The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom facts for kids
Quick facts for kids The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom |
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Key and cover art
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| Developer(s) | Nintendo EPD Grezzo |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Director(s) |
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| Producer(s) | Eiji Aonuma |
| Artist(s) |
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| Composer(s) | Masato Ohashi Manaka Kataoka Chisaki Hosaka Reika Nakai Yuri Goto Ryotaro Yagi Azusa Kato |
| Series | The Legend of Zelda |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo Switch |
| Release date(s) | September 26, 2024 |
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is an exciting action-adventure game released in 2024. It was made by Nintendo and Grezzo for the Nintendo Switch. This game is special because it's the first main Legend of Zelda adventure where Princess Zelda is the main hero you play as!
In this game, you control Zelda on a big mission. She needs to save Link and the land of Hyrule. Zelda uses a magical item called the Tri Rod. A friendly fairy named Tri helps her on her journey. The game looks a lot like the 2019 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, which Grezzo also helped create.
Echoes of Wisdom came out around the world on September 26, 2024. Many people liked the game. They praised its cool look, the music, the story, and how fun it was to play as Zelda. They also liked the new ideas in the gameplay.
Contents
Gameplay: How to Play
In The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, you play as Princess Zelda. She has a special power from the magical Tri Rod. This power lets her create "echoes." Echoes are like copies of objects and even monsters. Zelda can use these copies to solve puzzles and fight enemies.
- You can summon many echoes, but there's a limit.
- Each echo costs a different amount of energy.
- The fairy Tri shows you how many echoes you can make.
Zelda can also "bind" objects. This means an object will move with her. Or, she can use "Reverse Bond" to move with an object. Besides using echoes, Zelda can fight enemies directly. She can turn into a "Swordfighter" form, which looks a bit like Link. This form is strong but can only be used for a short time. You need to collect energy orbs in the Still World to use it again.
Zelda can travel in many ways. She can use echoes to cross gaps or reach high places. There are also special "Waypoints" for fast travel. You can walk, or even ride a horse! Zelda can also change her clothes and equipment. She can even mix ingredients to make smoothies, which might help her on her adventure.
Plot: The Story of Hyrule
Setting and Characters: Who You'll Meet
The game takes place in the familiar land of Hyrule. But there's also a mysterious place called the Still World. The Still World is connected to Hyrule by strange "rifts." These rifts lead to different parts of the Still World. When people, objects, or even parts of the land go into a rift, they get frozen in time. Zelda will explore special areas called dungeons. Each dungeon has a big boss enemy that she must defeat to move forward.
You'll meet many different kinds of people from Hyrule in the game. These include the strong Gerudo, the water-loving Zoras, the rock-eating Gorons, the plant-like Deku Scrubs, and the big Yetis. You'll also meet a character named Dampé. He creates special robots called automata that work a lot like Zelda's echoes.
Synopsis: Zelda's Adventure Begins
The story starts with Link trying to save Zelda from Ganon. But Link falls into a mysterious rift and disappears into the Still World. Soon, more rifts appear all over Hyrule. Many people vanish into the Still World, including the king and his helpers. When Zelda returns to Hyrule Castle, fake versions of the king and his advisors are there. They blame Zelda for the rifts and throw her into the castle dungeon.
But Zelda escapes! A kind fairy named Tri helps her. Tri gives Zelda the magical Tri Rod and joins her on her journey. Zelda must travel across Hyrule to fix the rifts. Her main goal is to rescue everyone trapped in the Still World.
During her adventure, Zelda faces a fake Link. She also rescues the real Link from Ganon after a big fight in Hyrule Castle. But it turns out Ganon was also a fake! He was created by a very old evil being called Null. Null can also create echoes and captures Link.
Zelda fixes the rifts at the shrines of the Golden Goddesses: Din, Nayru, and Farore. The Goddesses explain that Null lived in the empty space before everything existed. It wanted to be the only being. The Goddesses created the universe to seal Null away. This made Null angry. When Hyrule was founded, Null tried to break free. It created rifts to destroy everything and bring back the void. To stop this, the Goddesses sent the Tris (like Zelda's fairy friend) to fix the rifts.
Null tries to get the Prime Energy for itself. It creates an echo of Zelda. The Goddesses believed Zelda and Link were worthy of this power. But Null has an unbalanced heart. It only gets the Triforce of Power. Zelda gets the Triforce of Wisdom, and Link's piece creates a rift. Zelda's echo goes into the rift to get Link's piece, with Zelda following close behind. Zelda defeats her echo, but Null still gets the Triforce piece. This causes huge rifts to appear across almost all of Hyrule. Zelda frees Link, and together they face and destroy Null. The Tris, powered by a wish from the complete Triforce, fix all the rifts. They then return to the Goddesses, and Zelda reunites with the king.
Development: How the Game Was Made
Work on Echoes of Wisdom started after the Link's Awakening remake was finished. The goal was to make a new 2D Zelda game for the Switch. At first, it was going to be an expansion of the dungeon editor from Link's Awakening. But it grew into a completely new game.
Satoshi Terada and Tomomi Sano directed the game. They worked with series producer Eiji Aonuma. They came up with new ideas, like the echoes system and having Zelda as the main hero. Mr. Terada found it challenging to create ideas for echoes. The team worried if echoes would be too weak or too strong. They also needed echoes to work in both top-down and side-view parts of the game.
Mr. Aonuma wanted to bring new creativity to the Zelda series. He felt Link's Awakening showed a new way to combine different gameplay views. He asked Grezzo to work with Nintendo EPD Group No.3. This was the first time they worked on an original Zelda game, not just a remake.
The game uses a similar art style to the 2019 Nintendo Switch remake of Link's Awakening.
Echoes of Wisdom is the first main Zelda game where Princess Zelda is the playable character. She had been playable in other Zelda games made by different companies, like Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (1993) and Zelda's Adventure (1996). She also appeared in spin-off games like Hyrule Warriors (2014) and Cadence of Hyrule (2019).
According to Mr. Aonuma, Link was originally going to be the main character. But he worried players might not use the new echoes system much if Link had all his usual weapons. Making Zelda the hero made sense for the echoes mechanic. It also made many fans happy who wanted to play as her!
Echoes of Wisdom was first announced on June 18, 2024. This happened during a Nintendo Direct online presentation. The game was released to players on September 26, 2024.
