This morning, August 30, Nintendo dropped a new look at the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. At a little over five minutes long, the latest trailer shows off a number of new features for the Hyrule Princess’ adventure. A realm called the Still World, full of complex dungeons and inventive puzzle platforming, was the main event, but I’m sure most people will instead be talking about how Zelda will in fact be able to use a sword when Echoes of Wisdom releases on September 26.
As we’ve seen in past trailers, in Echoes of Wisdom a mysterious purple infection is engulfing Hyrule and sucking up the land and its people— including Link. It appears that everything getting sucked into the purple void goes to a place called the Still World, shown off in the latest trailer. It’s a second map that can be entered from different points in the main overworld, sort of like the Dark World in A Link to the Past.
Unlike the main overworld of Echoes of Wisdom, the Still World is a topsy-turvy place in which the land has been morphed and frozen in place. This means that some platforms are on their side or completely flipped as they suspend in the void. This effectively creates a puzzle platformer for Zelda to traverse with the use of echoes, the game’s central mechanic. As we’ve seen before, echoes allow Zelda to summon objects and even NPCs from her staff to complete puzzles and fight off enemies. We see echoes come in handy in the Still World, with Zelda creating some platforms to progress from one disjointed, floating island to the next. To reflect the varied environments of Hyrule, the Still World is full of different biomes, and it makes both realms seem brimming with wonderful variety.
Also within the Still World are Echoes of Wisdom’s dungeons. As in past Zelda titles these will be large multi-room affairs full of tough environmental puzzles that lead to a boss. An interesting detail in the new trailer comes in a few moments that show Zelda in a 2D side-scrolling perspective, in a shift reminiscent of some spots in the dungeons of Link’s Awakening, or perhaps taking inspiration from Zelda II.
Boss fights give you another chance to really test out the limitations of the echoes system. One boss fight shown off in the trailer highlighted 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 get in, as if the echoes she’s summoned can take it from here and she’s gonna get some shut-eye. While that may not be the smartest strategy, as someone who is also perpetually in need of a nap I can’t really blame her. However, this trailer also revealed that you won’t just have to rely on your echoes to take down enemies, as Zelda will indeed wield a sword…at least in fleeting moments.
Zelda’s Swordfighter Form—which makes her the second Nintendo heroine to get a swordfighter form this year after Princess Peach: Showtime!—gives her a Link-like look and her very own pointed weapon. This form seems to play about how you would expect in a traditional Zelda game but the ability is on a timer, so the princess can only swing the sword around for a brief period. In the trailer we saw a bar depleting that notes the form is at Level 1, so this may be something you can upgrade throughout your playthrough.
In addition to echoes, Zelda will be able to collect more ways of traversing and fighting in Hyrule thanks to a series of allies. The trailer introduces us to Dampé, an inventor who will give Zelda mechanical allies to use that have different abilities than echoes. Be careful, though, as these automatons will break if damaged too much. He’s just one of many allies you’ll meet along your journey. All in all, the latest trailer only makes Echoes of Wisdom look even more exciting, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.
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