Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

I beat this game yesterday after total of I think about 20-hours (playing on and off over 4-days) I finished the game to the end, defeating the final boss, (stock up on health potions, you WILL need them) but I still need to go through the game and complete all the side quests and collect everything.

I love these style of Zelda games, like Link's Awakening, but I wish they would make them longer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they remake Link to the Past in this style for Switch 2, that game would be great in this style and has both the Light and Dark worlds to explore, that would be epic.

My only complaints about Echoes of Wisdom are that at certain points in the game the dialogue feels like it goes on forever, sometimes pausing for ages for a pointless animation, and the horse feels redundant with all the warp points available in the game, fun to ride at first but you don't really need the horse to get around I feel.

Echoes of Wisdom is a fantastic take on a Zelda game, I'm really enjoying it, and I hope it spawns a sequel or another "Zelda" playable adventure in the future. You can't hate this game just because you're not playing as Link, you have to play it for what it is, and it is amazing, I love it.

@maxrpg ehhh by the end I just wished I could play as Link. I say this as someone who has been pretty open-minded about Zelda having a game where she's the protagonist. Towards the end I literally only used the sword for most of the combat encounters because echoes were inefficient and became unfun. The final boss was a testament to that as Link dealt more damage at a faster rate than I did. I was just spamming the echoes and dodging attacks while Link got rid of the enemies far faster just by using the sword of might and bows.

Over-all, I feel like the game was genuinely clunky. I don't think Grezzo is a bad studio and I believe they could make a good Zelda game, but it would be better if they made a more traditional game. After all, they're pretty strong with remaking and remastering older Zeldas and the older dungeon designs.

@VoidofLight I'm only 5 dungeons in so 3? more to go but so far I have never used the link power-up even once except when you were required to at the very start of the game. Traditional Zelda bosses are 'memorize pattern and attack in standard way' which isn't bad per say but I love what type of crazy tactics you can use with Echoes. I am not usually a fan of boss rushes, but I actually really love the boss rush mini game in EoW because everytime can be played totally differently and optimized in bizarre ways.

I'll reserve final udgement until I finish the game, but so far it feels like a breath of fresh air to me at least

@FishyS I'm not as far as everyone else(I tend to take Zeldas a little slow) but I share the sentiment. I only rarely use the Might magic except during the bosses and even then I'm mostly using the Echoes.

Bosses and enemy design feel stronger overall because of the emphasis on indirect combat. Any locked encounter in a dungeon doesn't feel like the usual "plow through them all to open the doors" schtick. They're little puzzles of their own, encouraging you to get involved with the mechanics and experiment with them in ways that make each fight feel a little unique and sometimes more satisfying.

@FishyS I was about at the fifth dungeon in the game before I started to just get tired of using the echoes. Mostly just felt like I was spamming my strongest at the time given that the game doesn't really incentivize tackling the bosses or normal overworld monsters in the most creative ways. The combat also started to feel like a slog halfway through for me, given that you're effectively having to summon an echo to deal with any and all enemies that cross your path.. when I really just wanted to get things over with.

@VoidofLight I have some dungeons left but I've played for over 25 hours so I think I've done most of the non-dungeon activities. I guess for me I attack the monsters in creative ways because it's fun. I'm honestly not a huge boss fan normally in most games, but these ones I simply enjoy so far — not because the bosses themselves are interesting (they're not) but because killing them in silly ways is fun. We'll see how I feel about the last few dungeons. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the game; Zelda often gets so much praise that it is a little sad when you don't enjoy one. Honestly I felt a bit like that about BotW; I wanted to love it but it felt a bit like a slog to me.

@FishyS Ehh me not enjoying Zelda titles is nothing new at this point. Feels like ever since BotW I haven't really enjoyed them as much as I have before. I think EoW was better than Tears of the Kingdom at least, but I hope there'll be a game I like as much as Link Between Worlds or other games in the series eventually.

So, story time. I disobeyed the law of Save Often and have suffered for it. 😓
Anyone familiar with a Platboom? They are the platform monsters that look a bit like a banana Moonpie.
Anyway, there's this random dungeon out in the desert with a pair of them in it. And it didn't even slightly occur to me to fight them when I could just ride them up, so I didn't. Which means I didn't get their echo...
Which lead to me getting completely stuck in the pit at the back of the room. All my autosaves slots filled with my attempts to get free, so I had no choice but to scrub my entire nights progress. I'm so pissed.

**** Fair warning, one and all.****
If you see a floating Moonpie ABSOLUTELY STOP and take a bite out of it (or fight it or whatever). You will IMMEDIATELY need that echo, OR SUFFER AS I HAVE.

PS. I think this is a pretty terribly game flaw. There are ways I could have prevented this catastrophy, but in the end, if I need a very specific echo to escape the dungeon, then I shouldn't be able to get stuck down there without it. 😮‍💨

@KashiKimari I call those thwomps because they are clearly just thwomps 😆 If I recall I almost got stuck in the same place; I think there actually is a different way to escape but I am not positive. Regardless, if you get stuck, you can just teleport out of the dungeon.

I just used a Crawltulla to get back out, it didn't even register to me that I could've gotten stuck in there

Regarding the "game breaking" bug: From what I have read on the internet you have to trigger the Eldin volcano cutscene BEFORE the Goron city entrance cutscene. Just go from Kakariko village up the mountain without entering caves, then go left at the first wall. After the Eldin volcano cutscene you can go straight to the Goron city and that cutscene also plays. If it always works that way it isn't a glitch at all. So if you can't enter the city, might just go for the Eldin volcano cutscene first.

Update: Seems the Eldin volcano cutscene plays as soon as you go up the mountain. After that I went to the city and everything worked. The Eldin volcano cutscene also plays when you come from the right, so I can't see how anyone could miss that.

@FishyS Not going to lie, I compete forgot about waypoints. 😂
Guess that's what I get for playing until dawn. Thanks for sharing, now I can save all that progress.

Talking to cats is incredible! I'm utterly charmed by the way they refer to their humans as "person-friend."

The one in Zelda’s room makes sure to remind her that her place is safe thanks to them.

Am I the only one who accidentally sets themselves on fire every time they pass a lamp? 😆

@FishyS I use ignizols as my go-to way to light up things and deal with minor enemies, so my Zelda is constantly on fire.

Halfway through the game, and I still like riding on Pathblade echoes to get around. Does anyone like another echo better for traveling?

https://zeldawiki.wiki/wiki/Pathblade

@WoomyNNYes It never even occured to me to ride on a pathblade. I mostly only ride on the Tiles and platbooms just to get over a cliff or gap easily.

I’ll sometimes summon the horse to move around, but most of the time I just teleport.

Flying tiles are great to cross gaps without much effort, but you need to be careful with differences in elevation because they will break on contact.

Speaking of missing a gap and falling, what do people think about lack of Fall damage? I think they did it to encourage creativity with gaps. And... the fact that they made falling into pits kind of horrifying makes you still avoid it even though there is technically no penalty.