Better late than never, that applies to both game development and writing about them I suppose! A new Zelda game is always a welcome experience, and this one certainly mixes up the formula by making it actually the Legend of… well, Zelda! The game is a focus entirely on the princess and her adventures (we don’t talk about that other one…) so with this being the FIRST Zelda-focused game in the series how did it do? Let’s jump in and see.
First off, the story. In this instance the tables have turned as Link finds himself captured by the evil villain, a seemingly random series of rifts that swallow people whole and keep them frozen in time, and so it’s up to Zelda to travel the land, seal the rifts, clear her name and discover the nature behind their appearance. Along the way she is helped by a small yellow creature known as Tri, a mysterious entity that seemingly holds immense power. This is emphasised by the fact that Tri gives Zelda the ability to create ‘Echoes’ of items, allowing her to conjure copies of almost anything in the game like a Gmod creator. So with this new power, and her own self determination, can she make for a compelling narrative? Well, yes and no. While it certainly is nice to be playing the other side of the Zelda Universe coin for once and the mystery surrounding the rifts does make for an interesting hook, even delving into eldritch horror at times, it does feel often like a typical turning of the gears with the narrative seeming like yet another Zelda adventure just this time you get to play as the Princess. It’s certainly not competing with something like Majora’s Mask or compelling narrative, but it moves things along and I at least felt compelled enough to help out the people of the world and enjoyed seeing all the little stories that took place within each region. I just felt like there certainly could have been more explored here.
The presentation of the game is done exactly like the remake of Link’s Awakening, a doll-like chibi world that manages to look equal parts cute and stunning with its environments. It all looks like it takes place on someone’s hobby table and that helps it to build a unique look that I really enjoyed. The music was cheerful and fun, having me hum along to various tracks, and it even brought back some classic tracks to make it more enjoyable for long time fans. I also liked how the sound design was fairly simple but worked to make everything cohesive and easy to understand. I also adored the character designs in this art style as the game also brought back some of the older races like Gorons and the Gerudo and gave them the toy-like aesthetic to make them just as enjoyable. My favourites were probably the Deku Scrubs which fit this graphical style really well and managed to animate in a very funny manner despite their lack of facial features. Overall the presentation was lovely in this title and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing it both on my small Switch screen and the TV when I put it up there.
Gameplay is the biggest change for this title as, of course, playing Zelda means magic needs to be involved somewhere. As the title of the game may suggest Wisdom is a far more important gameplay element to the point that at times it almost feels like more of a puzzle game rather than a full-blown adventure. This is due to the Echo mechanic which allows you to summon objects that do a variety of things to help in puzzles, or summon enemies to fight as your minions in combat. As many will be well aware I am obsessed with minion mechanics in games and so this feels almost custom tailored to my particular playstyle. Every enemy you defeat becomes a new available summon and you can send out as many as their cost will allow, eventually leading to you being able to control small armies of minions to fight on your behalf. It makes for a very different combat experience as usually simple Link adventures of run into a room and defeat enemies becomes a test of your knowledge of enemy weaknesses and assessing the environment. For example, when fighting in water, all of your land based summons are useless, so summoning water-based minions becomes your priority. It all works seamlessly and in puzzle scenarios I enjoyed using all the objects I had at my disposal to solve something, it really made me feel like a smartypants for figuring things out. I also really enjoyed that they went again with an open world structure that allowed you to pretty much go anywhere from the start as long as you used your brain, making for a much more personalised experience. Overall this new twist on typical Zelda gameplay made for a very unique experience that, while I can see it not being to everyone’s taste, I personally adored and would love to see in other titles.
There were some downsides to this adventure however. Firstly despite this being toted as a purely Zelda experience I often felt at times that the game was more of a Zelda AND Link experience. This is especially true in the story as you couldn’t go 10 minutes without someone mentioning Link, which while he certainly is important, I wish he got less of a spotlight allowing Zelda to get the full dedication in a game that she deserves. I also certainly can see the summoner-focused gameplay style being a huge turnoff for many people as while you do have an ability that allows you to do more classic-Zelda combat temporarily it’s not used nearly as often to base your whole playstyle around it and so if you don’t like the idea of not doing any of the fighting yourself this won’t be the title for you. Finally I felt as though many of the dungeons and bosses weren’t too memorable for a Zelda title. I didn’t think any were bad per-say, and the Echo abilities really made traversing and fighting within them an interesting experience, but I don’t think I will be able to specify any of the new bosses or dungeons added in this game for future generations to look back at as many of the classic Zelda experiences tend to do nowadays.
Overall however I had a great time with this game. Sure the story and structure wasn’t too deep but the amount of clever experiences and fun minion combat encounters I had made me enjoy the game for what it was, a Zelda game that let you play as the actual title character! For those who love the series and want to try playing an adventure in a very different gameplay style then you can’t go wrong with this one. Just be prepared to conjure a lot of beds… you’re going to need them, best items in the game!