- Tested on Nintendo Switch mainly in portable mode on Switch Oled with headphones under the duvet, as at the time of the Gameboy!
- Game transmitted by the editor in box version!
- Main adventure finished in 25h of game in heroic mode (double the damage suffered,
no appearance of hearts, no effects of certain accessories) - Life bar at 15/20❤️At the end of the adventure!
- I caught 115/127 echoes of the game and searched the entire castle of Hyrule secretly hoping to find Manuel Valls' echo! Without success to date...
- Gameplay capture and home screens!
38 years: that's how long it took Zelda to get her first game as a heroine. What a delight while everyone keeps the small memory of having confused Link and Zelda. Same for Samus and Metroid, although the comparison is less flattering in the second case. Other Nintendo princesses like Peach will have been given more favor with Super Princess Peach since 2006, long before Showtime (2024). You'll understand, we were curious to try Echoes of Wisdom. Curious... or rather worried about stuffing a kawaise Link ersatz after a hair communication « girly » from the publisher. Trust for confidence is the month of repentance on MaG; after Silent Hill 2 (read our critical) who were afraid that he would not be equal to his model, Zelda came to correct our over-sightedness and prejudice: Link can go to bed; The princess can now save Hyrule by herself!
Link and Zelda are on a boat, Link falls by the water
For many players who have fallen into the small Nintendo pot, the name of Hryule immediately sounds like an invitation to travel, an ode to adventure and exploration. Since the first cabbages cut at the tip of our sword, the license will have been entitled to about twenty episodes of which the latest one is the bulldozer and million seller Tears of the Kingdom (2023). Nintendo almost systematically overturned the table from one episode to another. You were waiting for a realistic opus, you'll have cel shade? A 3D game, well it will be 2D to the old! Nintendo has always been able to renew its license as the form. To the question of which Zelda will govern them all, it has become almost impossible to answer with the years as each opus has loved in our conscious imagination or not. And even though nothing remains but snippets, they are indelible and constantly forge a legend every time renewed. Zelda grew up with us and vice and versa.
Before entering into the life of the subject, this episode must be retrieved vis-à-vis its predecessors, beginning with the remake of Links (see Off-the-shelf of the period) and its style. Far from the Hyrule plains, this cult title originally created in 1993 was realized by Takashi Tezuka. The latter took back the fans of the mythical A Link to The Past (1991). A quest for the Grail in search of the Dream Fish, while Link failed on the shore of the island of Cocolint. This game sometimes dreamy, sometimes melancholic, was my first encounter with the franchise on Gameboy color, lying on the floor and curled up under the halogen light at a time when backlighting of screens was still unknown to us. You will have to wait for the revolution of the Gameboy Advance SP, a real lighthouse in the night for many of the children of the 90s, who discovered for the first time all the classics of the Super Nintendo and under the duvet please!
Zelda awakens distant memories
In 2019, Link was therefore entitled to a remake with a round and naive style. The game kept its aerial camera while pushing the cartoon side of its 3D models. It's Grezzo we should read about. For many, this first party studio in the shadow of Nintendo did not evoke much. And yet the Japanese publisher has already entrusted him with major portages like Ocarina of Time 3D (2011) and Majoras Mask 3D (2015). It was also Grezzo who took care of spin-off as Four Swords Anniversary (2012) or Sort Heroes Force (2015). With Echoes of WisdomGrezzo takes a gall and attacks directly the development of a totally original game. Echoes of Wisdom is their third exclusive game after Luigis Mansion 3DS and Miitopia On Switch. In the interview Developers have the floor, Vol. 13, we learn that Tomomi Sano is the first woman to have participated directly in the realization of a game of the series The Legend of Zelda. A sad anecdote that says a lot about an industry still largely trusted by men.
The artistic teams took over the graphic foot of the remake of Links and style Terrance and Philippe His empty-eyed characters, as Ummagumma, a great skeptic of Nintendo's artistic choices, noted. And yet, this tentinesque side sticks to the staggered atmosphere of this universe where divided peoples live in the four corners of the kingdom. The fans I'm part of always appreciate the fact that Nintendo refuses to double the voices of his characters. With these overjoyed and caricatural expressions, Nintendo places its narrative on the same springs as silent cinema. It's up to the player's imagination to take over and it's so much better at a time when chattery games written with the feet are legion. Who didn't dream of shooting Atreus in God of War Ragnarok (read our critical disillusioned), while the gignard kid spends his time commenting on the rain and the good weather. Nintendo resists almost all trends and it's so much better!
An asthmatic framerate
Once it is not customary, on Switch Oled, the game is sublimated thanks to contrasts with small onions that make forget the technical weaknesses of a console less and less athletic over the years. In order to hide its harshly tested engine, the developers have again applied a blur effect which participates in the atmosphere of the title but which sometimes serves as a cover for misery, as soon as we get up. Without ruining the experience, it was the sine qua none condition to guarantee a correct framerate. And even with that, on horseback or when the enemies pull on the screen, the framerate pulls the face and can bang like a baby who is looking at all costs to swallow his vomit (Friends of poetry hello)!
Unfortunately, the game juggles between 30 and 60 fps constantly, which questions this technical compromise. Shouldn't we have locked the game at 30 fps? The dungeons, on the other hand, remain almost constantly at 60 fps, interior, as the relief Digital Foundry. It is also the price to pay for an open world without fixed screens that chain as in the very first games. The resolution also adapts itself to blow the poor Switch, decidedly undermined in recent years, of hope for a more ambitious hardware for its successor.
If the game resumes part of the construction of the map of A Link To The PastIt is unrecognizable and largely transformed in all respects. After his surprising introduction that immediately made us play Link in the dungeon before a boss fight against the eternal Ganon, we took over with Zelda. The beautiful one just escaped from a mysterious flaw that sucked Link and parts of the kingdom. This is the overturned formula: barely saved, the princess will have to send the ball back to the one who has worn the legendary tunic for almost 40 years! This original starting point is clever. This time, Ganon leaves room for a new antagonist, Nihil, who, as his name indicates, does not believe in much if it is the destruction of the world. Like Mario and his double evil, some characters are entitled to their evil iteration in the other world that will have to be reinstated in Hyrule. Tossed in the dungeon by our own father's doppelgänger, we get to know Tri, a little energy ball almost as appealing as Mooncake of the anime series Final SpaceWhich is not to displease us.
Sort Successful therapy
Our new ally offers us a scepter capable of replicating echoes of our world. We can generate doubles of almost everything around us. An evolutionary mechanics that starts with simple furniture until producing swarms of Moblins and even a Lynnel, emblematic enemy of Breath Of The Wild. If we had serious doubts about the gameplay during the first trailers that showed us Zelda in the process of learning to clone bedding, the game never ceases to surprise us by leaving the part beautiful to experiment. We keep testing the possibilities of gameplay, learning from our mistakes by adapting our strategy. There was clearly a before and a after Breath Of The Wild. From the start, we can choose to approach history at our convenience by going wherever we want. Unlike the environmental OST of the last Zelda 3D, Nintendo reconnects with classicism with more than 160 original tracks, some of which are already memorable. Without ever contenting themselves with its legacy, the scores know how to strike a balance between homage, rereading and fantasy. A pure treat and strongly that the OST is available for purchase.
The gamedesign is prodigious in the sense that it collects less than 127 echoes, giving a small Pokemon side to the ensemble. Each player will have their own approaches. It was only after the game's credits that I discovered, for example, that one could fly by hanging on to a piaf echo, while I favoured flying platforms for my part. We can miss some echoes, but the game always makes sure we let ourselves experiment. Whether it's climbing on a spider wire or generating clouds, beds or water columns to gain height, all the solutions are good to move forward. Unlike the old 2D episodes, exploration has nothing to do with it. You can climb on trees and survey the map with a certain verticality.
In order to pay tribute to its illustrious models, Grezzo also offers numerous sequences in horizontal scrolling. A clever idea that allows you to discover the attributes of our echoes under another side. Unlike Link, Zelda is a real fish in the water and even if Link learned to swim quickly after finding fins, Zelda, she can from the beginning explore the seabed. Many aquatic passages really come to renew the formula and approaches, while offering water fighting greying in invoking piranhas, jellyfish or even sharks.
Everything is good in the dungeon
Although dungeon lovers may have felt somewhat blurred since the turn operated by Breath of The Wild, Echoes of Wisdom They should like it. Certainly a little too fast at the start, the dungeons go up in demand in the second part of the title, certainly not to destabilize the player still in the learning phase. Here it is up to the player to learn everything by himself and contrary to the often unique solutions of the puzzles of old games, it is here possible to foil the machine by searching the possible combinations of our echoes. The possibilities are multiplied by the sorting power which allows us to move objects remotely or to (dis)synchronize by following the motion of an object. By combining this power with our echoes, we surprise ourselves to discover unsuspecting techniques. It's unbreakable. Eiji Aonuma that we must once again the very free approach to the game:
« When it comes to solving puzzles, the satisfaction you feel by finding your own solution is the essence of The Legend of Zelda games. This implies that the level of freedom of the players must be increased. Bearing this in mind, I asked Grezzo to use the two mentioned elements as the basis of the gameplay, and to add freedom. »
Of course, it would have been good if from the beginning the dungeons were as inventive as in the last part of the game. But the game wins to be played in heroic mode to overcome this meagre defect. In this mode of difficulty accessible from the beginning of the game and adjustable at any time, the damage suffered is doubled and we will not find any heart of the whole game and some accessories will be limited or completely removed. This makes it possible to restore a little challenge to the first part of the game where it is very common to die in one stroke. Even later some strong enemies can remove 10 hearts at once. It is now hoped that this choice of difficulty will gradually become the norm at Nintendo. The new game plus is good but having a choice from the start is better!
Criminal smoothie
The game also offers a system of ingredients to collect to create smoothies with original effects. Surprisingly, this aspect of the gameplay appeared to be underexploited and except for the final boss where Zelda got stuffed with about fifty apples, twenty pumpkins, a dozen cactus and a golden egg to beat the final boss, it seemed useless to make potions. Already because it is enough to replicate a bed to sting a rupillon and return to life at any time. Then because automatic checkpoints avoid frustration. It's a bit too bad that they are so numerous because their absence was part of a certain sense of accomplishment in the old games.
Besides this aspect of the gameplay that did not seem completely assumed, it is possible to play mini games not very inspired on the map. Tamponman, a bright and probably distant cousin of Tingle, invites us to explore the card to win prizes while another péquenaud du cru offers us acorn races. In short it lacks a bit of fantasy question auxiliary quests, despite some funny ideas of interaction with the animal world. What about the general economy of gambling where money is useless. Too bad the outfits were also underexploited, even if we would have honored the doll side Barbie that we feared at the beginning.
On the boss side, the game is particularly generous and most are very inspired while sometimes breaking the religion of the three phases dear to Nintendo. It's a real treat to try to change approach to defeat them. We will only regret the lack of precision of flying echoes that sometimes seriously galore to reach their target. The automatic lock is sometimes tiring when the targets are too numerous. It is also at this point that it is recommended to transform us into an echo of Link to uncheck a salve of arrows on our opponents, throw bombs or sharp in the lard. This gradually unlocked power never replaces the magic of echoes thanks to a gauge of mana that empties very quickly in heroic mode. As part of the grievances, there is sometimes a plague on the questionable legibility of the depths. Sometimes we fall off a platform that seemed at our fingertips. Again and again, the stereoscopic 3D lacks the inveterate nostalgia of the 3DS.
For his first solo adventure, Zelda raises the bar very high and does not have to blush from his performance. Generous, the game opts for a different approach and that leaves the part beautiful to inventiveness, decidedly the slogan of the last Nintendo productions of the decade. The echo system makes us collect in a bulimic way the monsters of the universe to solve inspired puzzles or to better return them against theirs. Despite the technical concessions that do a little work for a Nintendo production of this acabit, Grezzo holds a beautiful alternative to the adventures of the Hylien with the green tunic. We were afraid of a zeldaxploitation, on the contrary we hold a game that abounds with ideas without ever falling into recycling. Forgive us Nintendo for doubting, Grezzo can boast of having made one of the best Switch games in the catalogue. A title for small·and large·is already a candidate all found for the holidays of the year!
For
- DA enchantment!
- Sublime on Switch Oled
- General finish
- Gamedesign that inspires respect
- Full gameplay
- As many approaches as players
- The collection of echoes
- Light effects
- Excellent OST
- Difficulty à la carte
- The last inspired dungeons
- The character of Tri
- Not at all "girly" finally
Against
- Technically uneven
- Fluidity often failed
- Draft side of the fighting in number
- Lack of precision of flying echoes
- Limited schedules
- We miss the ocarina!
- Money and unnecessary smoothies
- Lack of rebounds in the epilogue
In my top 5 of the JV ZeldaAnd he's not fifth! 🥰
I'll be curious to know your top!
I confess it makes an eye (and Christmas approaches), but I really fear to get into it after Tears of the Kingdom. Nothing to see, I know, but a little voice in my head tells me that it's not obvious to forget one to move on.
He's still waiting religiously under blister. But I understand your dismay!
Yes, sometimes it is better to let spend a little time depending on the types of games that we chain!