For the first time Zelda is the hero, and her power to copy objects and foes as echoes reinvents puzzle solving. Bursting with ideas and freedom, this top-down Zelda stays playful and inventive right to the end.
Your verdict
Category
Action Adventure1 player7+
Description
For the first time, Princess Zelda leads the adventure and saves an Hyrule swallowed by rifts. Published by Nintendo, released worldwide in 2024. A rod lets you copy echoes of objects and foes to solve puzzles and fights with great creativity.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
4/5
Story
★★★★★
"Captivating"
This top-down Zelda adopts the miniature-diorama model style, with round, rounded characters like porcelain figurines, inherited from the recent Link's Awakening remake. A shimmering Hyrule unfolds in little tableaux full of depth of field, cute villages, flowered plains and colorful caverns, bathed in a soft light and a charming lens blur. Rarely, it is Princess Zelda who holds the lead role here.
The soundtrack draws on the series' melodic heritage to weave a soft, cheerful orchestral music, at once familiar and renewed. Light, crystalline themes accompany the exploration of villages and plains, while more mysterious variations color the caves and altered zones. The saga's iconic motifs resurface, rearranged with tenderness, punctuating the discoveries and puzzle resolutions.
As strange rifts swallow entire swaths of Hyrule and the usual hero vanishes, it is Princess Zelda who, for once, is cast in the savior's role. Endowed with a magic rod able to recreate copies of objects and creatures, she sets out to close the breaches and free the inhabitants seized by the void. Her investigation leads her to an evil entity lurking behind the rifts, while a mysterious fairy guides her.
Gameplay
"Masterful"
Handing the adventure to Zelda changes everything, because the staff that copies objects and foes into echoes turns every puzzle into a playground. Stack beds to climb, summon a monster to fight for you, improvise your own answer. That playful freedom, inherited from the open-world spirit, runs through a charming top-down formula. The pacing stays uneven and some puzzles lack bite, but invention wins out. Recent, unworn, and an ideal entry point into the series.
Facing the realm's great threats here relies on ingenuity over brute force, summoning echoes to fight in your stead. Stacking monsters, exploiting elemental weaknesses and improvising with an entire bestiary turn each boss into an open puzzle. A creative approach that reinvents the action-adventure duel so dear to the Zelda series.
Is The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom still worth playing in 2026?
Echoes of Wisdom finally hands the adventure to Princess Zelda, and that changes everything. The rod that copies echoes of objects and enemies opens a delightful freedom of problem-solving, where you improvise your own answers to puzzles and fights alike. This inventiveness echoes the creative spirit of the recent open-world entries, transposed into a charming top-down formula. The pacing is sometimes uneven and a few puzzles lack bite, but the freshness of the concept wins out. Released recently, it has obviously not aged, and remains an excellent gateway into the series.
