Hello, my name is Glen, and out of the many Zelda games I’ve played, I think Breath of the Wild is easily the worst game of them all. There, if that doesn’t get you reading this review out of pure rage, then I don’t know what will.

Echoes of Wisdom marks a couple of notable points in the series, it’s the first new top-down game since Breath of the Wild, and more notably, is the first Zelda game to feature Zelda herself as the playable protagonist. No, we don’t talk about those games, they don’t count.

The game starts with Link beating up Ganon to save Zelda from her latest kidnapping, Ganon’s a complete pushover in this game. But instead of taking his loss with grace, he pulls a hissy fit, and opens some kind of rift that Link gets sucked into. Luckily, Link manages to free Zelda before he goes… somewhere else. So, it’s up to Zelda to save Link for once, and maybe get rid of these rifts. You know, only if it’s convenient.

Zelda! Close your mouth! What are you doing!?

With Zelda taking over as the playable character, Nintendo took this opportunity to change things up. Zelda doesn’t have her own sword, instead, she gets a stick called the Tri Rod, which allows her to copy objects and enemies. The entire game revolves using these Echoes for combat and puzzle solving. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys the emphasis on freedom a game like Tears of the Kingdom offers you, then you’ll likely jump at the chance of experimenting with the hundred-ish Echoes that you’ll collect throughout. Me, however? I quickly found three Echoes that were so effective, that they solved any problem I stumbled upon, nine times out of ten. Ironically, in a game that tries to give you so much freedom, I found that things became very repetitive.

Sure, I could create some kind of Rube Goldberg device to traverse a room filled with pits and obstacles, but why bother when I can just make a flying tile and ride it across the entire thing in 5 seconds? It’s a real shame, because the structure of this game is a lot more like a traditional Zelda title, especially the dungeons, but it feels like some Breath of the Wild style trappings were forced into it because that’s the hot new thing with Zelda. It almost feels like the developers are worried that the game won’t do well if it doesn’t play like them. That said, this is only speculation on my part, but I will maintain that this game suffers because of it.

Echoes of Wisdom has a rather simplified version of Breath of the Wild’s cooking mechanic, even though there’s more traditional heart drops from enemies and pots. It feels unnecessary, and makes half of the chests rather disappointing, because the contents are likely to be ingredients you don’t need. The menu that you can bring up to select an Echo also gets very unwieldy as you accrue more of them, because it’s structured like it is in, you guessed it, Breath of the Wild.

Look at this Lizalfos! It's so freaking cute!

It sounds like I’m really negative about this game, but I did enjoy my time in whatever Hyrule this one is. The overworld is nowhere near as large as the last two Zelda games, so traversal is quick, and it’s never long before you find something new. The dungeons are a massive improvement, even if they can be trivialised a lot of the time. My complaints are minor in the grand scheme of things, and most of you will probably not care about the things that bothered me, but it’s those small grievances that prevent Echoes of Wisdom from reaching the dizzying heights of other top-down Zelda games. It’s still great, but it could be better.

The visuals reuse the style that the recent Link’s Awakening remake has, so everything has a sort of toy look to them, which makes everything sickeningly cute! Hell, even Ganon himself looks kind of adorable. It’s a lovely art style, and it’s easily the best a top-down Zelda game has ever looked. Unfortunately, the frame rate suffers a little from time to time, not in a disastrous way, but it’s noticeable, mostly when weather effects like sandstorms are in play. Link’s Awakening had this issue as well, so if it didn’t bother you there, you’ll be fine here. The soundtrack is good, but “good” in Zelda terms means it’s below average compared to other titles. Link’s Awakening is, again, another good comparison to understand what I’m talking about.

Oh, so that's where the Distortion World went.

All in all, Echoes of Wisdom is a game I enjoyed a whole lot more than Breath of the Wild, but I’m weird, so that doesn’t mean much. Compared to all of the other Zelda games I have played? Echoes of Wisdom sits around the middle of them all. It’s good, and worth your time, but I expect a little better from this series.