I'm down for almost any sort of Zelda experience as I think it is one of the greatest franchises of games to ever exist. I have played nearly every Zelda game and completed most of them. I am, however, one of the few people that doesn't bend over backwards to showcase my love for Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom though... I guess I am just the wrong kind of person for that sort of experience although I did like them a normal amount.
Because I am an old-school gamer, Echoes of Wisdom seemed like it was going to be more my speed because of the classic top-down and side-scrolling interface.
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I would call most of the latest Zelda games a bit more "grown up" than what I had grown accustomed to in the 80's and early 90's and I kind of welcome a return to the roots of whimsical and simplistic design.
The graphics of this installment are fantastic as is the music, but this is just expected of anything Zelda at this point methinks.
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I love the color scheme and the simplistic navigation controls because it reminds me of the very first zelda game, as well as the SNES games before we became so fascinated with making everything at 3D as possible. I really enjoyed Link's Awakening for the same reason even though that game was a remastered version of a Game Boy game.
EOW is a completely new title, not a remake, and it is also a complete overhaul of what we expect from a Zelda game. I will admit that when I first started playing that I enjoyed the change of pace but as time went by it actually started to grind at my nerves a bit about how this game is very little about combat and very heavy on puzzle solving.
In this title you play the role of Zelda instead of Link and while there have been instances in the past where you briefly played as Zelda, this is the first one where that is what you do in the entire game unless I am forgetting something here.
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Rather than run around slashing things with your sword and boomerang as we have all become used to, Nintendo decided to do what Nintendo does and pull the ol' switcharoo on us that nobody was expecting. In EOW you do very little direct combat and instead will call upon "echoes" which are things you have learned about along the way. These can be various pots and beds or rocks and stones but also various minions that are enemies you have conquered at some point in the past.
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A bit into the game you are given the option of transforming into "combat form" or whatever it is called and engage enemies directly, but the time that you are allowed to do this is extremely limited and for the most part you are going to be relying on your summoned minions to do your battles for you.
As someone that almost always plays as a necromancer or a "pet class" in games when that is an option, this appealed to me quite a lot at first, especially when you start getting increasingly tough minions at your disposal. You are limited in how many you can summon and as you would expect, the amount you can summon increases as the game moves on.
Also, a major part of the game is reaching certain point via the use of other things you have learned such as tables, platforms, trampolines and other such stuff that you scan and learn along the way.
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You can also manipulate these objects with an ability that I do not recall the name of in order to mostly, have them make contact with a switch or trigger that will open a door that is blocking your progression.
This is all fine and dandy and some of the puzzles actually take a bit of thinking to figure out and I am pleased to say that after around 20% completion, I have only resorted to checking YouTube to solve a puzzle once. Not bad for a game that is designed for children to play I guess.
The issue that I end up having with this game is the sheer amount of things that you can summon. I have a LOT of them already and when I looked it up there area total of 127 beasts and items that you can summon
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In my opinion this quickly becomes too many things to have to search through just so you can find the one echo that is necessary for whatever portion of the game you happen to be in at the time. It can also be a bit stressful when you are in battle and need to search through the list to find what sort of minion you are going to have a crack at using in that particular scenario. Thankfully, it does pause the action while you are scrolling and it is a good thing that it does because this game would be impossible otherwise.
I found myself against the 2nd boss and man oh man did it take a long time for that battle to conclude
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He flies around the room throwing things at you and whatever minions you happen to have with you and this is where the AI of your summons come into play. They are just as retarded when fighting for you as they are when fighting against you. They will aim at where the target WAS, not where he is now.
I died twice while doing this fight and won on the 3rd and I am certain there are much better ways of defeating him than the method that I was using with my two crows just chasing him around the board before they get wiped by tornadoes but in the end when I did win, I was really happy that it was over.
Apparently, the quick way to defeat this guy was to put an animal statue that you found in his dungeon in his path when he does his charge attack and this then opens him up to being sword swiped and to do this you need to convert to the "combat you" at that point.
I did none of this because there is more than one way to skin a cat, as they say.
I don't really see myself completing this game because there is an awful lot of running around to various objectives only to get there and then do the same things you have been doing anywhere else. This is not necessary to make me do this in a game where there is no XP and therefore not much reason to ever fight unless you have to. I got bored of the rather silly dialogue after a while because this, combined with the "go here, talk to that person, then run back and talk to another person who will tell you who you have to run and talk to next" all started to seem like they were intentionally taking up a bunch of time on stupid stuff in order to make the game that retailed at $70 seem long enough to be worth it.
It's still a pretty fun game but I found myself wanting each area to be over so that I could stop playing and well, this is not the way that a game should be. You should want to continue playing because gameplay changes over time but since a majority of what you are doing is simply summoning various minions, you aren't actually actively involved in much of what is going on. You simply summon your pig soldiers and then make sure to dodge or run away from any projectiles or enemies that come your way. You have ZERO offensive weapons when you are not in combat form, and when you are in combat form (which you can only sustain for a very limited amount of time) you cannot summon any additional minions until you switch back.
Basically, while I enjoyed the concept for a little while, the inability to do direct combat with your own hands and weapons stopped being fun for me after about an hour or so.
There are many ways to solve any particular problem or puzzle that is in front of you and there are many ways to defeat various enemies, including bosses. A lot of people don't really like doing this because we want it to be clear once you figure it out what it is that you need to do in order to progress.
I get that they were trying to do something new and different as Nintendo always does, but endlessly pausing the game to scroll through a REALLY LONG list of summonable items and minions isn't really "fun."
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You see me standing there on a stack of beds? Well this is a summonable item that you get in the first 10 minutes of gameplay and it is going to remain a go-to for bypassing almost all the puzzles that they throw your way in the game. There are other, more inventive solutions to the puzzles, sure... but why bother with any of that when you already know that a stack of beds can get you across almost every chasm they throw at you.
To me this game feels like something that looked great on the drawing board and in the concept art, but in its actual execution it is pretty repetitive and unfortunately, just not that much fun.
I seriously doubt that I am going to bother completing this one.