Daily Debate: Do You Have Any Lingering Concerns About Echoes of Wisdom?

With a release date only two weeks away, we are in the final stretch of Echoes of Wisdom‘s hype cycle. And, personally speaking, I’m more excited to experience the final game than ever. In just the past two weeks, Nintendo has done a lot to set my mind at ease in regards to Princess Zelda’s first true solo adventure; they dropped a brand-new trailer introducing several exciting gameplay features, they have continued to spotlight the game on social media, and they gave fans — myself included — a chance to go hands-on with the game at PAX West.

But for all the work Nintendo has done to give us the best impression possible, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still have lingering concerns about Echoes of Wisdom. My primary concerns relate to the game’s emphasis of the Echo mechanic, with which the princess will be able to spawn objects and monsters into the world to help her overcome challenges. Because the developers understandably wanted Zelda to play very differently from what we’re used to with Link, they have built the game around these Echoes, as traversal, combat, and puzzle solving will heavily rely on them over the methods of a traditional Zelda adventure.

Now, if preview clips and the PAX demo are any indication, the Echo system will maintain a fresh and fun experience throughout Zelda’s adventure, as new Echoes will — fingers crossed — be introduced at a rapid rate and as new combinations of Echoes will invite experimentation. However, part of me is still concerned that combat will become tedious or stale as the game goes on. I’m worried that I will grow tired of having to wait for monster NPCs to fight on my behalf and worried that my options in combat will be too limited, especially if the rate of new Echoes introduced diminishes by the end of the game. The reveal of a Swordfighter Form certainly alleviated some of these concerns, but I’m still a bit apprehensive in this regard.

I am also concerned that the Echoes will leave the final game open to exploitation; I fear that they will “break” the game. As I’ve expressed in the past, some of the available Echoes that we’ve seen so far, like the trampoline and water block, seem capable of trivializing overworld traversal, allowing trees and cliffs to be easily bypassed. The developers will need to have been very clever in building the world if they intend to maintain some control over player progression. I certainly have faith in the cleverness of those developers, and I can see this issue being limited primarily to overworld traversal, but I am all the same weary that too much of the game will be easily bypassed by just one or two overpowered Echoes.

Those are of course just my thoughts. Do you have any lingering concerns about Echoes of Wisdom? Have recent trailers and demo coverage been enough to set your mind at ease? Join the debate in the comments below!

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