The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Echoes of Wisdom successfully combines the feel of earlier Zelda games with the new creative direction that the modern entries have been going in. By fusing the classic key item progression of older Zelda games with the more modern, player-driven problem-solving of Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild, Echoes of Wisdom creates something both familiar, yet distinct from every other game in the series so far. Also, our long-suffering Hyrulian princess finally gets some time in the spotlight, and that is a welcome change of pace.

It’s a fun as hell game. It’s challenging and satisfying. And it fits neatly in the established mythos as another incarnation of our beloved hero(es). There’s a real sense of accomplishment in conducting a herd of boomerang-wielding Bokoblins as they pepper every enemy with attacks and then conjuring a bridge made of beds to cross an unjumpable gap. Sure, you might not be swinging the sword, but Echoes of Wisdom proves that the pen — or the bed, table, crate, or boulder — can be even mightier.

Mind you, we don’t love every element imported from the recent Switch games to this new installment: Maybe we’re just broken-souled weirdos who don’t properly appreciate fine cuisine, but we didn’t feel like this style of Zelda game was necessarily missing cooking—or the various design decisions attached to it, including getting food ingredients as rewards that could have been something cooler, and the fact that enemies hit like Mack trucks to justify you needing to lug around a backpack full of health-restoring smoothies. (Also, Echoes retains Breath and Tears‘ shameless willingness to let you bury yourself in a 50-entry menu as you go digging around for the one tool you desperately need.) But these feel like small quibbles, in the face of Zelda continuing to execute one of the most fascinating re-inventions in gaming: Transforming from a series where you basically always knew what you were going to get, into some of Nintendo’s most aggressively weird design in decades. All that, and it looks cute as a button, too.