Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Is a Great Starter Zelda and a Return to Classic Form

The Nintendo Switch has a lot of Zeldas. Really, we're overflowing with them. The classic adventure series has five entries on the Switch, including the latest, Echoes of Wisdom. We got a new Zelda last year, Tears of the Kingdom, and many people -- myself included -- haven't even finished that one yet because it's a multi-hundred-hour mammoth. 

And yet, here's Echoes of Wisdom, a complete surprise when it was announced earlier this year. Much like Super Mario Bros. Wonder, a surprise Mario game with a classic look but a lot of new tricks up its sleeve, Echoes of Wisdom goes for a retro, seemingly simple style with many new gameplay ideas that feel evolved from Tears of the Kingdom. This is also the very first Zelda game that actually stars Zelda, the Princess of Hyrule, and not Link. It's so overdue.

Echoes is Nintendo's first new 2D-style Zelda since the 3DS game Link Between Worlds 11 years ago. t's hard to believe it's been that long because Nintendo keeps remastering Zelda games while also making other 3D open-world ones. Once upon a time, Nintendo used to alternate its games between more graphically rich TV console editions and portable ones. Echoes of Wisdom is a Nintendo DS/3DS-type game in Switch form, and Switch owners are just getting an extra dose of Hyrule as a lucky bonus.

The whole game really feels like a fusion of old and new, too, blending ideas from recent Zelda titles with the design of classic Zelda. My colleague Bridget Carey got to play a chunk of the game during an early preview this year; I agree with a lot of her feelings. This is a charming, fun, weird, mysterious, and much less endless game than Tears of the Kingdom, and I'm sort of grateful for that.

Who is Echoes of Wisdom for, and why choose it over Tears of the Kingdom?

Tears of the Kingdom is absolutely the most vast and complex Zelda game ever made, but so far Echoes of Wisdom is refreshingly contained. It feels like the spiritual sequel to the classic Game Boy Zelda game, Link's Awakening (it, too, got a Switch remaster a few years ago). It has the same semi-3D, cartoon-cute and hazy, gleaming graphic design. But there are all the free-form conjuring tools that recent Zelda games have introduced, making the game feel like it's sometimes remixing its own classic legacy.

Echoes of Wisdom has a large (but not too large) overworld map, but chunks have been cut out. Rifts have appeared that have sucked friends -- including Link -- into other worlds. Zelda has to find these rifts with a weird little glowing fairy friend named Tri and repair them. These rift worlds are like contained dungeons, many of them with classic dungeon maps and keys to find.

There are also lots of side-scrolling parts -- a surprising number of them -- which handle like classic platformer games or a return to the game ideas in Zelda II. I love how they show up in dungeons and make me rethink my own relationship to powers I'd been using in overhead mode.

Watch this: I Played the New Zelda Game, Echoes of Wisdom (Hands-On Preview)

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Zelda has her own unique set of skills, many of them feeling like echoes of Tears of the Kingdom. A special Tri Rod is the source of much of them.  She can cast a glowing beam that can grab and move objects; she has a sword; and she can also copy the "echoes" of dozens of things in Hyrule and conjure them. Monsters, trees, beds, all sorts of random stuff. Figuring out how each can help you is part of the game's mystery puzzle charm. Much like Tears of the Kingdom, you can break the rules of what you think you know… to a degree. You'll be making bridges out of beds, throwing monsters at stuff, and tossing random objects around through trial and error to see what could solve your troubles or get you access to something new.

I've played around 10 hours of Echoes of Wisdom so far, not nearly enough to tell you what the whole game is like. I've been taking my time: I don't want to rush it. This game feels like an experience to keep tackling in little sips, savoring puzzles and then taking breaks to refresh your mind. At least, that's how I've done it. 

So far the main quests and side quests aren't as sprawling as Tears of the Kingdom, but that's made the game feel more manageable. Frequent checkpoints allow warping around the map, and there are ways to recover health easily. Also, collecting ingredients and taking them to smoothie stands means I can experiment and make potions to take along with me, similar to cooking in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

As I played, I kept thinking the game's gentler feel, more manageable maps and still challenging puzzles would make it a perfect family game. A colleague said it's giving Animal Crossing and Pokémon vibes, and I've felt comparisons to Kirby with those power-mimicking skills or Mario's hat in Super Mario Odyssey. 

I wouldn't call it easy, though. I've felt more stumped by some of this game's puzzles than I have in many Zelda games, and I'm sure there will be plenty of guides on clever solutions. I didn't have that luxury, playing it prerelease: going it alone is hard, and I think Echoes is a game that'll be more fun trying to figure out in groups.

Nintendo is expected to have a Switch 2 sometime next year, an overdue hardware upgrade to a console that's been going strong for seven years now. The Switch 2 will have better graphics, but it'll likely have the same design and button layouts as the current Switch. And it'll also play existing Switch games, and plenty of classic, retro and indie games that won't need a Switch 2 graphics boost at all. 

Echoes of Wisdom is perfect on the Switch hardware that already exists, and it feels very much like an indie game made by Nintendo. A game that achieves its clever ideas without needing physics-bending horsepower. 

On the "Zelda Games on Switch Must Buy List," I'm putting Echoes right below Tears of the Kingdom right now. But I'd bump it up to first on the list for anyone who's got a younger kid who's ready to dive into a big adventure on a smaller scale.