Summary
The announcement ofThe Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdomtook me by complete surprise. A newZeldagame, releasing just 18 months afterTears of the Kingdom? And, after I struggled so much to get into open-world Hyrule the second time around, it’s a refreshing take on the series? This was the announcement of theNintendo Directfor me, and when you consider the likes ofSuper Mario Party Jamboree,Metroid Prime 4,Dragon Quest HD-2D remakes, anda new Mario & Luigi gamewere all involved, that’s saying something.
Someone, somewhere, is still going to be salty about theSilksong no-show. Dry your eyes, mate.
I’m a massive Zelda fan, so I’m clearly biased, but that’s what picking favourites is all about. And, afterbeing turned off Tears of the Kingdom because exploring Hyrule felt a little samey after Breath of the Wild(I’m sorry, I tried so hard to love it), Echoes of Wisdom looks tailor-made for my tastes. It’s old-school Zelda with clever, modern mechanics.I rioted when Zelda wasn’t playable in Tears of the Kingdom, and I’m finallyquelling my protests now. This is everything I could have wished for and more.
But Echoes of Wisdom is bigger than that. More important than that. It’s more than just a game made by stealing into my dizziest daydreams and thieving my ideas like an Inception heist. This small game is a testing bed for new mechanics and ideas that may or may not make it into the main games one day.
Much like the success of the Link’s Awakening remake paved the way for Echoes of Wisdom, this game in turn will alter the future of the Zelda series. If it succeeds, maybe we’ll see Zelda as a playable character in the next Tears of the Kingdom-level game, for instance.
Zelda And Pokemon Are More Similar Than You Might Think
Pokemonhas also done this. The mammoth RPG shares many similarities with Zelda, from its popularity to its console exclusivity, but its release cadence is the most pertinent here. Pokemon pivots between main series games and remakes on a near-annual basis, affording its developers little time to rest or recuperate. However,Pokemon Legends: Arceuswas a different kind of Sinnoh remake (and was joined by a more traditional one in Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl), and the developer clearly used it as a measuring stick for ideas that could bleed into the main series.
Sword & Shield’s Wild Area was the first step towards an open-world Pokemon game, but Legends: Arceus took it a step further. While I was tired of the gradual stepping stones towards a true open world at the time, hindsight allows me the prescience to acknowledge what Arceus achieved. Yeeting Poke Balls was great fun, as was riding about atop our monsters’ backs, although this was an evolution of an already-existing mechanic. But the remake/spin-off/whatever you want to call it was a chance for Game Freak to test things out, to see what fans liked, without the pressure of leading the next generation of Pokemon games.
As it turns out, Legends: Arceus accomplished its goals far better than Scarlet & Violet, but nearly every mechanic – good and bad – in Gen 9 was trialled in the earlier spin-off.
I think Echoes of Wisdom could be the opposite. I wonder if the echo mechanic was something the developers tried to make work in Tears of the Kingdom but couldn’t manage. I wonder if, at some point during development, it was cut but deemed strong enough to lead a spin-off. It’s a wacky theory, but you never know.
Still, the same reasoning applies. A small game costs less to make, can be produced quicker, and is generally less of a risk for a massive corporation. These are the games where developers working on triple-A budgets can experiment a little more, and that’s why we get more unique experiences. Perhaps Zelda is the wrong series to make this point on, seeing as the main series has rewritten the rulebook of mainstream games more times than I can count, but Echoes of Wisdom is still taking more risks than the bigger games in the series. Even just making Zelda playable risks angeringthosekinds of people.
I’m wondering how Echoes of Wisdom fits into the convoluted Zelda timeline. Seeing as it borrows an art style from Link’s Awakening, perhaps it’s all a dream, too?
The Power Of Zelda
Where Zelda differs from Pokemon is that the main series is going from strength to strength, whereas Pokemon is faltering. Where Zelda is doubling down on original ideas with Echoes of Wisdom, Pokemon is looking toLegends: Z-Aas a saviour.
The 2025 spin-off could be just that. It’s shrinking the focus down to one city rather than a huge, open region. It’s doing an Assassin’s Creed and taking us to a period of Kalos’ past, something intriguing for fans. It promises the age-old mysteries surrounding Zygarde. But then it goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid like Mega Evolution.
I love Megas. Mega Gengar is the best shiny Pokemon in existence. But Pokemon is retreading old ground. It’s bringing back fan favourite mechanics as fan service, not because of a love of competitive battling. It also risks creating the monstrosity ofMega Incineroar, which nobody wants to see.
Where Echoes of Wisdom looks to break new ground and innovate with fresh ideas, Pokemon falls back on ol’ reliable. If the series is to continue to interest older fans, it needs to be more like Legends: Arceus and less like Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl. Faithfulness to the old ways can only get you so far. Take these opportunities to do something different, to forge a new identity, to force players to reassess everything they thought they knew about the series. Zelda and Pokemon both rely on their smaller games, but in very different ways. I hope that the latter can learn from the former, because I’m excited for Echoes of Wisdom and worried about Legends: Z-A.
