went with that. i really hated it on the wii and gave it a fair old shot but ultimately found it got messy after a few dungeons. too many ideas.

this time, i’m loving how puzzle-focused it is. using non-motion controls is still a little wonky but it is much more responsive to fast inputs compared to the wii motion+ in my memory. i wish i could swap the L-bumper-for camera to be a sword button. that would feel more “active” i think.

minish cap is a huge bummer to me. after hearing the gang on the podcast talk about it this week made me chew it over again. it starts pretty well after all of the insipid dialog wraps up and you can actually play the thing. lots of nice puzzley design with de-emphasised action. then you get the make-more-links ability and the rest of the game just suuuuuuucks. the same four-sword multi-link puzzle gets more and more fiddly but never really more thoughtful. i did finish it a long time ago but my most recent playthrough was BINNED in a late dungeon.

skyward borrows a lot of ideas from minish. far too much talking early on. knight academy, missing bird, blah blah blah give me the sword (in fact every Zelda after Ocarina up to BOTW has a protracted introduction before the game actually gives you the reins(maybe not the DS ones i haven’t actually played them)). but good stuff too! digging, wind bag, de-emphasised action replaced with puzzley combat encounters. let’s see if i make it past the halfway point this time around.

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Absolutely, I think the game is at its best when a puzzle or obstacle needs a specific combination of echoes to solve and the game requires some variety between rooms. There were times that for example, I would go into into a dark room, followed by an ice obstacle, followed by a flying obstacle, followed by an enemy, I could just find myself throwing Fire Keese at all of them unconsciously. To an extent it’s unavoidable for this type of game. I think to really have a great time you need to tailor your own experience to a certain degree (or to find the fun in exploiting the game).

I think part of the reason Eventide Island is such a memorable location in BotW is because it forces you to start from scratch and go through the process of rediscovering tools you might have ignored and having them be useful again. I feel like this game would have benefitted if for example, all of your echoes could only be used in the overworld, and then each dungeon was self-contained. The final dungeon for example was a nice twist, where you had to manipulate Link’s AI, but I think they could have gone further with that.

I’m happy I played the game. I think it lived up to the concept as well as any game could. I don’t think they can really repeat this gameplay style in the same way unless they go full Zelda Maker or Roguelike, so this might just be remembered as an interesting and ambitious experiment.

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Echoes of Wisdom:

Did anyone else flip their shit when they found out about the cat outfit and its abilities?

spoiler

:smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Absolutely!

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Ha ha! Yes.

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You know, I’ve been putting off playing lately but I think this revelation is gonna get me fully back on board, thank you

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Oh, nice. Yea, just a heads up. The image isn’t necessarily related to aforementioned ‘abilities’ I just thought it was really cute.

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Really you had me at cat outfit

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Talking to animals! What is this, Crusader of Centy?

Agreed and thought this worked well in both surprise and pay off. The series is all about examining the world with different tools and lenses. It was great to see the idea applied to an extra layer of characters too. I’m still finding ones I didn’t talk to yet!

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After about a week away from it, I spent a nice afternoon with echoes. While I did like what the game had to offer in its early stretch, the lack of friction was keeping me from getting hooked. I’m happy to report that once I got past saving the castle town, the friction ramps up. I was kinda sleep walking through dungeons until I went into the wetlands dungeon (and I’m guessing the next couple big ones will be similar) and now I’ve got my brain thinking on. It’s just about ideal levels of trial and error puzzle solving for me. And who would have guessed we’d be playing a Zelda with RTS combat this year? I’m digging it. I’m loving the soundtrack, too. The small ensemble sound with lots of woodwinds is so pleasant and relaxing. I can’t wait to listen to it on Nintendo Music! Oh wait… lol no

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