This morning, August 30th, Nintendo has released a new look at the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. With a length of just over five minutes latest trailer shows off a number of new features for the Hyrule Princess’ adventure. A realm called Still World, full of complex dungeons and inventive puzzle platformers, was the main event, but I’m sure most people will instead be talking about how Zelda can actually use a sword when Echoes of Wisdom will be released on September 26th.
As we have seen in previous trailers, Echoes of Wisdom a mysterious purple infection is engulfing Hyrule, sucking the land and its people dry – including Link. It seems that anything that gets sucked into the purple void ends up in a place called the Still World, shown in the latest trailer. It’s a second map that can be accessed from various points in the main overworld, similar to the Dark World in A connection to the past.
In contrast to the main overworld of Echoes of WisdomThe Silent World is a chaotic place where the land has been transformed and frozen in place. This means that some platforms are on their side or completely flipped over while floating in the void. This effectively creates a puzzle platformer that Zelda uses Echoesthe core gameplay mechanic. As we’ve already seen, Zelda can use Echoes to summon objects and even NPCs from her staff to solve puzzles and fight enemies. We see Echoes come in handy in the Silent World, where Zelda creates some platforms to get from one disjointed, floating island to the next. To reflect the varied environments of Hyrule, the Silent World is full of different biomes, making both realms seem full of wonderful variety.
Also in the Silent World are Echoes of Wisdom‘s dungeon. As in the past Zelda titles will be large multiroom affairs full of tricky environmental puzzles leading to a boss. An interesting detail in the new trailer are some moments that show Zelda in a 2D side-scrolling perspective, in a shift reminiscent of some spots in the dungeons of Left Awakeningor maybe inspiration from Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Boss battles give you another chance to really test the limits of the echo system. A boss battle shown in the trailer showed just how open-ended these encounters are, thanks to your ability to summon almost anything you want. At one point, we even see Zelda summon a bed mid-battle and lay down in it, as if the echoes she summoned could take it from here and she could get some sleep. While it’s not the smartest strategy, as someone who also needs a constant nap, I can’t really blame her. However, this trailer also showed that you won’t have to rely solely on your echoes to defeat enemies, as Zelda will actually wield a sword… at least in fleeting moments.
Zelda’s swordsman form – making her the second Nintendo heroine to receive a swordsman form this year, after Princess Peach: Showtime!— gives her a Link-like appearance and her very own pointy weapon. This form seems to play roughly the way you’d expect in a traditional Zelda game but the ability is timed, so the princess can only swing the sword for a short amount of time. In the trailer, we saw a bar indicating that the form is at level 1, so this may be something you can upgrade as you play through.
In addition to the Echoes, Zelda can collect more ways to progress and fight in Hyrule thanks to a number of allies. The trailer introduces us to Dampé, an inventor who provides Zelda with mechanical allies that have different abilities than Echoes. But be careful, because these automatons break if they are damaged too much. He is just one of many allies you will encounter on your journey. All in all, the latest trailer only makes Echoes of Wisdom looks even more exciting and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.
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