on top On a table, Princess Zelda is tied to a green machine that magically blows gusts of wind. She instantly zooms across the screen as air blows the table forward, similar to a jet engine. The caption reads, “Table go bloom bloom.” These are just some of the things inventive players can do in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Nintendo’s latest entry in the series.
The goal of Echoes of Wisdom is to find new ways to use items in the world. This relies on Zelda’s ability to copy enemies and objects and reuse them as needed. Early in its development, the developers explored different ways to play the game. This includes the ability to edit dungeons by copying and pasting objects such as doors and candles, essentially allowing players to create their own gameplay and their own cheats.
However, when series producer Eiji Aonuma had a chance to test it, he had a different opinion. “It’s fun to create your own dungeons and let others play, but it’s also not bad to have items in the game field that you can copy and paste. Create gameplay where you can use them to fight enemies. Masu.”
No, Echoes of Wisdom is not a dungeon builder. However, like in The Legend of Zelda: Kingdom of Tears, the ability to create makeshift solutions and items allows players to quickly find unusual ways to traverse the world and conquer its many levels. You can. In some cases, items can be used in such outlandish ways that they seem like they shouldn’t exist.
One of the most useful items in Echoes of Wisdom is also the most unassuming. It’s a simple brown frame bed. Players quickly grabbed onto a reliable bed to get around. Stack a few on top of each other to make a great bridge or ladder. Distributing one in battle allows Zelda to take a nap to restore health while summoned monsters fight on her behalf. In one particularly inspired example, a player places Zelda on a bed and summons an enemy to create a gust of wind that sends the bed flying. Tables can be useful as well, especially when barricading a few guards in their own prison.
On Reddit, players are sharing creations that allow them to bypass both gated areas and the laws of gravity. Someone devised a way to create different variations of flying machines without the need for beds by linking together crows, rocks, and gust-inducing enemies. In the game’s Water Temple, players must slowly raise the water level to reach the top, but one enterprising adventurer manages to clear the entire mess by carefully stacking water blocks. I’ve figured out a way to get around it. The echo creates a cube of trapped water that Zelda can swim through. Head straight up.
These workarounds are creative, but they also play directly into Nintendo’s hands. While Echo may feel like a watered-down version of the Tears mechanic that allowed gamers to build a flame-throwing phallus, Nintendo still wanted to give gamers the ability to “prank” it. The key, as director Tomomi Sano put it, is for players to find ways to use the echoes that are “so inventive that it seems like it’s cheating.”
