Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

@Dom_31
Well, the whole game is based around always growing your arsenal of echoes, and most of them can be used in really creative ways. So in that regard, the game is always opening up and giving you more options for gameplay.

On the Link side of things, you’ll continue to grow his weapons and the time you can play as him. In a lot of boss fights, you can stay Link pretty much the whole time if you’re good about spacing out the energy chips.

The thing I love most, though, is that the game is back to dungeons that are all very different from each other and have cool puzzles. Some can be brute forced, yea, but every step of the adventure gives you something new.

@rallydefault hmm, gonna give it more time. I think there's another quest in what I assume is the Gerudo area and I usually give Zelda games until the obligatory "twist" midgame/after doing whatever the games first set up as goal.

This is of course assuming Echoes takes more after older Zeldas and not the switch duology

@Tasuki for sure, release on both, doesn’t matter to me. I just love that game.

@Dom_31
It does follow the older games where there is a pivot at the 1/3 - halfway point, yes.

I think having the echoes is what makes this game unique. Because you get so many echoes there are so many ways to tackle a puzzle or a fight. For example I didnt know about the attach feature for some echoes. There was a heart piece up high and after reading a walk-through after I finished the area (which I like to do to make sure I didnt miss anything) they said use a crawltula and attach yourself to it to climb the wall up to get the heart piece. Well instead what I did was get up to a lower point and built a bridge of beds to get to the heart piece which worked just fine. Examples like that is why I am enjoying this game so much.

As someone pointed out yeah there is the "Link mode" but like they said it feels like it was put in there to give people a feel of familiarity which is why your timed with it. They really want to to use the echoes to figure your way out of puzzles.

With that said try also using the echoes in unconventional ways. Like for example drop a bed on an enemy below you, you'd be surprised how much damage you can do to it.

@NintendoByNature Done some more exploring and to my delight I found the haunted grove area from ALttP. Which if I am correct the ranch is where the town is in ALttP. Seeing stuff like that just puts a smile on my face when I play this game.

@Tasuki
Yea, a lot of the higher-level and speedrun tech makes heavy use of the attach feature with your echoes.

Explored the Lake Hylia area tonight. Manged to get the upgrade from the Great Fairy which was nice. I also found the Eastern Palace and decide to pop in to explore. I was quite surprised to find a boss in there. Smog is probably the most annoying boss I have had to face so far. Still I managed to defeat him and go an accessory that reduces damage I take which is always helpful.

Speaking of upgrades. I have enough to upgrade my sword form which I can up damage or increase the length of time I use it. Any suggestions?

@Tasuki,

"Speaking of upgrades. I have enough to upgrade my sword form which I can up damage or increase the length of time I use it. Any suggestions?"

During my playthrough, what I mostly did early on was focus on increasing the length of time, with focusing on damage increases later. Though going with damage increases earlier in the game probably wouldn't be too bad either.

It just depends on how much you use the sword form or other link abilities. You can eventually max all the link upgrades at least in the post-game. I don't believe anything in the game actually requires any additional upgrades to any of the abilities.

Personally I upgraded things kind of at random and then never actually used them.

@Tasuki
I always went for the sword strength first. If you’re fighting bosses and stuff in the void world in the Link form, chances are you’re gonna get lots of those shards to refill your timer anyway.

This game is sooooo good. I am having a blast with it. Is it odd that I havent even done the main objectives, the Gerudo Desert or Zora's Area yet? I am just wondering the world as of now. I just found the Lost Woods and went in there, obviously I am missing some echoes that I need for that place at least that's what I am thinking since I got my ass handed to me. Still its a blast just exploring everywhere.

@Tasuki It's definitely a fun map to explore. I went so far afield that I gained echoes I wasn't even able to summon yet at the time.

I was very close to 100%-ing the game by the time I finished the main plot; just do the main objectives when you want to.

@FishyS Yeah I guess that some echoes Tri has to be at a certain level for you to use, at least that's what I read.

I am liking this game nearly as much as BOTW

Yeah, I think I'm gonna be the odd one out and say I don't think I enjoy the game whatsoever at this point. And it's entirely down to the pacing.

Tri is CONSTANTLY yapping about things, right on the screen, I can see, with my eyes. And combat is pretty...awful. I have a couple strong enemies unlocked, wolfos is probably the best so far, but even with targeting and holding enemies it feels so bad and slow to fight anything.
And boy does the game seem to love making you fight. I was exploring a bit more in the overworld before I decided on which quest I wanted to do first and picked the Zoras over the Gerudo and the stupid dungeon is chock-full of rooms way too many enemies. You either have to try to brute force your way past them or take them all out because the game ALSO seems to love presenting you with a traversal puzzle right in the middle of...just way too many enemies.

I also kind of don't love that they made Zelda silent this time. I assume they wanted it to feel like a normal Zelda game but with how much more talking is happening in this compared to other 2D and even some 3D Zelda games it falls really flat.

Pretty bummed about this one, not gonna lie, because I love the LA remake and top down Zelda in general. I was hopeful for the game when they said it'd be more puzzle heavy and showcased the echoes, got very hesitant when the first impressions from players hit discussions and now I'm just kind of let down that my gut feeling was right 😅

I find it interesting how modern gamers have become so sensitive about guide characters and how much they talk. Seems to be the new zeitgeist in game criticism.

@Dom_31 Honestly, I felt the same when playing Echoes of Wisdom. At least about the combat. I didn't mind Tri- but I really did not like how Zelda plays, or that the entire game revolved around summoning enemies.

I was trying to remember - did Tri even talk much? Obviously some explaining near the beginning and a little discussion at plot points, but I don't recall much for most of the game. Or did it have some regular thing it said which was easy to ignore? Either way, it never felt even slightly intrusive to me.

Technically you can do most of the combat without summoning enemies. You can burn, drown, crush, throw rocks, use echoes as arrows, attach inamate objects to yourself and whack enemies with them like swords, etc. If you don't like the combat that is fair, but there were definitely a lot of variations of it.

@FishyS
(Speaking for myself, obviously:) there’s the normal amount of orientation in the beginning, but Tri’s dialogue dwindles as the game goes on. She pops up every now and then when you’re entering new areas or beat a dungeon, etc.

Never really bothered me. Maybe it’s because this is probably the 2D Zelda game with the most dialogue overall?

I don’t know. It’s just interesting to me. Everybody seems eager to pounce on this topic these days.