Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Happy to hear the level of puzzle flexibility from Breath/Tears has returned in full force here. I know some people weren't keen on it the last time but as a sucker for a good lateral thinking challenge they were some of my favorites in the series.

@FishyS Another thought on the enemy echoes, it's not necessarily as over-powered as I initially thought that it would be. Each enemy has an attack pattern, and if you spawn an enemy at the wrong time, they will be easily defeated. I was able to get to a point where I was spawning a slime, and it took about 4 spawns to defeat 2 enemies. It does allow you to more easily create space. Also, you can pick up your echoes, or move them around as you do in all Zelda games.

As for the buttons, I believe it was L to pull up the menu and DPad to select. It was very fast, but with 100+ echoes it will likely become a bit cumbersome. I didn't play around with the pause/options menu, so I'm not sure if there's a way to save or reorder loadouts. It was very similar to TOTK.

I did find that aiming the echoes took a little practice, it was easy to spawn in the wrong spot. However, it's very easy to recall all echoes or start over. By the time you reach more complex areas, I'd imagine that the controls will become more precise. By the end of my demo, I was doing pretty good at controlling where my echoes went.

@N00BiSH to me it felt like there's more intention with how you can approach different challenges. Each little section feels more like a stand-alone sandbox to solve in vs the entire world being a sandbox, if that makes sense. Who knows what it'll be like once you reach the full world map...think of it as LTTP meets TOTK

@Lazz so what you're saying is puzzle flexibility is still a thing, but there's still a specific set of solutions depending on the context? Cause if so, sounds neat.

@N00BiSH I think so, that's how it felt in the 15 minutes I had. Maybe there will be an echo that can cheese through everything, like the bed, but there's a lot of opportunity to try different ideas out.

@Lazz From the demo you've played, it sounds like this might end up being the perfect middleground to puzzle solving. Puzzles with clear-cut solutions but still having the ability to do what you wish in order to solve them. Combat also sounds like it has more strategy involved than initially thought, which makes me pretty excited as well.

@VoidofLight absolutely. I was surprised, honestly, that I had so much fun. I thought, going in, that I'd enjoy the demo, but did not expect to leave with a "Day 1" purchase takeaway. I think that this game will be enjoyable based on how "outside the box" you decide to tackle different areas. My son and I made it through the demo in completely different ways, and it was pretty straight forward. That's what really has me excited (similar to how we all played BOTW/TOTK completely different). There's more limitations in a basically 2D/top-down game. The addition of verticality and platforming makes it feel fresh.

This is totally off-topic, and I should post in another thread, but I felt the same way after playing the new Mario Party game - very fun and strategic....

@Lazz Given there seems to be more restrictions on how you tackle things, I feel like it'll ultimately breed more creativity and give a feeling of accomplishment through that. Genuinely can't wait to get my hands on this.

@VoidofLight I'm really glad to help by sharing my thoughts. I'm very excited to dive more into this game soon! September will be a busy month, with Marvel Vs Capcom & Zelda. Glad it's my B-Day month and I can justify spending a bit more than usual on games

I wonder, what makes this a 2D game? I mean, it's rendered in 3D and you move Zelda in 3D space. The only major difference I can see is that the background perspective is stable. If this is a 2D game, then so is Super Mario 3D World, no?

@cwong15 "2D Zeldas" are what people refer to the top-down Zelda titles. Mainly because 2D Zeldas aren't working on a full 3D plain. Mario 3D World is still working with a full 3D axis, even with forced camera perspectives. 2D Zeldas aren't.

@VoidofLight Could you clarify your terminology? What do you mean by "full 3D plain", or "full 3D axis"?

As far as I can tell from the trailers, this latest Zelda is rendered with the usual 3D graphics with "forced camera perspectives", pretty much as you described Super Mario 3D World. The latter game — as opposed to something like Super Mario Galaxy — keeps the background perspective fixed to allow multi-player gaming. But whatever the motivation, the result seems pretty similar. In either case, your character interacts with the environment on 3 axis.

From my perspective, it's perfectly clear to describe this Zelda game style as "top-down", describing the overhead, fixed camera angle. But I still fail to see how this can be termed "2D", except in select side-perspective levels.

@cwong15 in this game you only go the four cardinal directions. There's no vertical axis in the sense of a fully 3D title. TotK for example has sky islands and the depths. It plays with verticality. Everything in games like A Link Between Worlds and Echoes of Wisdom has "depth," but not to the same extent. Sure, there are mountains in the game, but said mountains are still shown at a top-down and flat angle.

Either way, 2D Zelda and Top Down Zelda are the same thing. People call it 2D because the style is vastly different from the 3D Zeldas in both gameplay and how the world is approached. It's a remnant of the Gameboy days for when we were getting full 3D Zeldas on home console and sprite-based Zeldas on handheld.

@cwong15 For whatever it's worth, a lot of people call games like Zelda Echoes 2.5D

Seeing as you can arbitrarily stack echoes anywhere, I'd think that the third dimension is going to be in play most of the time. That's as opposed to, say, Phantom Hourglass, where you're only rarely using it, typically only as scripted events.

@Matt_Barber I guess, but even then 2D Zelda is still referred to as 2D Zelda since it follows the same style of the old 2D games. Plus it rolls off the tongue better than "Top down Zelda."

Yeah, the terms stick because they're succinct, even if not strictly accurate.

Thinking about it, Triforce Heroes has a lot of 3D puzzles in it too. That's a much easier game to wave away as an outlier than I'd expect Echoes of Wisdom to be, however.

I’ve seen some people tired of the Breath of the Wild-infication of Zelda games, but this game is unique because it has a blend of both the old and new, which each have their own dedicated fans. For a game with Zelda as the protag, they did a fantastic job making her not just be a female link. They give her a sword form, but it’s cleverly timed so you can’t burn through the game with it, you gotta be creative. Truthfully, I will probably buy this game day one not only because it looks incredible, but because I support having Zelda as the protagonist for more loz games in the future

Personally I don't mind Zelda being the protagonist of this game, but I hope they don't just go and make Link a supporting role in future games with Zelda being the primary protagonist. I like playing as Link and I enjoy him as a main character more than anything. I feel like Zelda being the protagonist of Echoes of Wisdom is going to be a one and done sort of deal, sorta like with Zelda being the sidekick in Spirit Tracks.