Psh, nearly twenty years between Metroid Fusion and Dread. Same going for Prime 4. Who can even say if they'll ever make a good Star Fox again? Meanwhile, F-Zero fans are all skeletons. Nintendo are pretty cruel when you think about it... at least Kirby gets some love every couple of years.
Amazing contrast hearing your opinion change from when you watched the announcement to now having played it. Good stuff Ratatoskr, I may pickup the game.
Don’t know why people like him make presumptions before even playing the game. Acting like classic Zelda will never return was such an extreme opinion to take in the first place
@@Mirage475 Its not an extreme opinion when SS was the last Zelda to follow traditional Zelda routes. Even ALBW was a departure with the removal of items in dungeons. Since then dungeon rewards have been pointless making the player feel more inclined to B-line it straight to the boss. Either way the video Ratatoskr made was fine seeing as he prefaced it with 'these are my current thoughts'
I loved finding the many throwbacks or ECHOES to previous games.Bosses like Smog (from the also puzzle-centric Oracle of Ages) and how the Tri Rod is similar to the Cane of Somaria, the Cucco lady in Kakariko, the money grubbing Great Fairy, Deku Scrubs and prison, featuring both types of Zora, the return of Yetis, etc. And how Tri reminded me of Fi, especially during the ending when they both show that they've understood what it means to say "thank you".
I feel like hero mode should have set more limitations in general. Like, cutting he amount of smoothies you can carry by at least half and making certain echoes such as the water blocks, beds or crawltulas require more triangles. Also you shouldn't be able restore hearts by sleeping in a bed echo in hero mode. What's the point of not having hearts appear from pots or defeated enemies if we can just heal whenever we want anyway? Difficulty aside though, I really enjoyed the game. Not sure how I'd rank it amongst all Zelda games yet, but it is definitely my favourite Switch original Zelda game. I like how they respected the lore of older games while still adding to it in an interesting way. While none of the regional quest you had to do before each dungeon were particularly stellar stories, they were at least a step up from what we got in TotK. Plus I do have a bit of a soft spot for Conde, he's a very good boy. And thank god for the return of classic dungeons. Probably still on the weaker side of dungeons in the series as a whole, but still much better than what we got with BotW and TotK. I enjoyed the bosses as well. My favourite part of the game was when Link fended off Null a primordial entity, with a STICK to protect Zelda. Good shit! P.S You said you wished we got a whole dungeon with Link and Zelda working together the way they do in the final segment. Well I'd take a whole multi-player co-op game using that idea, actually.
How refreshing is it for a content creator to say they were wrong and not try to justify it, and then go from having a negative first impression to having a positive overall impression. Thanks for the review.
Deku being back really made me want to play this. I love the deku specifically the mad scrubs. Too bad they're not in here just the business scrubs but them not being forgotten brings a teat to my eye. Not sure I will since I'm still bitter about new Zelda but happy to see some old Zelda back and especially the deku. I love them so much man.
@HopperDragon all I saw was business scrubs. I assumed they all shared that model. Point still stands though no mad scrubs but I'm just happy deku are here at all.
Ratatoskr. Null is actually very much connected to Ganon. Null was sealed deep inside the earth’s core, where demise appeared from a fissure or rift and later reincarnated as ganondorf to be able to use the Triforce. This means that demise and subsequently ganon are creations of Null, perhaps even his avatar, and explains why it has an echo of ganon and why ganon cannot truly die since he is an echo of Null.
there is hope, thanks for this review. If they made another Zelda game & didn't make good dungeons & was going to quietly step out. People think that the dungeons didn't need to returns but their excuse was the progress of doing them was getting stale (get dungeon map, compass, item from the place, then boss key). If the can evolve from that, they could still keep it Zelda while making the process of dungeons fresh
I agree with most of your review, but I really like this game's puzzles. Maybe I'm just stupid, but I've found many of the puzzles in this game quite difficult, especially in the back half of the game. Also I find combat with echoes more interesting than combat with swordfighter form. Combat in swordfighter form mostly boils down to spamming attacks, whereas there are a lot of fun little optimizations you can figure out to increase your DPS with echoes. Also I really like Hero Mode in this game, for forcing me to engage more with the smoothie system, which I probably would have ignored if I was playing on normal mode. It made finding smoothie ingredients in the world, and getting them as quest rewards, feel more rewarding.
I kind of agree with the puzzles namely two stand out. 1: in the Faron wetlands temple with the switches you have to press simultaneously and not leave an object on (seriously that didn't feel fair as a puzzle with no sign to read to understand what they do or better indication from the actual switches.) 2: That one puzzle in the Lanayru temple where you need to refreeze the water to get past some hot steam vents... I didn't do this as I only figured out the puzzle after leaving the room as I thought my solution was way to stupid and only possible due to my number of Tri shards.
Despite the marketing making it feel like it was going to be another outside the box Zelda game, the dev team made a very comforting return to form. The game is like Zelda comfort food, coming in a time where no one knew where the franchise was going exactly. Like hot chocolate on a rainy day. Maybe not going to win any awards, but I really enjoyed this game and what it means for the future.
This is the reason why I prefered 2d zelda than 3d zelda. Way less downtime because of dialogue/story, more framerate and more action. But I largely prefer the BotW/TotK formula, I never liked the old 3d zelda although they were good games and worth doing it one time.
I'm surprised you mentioned the smoothies taking a long time, but not the dojo challenges and minigames throwing you out completely every time you lose, instead of letting you retry immediately. It was soooo frustrating having to spend like 30 to 40 seconds talking to the NPC, waiting for menus to pop up and maps to load every time you lose a 20 second challenge. This should not be an issue in this year of our lord.
@@Logicalleaping yeah I literally couldn’t beat it normally it was way too tough The other two were very easy in comparison Second I beat first try mastered and long took 3 runs
While playing EoW, I felt like the moment-to-moment dialogue was actually better than it was in ToTK. It may be because there are no generic NPCs that repeat the same lines as each other, but they characters felt far more alive to me.
YES! A lot of people complaining about wanting their formula back fail to see how this is pretty much the ultimate amalgamation of old, original, ACTUAL classic Zelda, the crappy early 3D era Zelda, and the 2 most recent incarnations of 3D Zelda. You said something along the lines of "the echoes basically are the dungeon items." EXACTLY. It doesn't really feel repetitive because it doesn't have the korok seeds, shrines, and caves dotted all over the place, and exploration almost feels even more rewarding because of that. They need to do something about that damn UI though. I wasn't nearly as frustrated as you sounded with it in your reaction video of other people's reviews, but I also don't agree with the first one you watched. I'm kind of in the middle. I was really disappointed to see the same long single file list to scroll thru endlessly, but the sorting options they give you, and the tendency(my own personal tendency, anyway) to use a small handful of echoes pretty regularly, along with the fact that you usually find relevant echoes near the places you need them, has made it a mostly painless experience... So like, it WORKS, but I'd still be lying if I said I never had to scroll for a long time. Every time I enter a new water area in a cave or dungeon I have to scroll to find the shark again. But then yet again, I guess I COULD just sort by cost since I know the shark is a 4, and maybe I'll find it sooner. We definitely need to at least have some ability to favorite things or set up custom sorting options(although that would get really tedious too, but on the plus side, once it's set up, you're good until you get another echo, and then you just choose which one to add it to right then and there. Or maybe even just sort based on element/environment/mobility type... Flying ones, fire-based ones, swimming/water based ones, etc. I was also pretty disappointed at the fact that we can only have one echo selected at any given moment, one button to assign echoes to, when past games have given us more than that for the items, especially considering how they designed this to have the monsters basically become our items. I feel like we could come up with some really interesting combos with these things if it wasn't so cumbersome to spawn one, select another, spawn that one, select another, and so on... And you know, honestly, that's a LOT to say about the UI, but that's really my only real complaint with this game. It's pretty much perfect, although it can feel stupidly easy at times. And there were some times where I felt like I was kinda backed into a corner and forced to use the swordfighter form, or the fight was gonna take half an hour. Or maybe I just didn't find the right echo strategy. I'd like to play around with different, less used ones more often to actually learn the nuances of the rock-paper-scissors game we're playing here, except I have no desire to scroll endlessly thru the echo list. I was very pleased with the map design and size(it could always be bigger though) and the music. Can't say much about graphics, as it's what we got before with Link's Awakening. I don't hate it, but it's not my favorite art style. I'm not a fan of the emoji faces specifically, but everything else is fine. I don't care about framerates or resolutions. If I can see what's going on and it at least looks stable to me 75% of the time, I'm good. Remember when NES games used to slow down and blink? I saw some video analyzing the game's graphical performance, and the framerate was jumping all over the place... but when I'm playing, I don't notice it, and I honestly couldn't notice it while watching the video either. I noticed some slowdown specifically while loading into an area if I immediately start running and chopping down grass, the whole thing will slow down a bit and rupee spawning is delayed. Oh, one LAST thing: God damnit, Zelda used to have some dungeons that you had to search for and find. You didn't have map beacons or NPCs telling you exactly where to go. I want that back. PLEASE, give us that back.
The echoes give a really good incentive to explore, every cave you have the potential of finding useful tools. This game was so much fun and gives me hope for the future of the franchise
I'm nearly finished with the game so I'll save this vid for later. But I really am having a blast with it. This is such a necessary step in the right direction for Zelda and I couldn't be more excited to see what's next.
The game should have had 2 or 3 customizable items/powers buttons like previous classic games. Minimize the time in the menus and could incentivised ppl to use echos that they normally wouldn't use in a given situation.
I thought it was really good. I was a one play through was enough botw player and didn’t even finish totk because of all my gripes. Anyway I hope one day we get some sort of happy medium. The menus need work big time. And I think it would have been cool if each dungeon had a mini boss who’s echo acted like the items found in previous games. Would have made it feel alittle more rewarding. But if oot is a 9.5 I think I’d give echoes a 7.6. Super solid
I’m playing right now and I’m on the last 3 or 4 dungeons, I think. I love classic zelda and a link between worlds is my favorite. Plus this one we play as zelda which is neat. I dont hate botw or totk but prefer these. I really do want more.
one thing they could do to balance the echo system is having something akin to a stamina bar, since that would mean you cant just spam your echoes you need to use them in a strategic way or you leave yourself open to attacks if you use up that stamina bar as zelda could get in a tired state, and combat scenarios in dungeons could have included that certain monsters in the dungeon could have worked for certain encounters or have more interactions, the system really has a lot of potential
It’s not really a classic Zelda for anyone wondering but there was a much better effort with dungeons in eow over totk. There’s keys and progression to them but you can also break the puzzle or sequence break I’d say the best of modern and classic combined imo.
there is one broken echo you didnt mention: flying tile it doesnt change your assessment of the puzzles i more or less 100% agree with you, but i skipped maybe 80% of the platforming/traversal challenges in the game just by either jumping on or binding myself to a flying tile. im almost surprised i havent seen more people list it next to crawltulla, it has even fewer downsides IMO
There are more and more people catching up with that. Unfortunately, the flying tile is this game's equivalent to the hover bike in TotK. Granted, it's not as game breaking as the hover bike was, but it's still up there. Dungeon and item design still has longs way to go before getting the magic back.
This game is fun, just started. My only complaint is the menu diving. It would’ve been cool to assign echoes to hotkeys. Like L1 + a = snake, b = sea urchin, y = trampoline etc. Then it would’ve felt more like an action game instead of a strategy/puzzle. The music is amazing. Among the best in the series.
Honestly I barely use the smoothies because beds are so effective, especially with the silk pajamas. Though it is a touch harder to heal mid battle without the smoothies, but I mainly used them for buffs or to restore energy. So i maxxed out once, and then fom there I needed like, 3 or 4 per visit, and only one visit per dungeon or the dream battles (when the latter lets you use them).
Great review Rata. As someone who didnt like and got bored 8 hours into botw+totk.. I was very skeptical for this one. I am at the last dungeon atm, and I rly like it. Felt indeed like a classic Zelda game! The structure and atmosphere is rly good. Real dungeons!!! Healing and ui sadly new gen..but I am still a Zelda fan! My hope is renewed, at least for 2d Zelda's.
For making smoothie one at a time, I wonder if it's a child proof thing. Remembering back to my childhood I would accidently buy 99+ potions in pokemon.
I just picked up Echoes finally so I'll watch this later. Though I've caught bits and pieces of some of the streams and I suspect that the overall opinion is something like, better than expected but not without some glaring flaws.
Just completed the game myself, and I'm surprised at some of the echos you're using! Like, I didn't think of using the little rock dudes to cross lava and didnt know the Whirro as my grab-flyer! Not sure if I agree on adding restrictions to Echos - I think for most people, adding those restrictions would only push them towards Swordfighter Mode more, and for me, I focused on an Echo-first playstyle, especially when I had my high-level enemy Echoes. Sure, when I started maxing out my Swordfighter stats, there were a few times I popped it on, but most often I used my squad.
Maybe kinda spoilers as far as my default puzzle solving intuition While there are some echoes that can feel like they become your standard solution i feel like each person ive seen play has had different "cheat" echoes, like i never realized how useful water blocks were cause they seemed to disappear unreliably or wouldnt place sometimes, instead i used clouds flying tiles and those big raising platforms, i hadnt noticed i could use repeated echoes as a form of attack untill partway through where i used the buzz blob and octorocks (after i beat the game i realized i could use caromadillos as sortof ranged attacks) i avoided using swordfighter form because sometimes it seemed like you basically needed it so i was concerned about running out of energy, on that lava area id never connected that i could just use the little talos, and i hardly made smoothies cause i forgot to and kinda felt like i had to go out of my way to make them.
In my opinion, I think this game is... playable. I think the story is bland; and the puzzles are poor. I don't believe the combat is good. Echo combat is so ungodly slow. Smoothies let you use link mode basically ad infinitum. The thesis of "What if it was a link to the past but you could scale vertically" is something a grade schooler would come up with on the playground. It's neat, but it's not very deep. I haven't quite gotten to the end yet, so I haven't heard as much music as you have. But, in the time I've had with the game, about 10 hours, I have found the music almost grating at this point. There's not a momentum to it. Compare briefly Tal Tal heights from Link's Awakening to Zelda's overworld theme. That's another thing. Even in Link's awakening, a Game Boy game, there were multiple overworld themes. Echoes just doesn't have that. The link mode music is also in this camp of grating over time. The dungeons are noticeably short, as well. Although this has been a problem in every zelda post Link between worlds. Lastly, the frame rates are just awful. I know it's the switch. I do. But it's so bad. Smash runs fine, metroid prime runs fine, even totk runs great. Although they spent an ungodly amount of time optimizing it for the switch. The game feels like a slog to play. I'll eventually get through it, but man is it hard.
Gonna be honest, I was worried with the fandom's growing opinion that everything from the Wild formula should be thrown out and we should just return to the Classic formula. I understand why that opinion was growing BUT doing that wouldn't be healthy for the franchise in the long run. Going back and leaving everything behind would be a regression and eventually lead to stagnation if no meaningful changes are made going forward. So, I'm glad that EoW showed fans that the modern formula CAN mix with the classic formula. It doesn't have to be one formula or the other. Its all about finding the right balance/execution.
Have you ever played a duology of games by FromSoftware called Lost Kingdoms? It feels like the developers of Echoes of Wisdom have and they captured a very similar feeling that I haven't felt since I played those games as a little girl. I'm glad that I'm getting to enjoy this game and it's a welcome surprise after Breath and Tears not really being my cup of tea.
BEING an old school fan of Zelda restricted games for just nostaglia". Eiji Aonuma would consider me of, i was a little concerned going into this. but i was wrong, how funny i actually enjoy this story more than TOTK. The dungeons felt great. playing it the beginning with the echoes i was saying to myself worried " damn, so are all ZELDA GAMES coming forward gonna keep making whacky mechanics like ultra hand and echoes on the drop?" but these mechanics go well with this game and don't take away from the story unlike TOTK.
I think the thing that really kills it for me is the UI. Having only a single button to map an echo to combined with that horrid scroll bar for selecting an echo is just way too much of a pain. Plenty of Zelda games in the past gave me 3 buttons to keep items on, and there were way fewer items in those games than echoes in this game.
I felt like the final boss was a little underwhelming and nulls body should have been a full on dungeon in my opinion. The final boss was way too easy and they should have made it harder. Link does way too much damage with the upgraded sword and arrows and the echoes
I really really really wish the dialogue went faster or was skippable all together. this game is a slog during the plot heavy moments. makes me dread going to a new area.
The farron wetlands had the weakest story to me, but other then that I felt the story was fine, nothing amazing but definitely an improvement from TotK.
!!SPOILERS!! I vehemently disliked the ending. Taking away the funnest aspect of combat so an AI can do it for you? Are you serious? You can just run, and still beat the boss. Why is it called the fkn Prime Energy? This whole thing was really dumb.
Useless loot makes exploration unrewarding. Huge negative. The different areas lacked a lot of creativity too, too much nostalgia bait. Other than that, game was great. Echoes are awesome and the ending was great.
An example of a game that isn't woke labeled by the antiwoke mob. Think I'll pick this game up along with Sparking Zero to dust off the old Switch every once in awhile. Thanks Ratatoskr.
this is a nitpick so don't take it too deeply, but I'm struggling to listen to this review because of the narration. You're speaking naturally for part of most sentences, and then seem to stumble or intonate oddly at parts. It's a touch offputting.
![KSI - Thick Of It (feat. Trippie Redd) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/At8v_Yc044Y/mqdefault.jpg)
"Since A Link Between Worlds 11 years ago..."
Stop please, my dusty old heart can't take it anymore
Psh, nearly twenty years between Metroid Fusion and Dread.
Same going for Prime 4.
Who can even say if they'll ever make a good Star Fox again?
Meanwhile, F-Zero fans are all skeletons.
Nintendo are pretty cruel when you think about it... at least Kirby gets some love every couple of years.
Yeah I did a double take when he said that. Could have sworn ALBW came out no earlier than 2015. Time flies.
Can we get a link between world's port for Switch 2!? I'm hoping they can figure out a way...
@leviwuzere07 funniest part is that it's all based off the same damn game.
The picking items in a row is probably the most annoying things Zelda devs need to drop
The single row of items wouldn't be as annoying if we had a favoriting system
Fr. I wish they used a hotkey system like all the other Zeldas prior to botw
I really don’t like this “you have hundreds of options but only like 10 are useful” thing they keep doing. That said, I still did love EoW
A scroll wheel would be so good for thus
we used to have the item wheel man
Amazing contrast hearing your opinion change from when you watched the announcement to now having played it. Good stuff Ratatoskr, I may pickup the game.
Don’t know why people like him make presumptions before even playing the game. Acting like classic Zelda will never return was such an extreme opinion to take in the first place
@@Mirage475 Its not an extreme opinion when SS was the last Zelda to follow traditional Zelda routes. Even ALBW was a departure with the removal of items in dungeons. Since then dungeon rewards have been pointless making the player feel more inclined to B-line it straight to the boss. Either way the video Ratatoskr made was fine seeing as he prefaced it with 'these are my current thoughts'
I loved finding the many throwbacks or ECHOES to previous games.Bosses like Smog (from the also puzzle-centric Oracle of Ages) and how the Tri Rod is similar to the Cane of Somaria, the Cucco lady in Kakariko, the money grubbing Great Fairy, Deku Scrubs and prison, featuring both types of Zora, the return of Yetis, etc. And how Tri reminded me of Fi, especially during the ending when they both show that they've understood what it means to say "thank you".
“It is a good *classic Zelda* game” - not done playing myself so this video is for later but that’s good to hear!
I feel like hero mode should have set more limitations in general. Like, cutting he amount of smoothies you can carry by at least half and making certain echoes such as the water blocks, beds or crawltulas require more triangles. Also you shouldn't be able restore hearts by sleeping in a bed echo in hero mode. What's the point of not having hearts appear from pots or defeated enemies if we can just heal whenever we want anyway?
Difficulty aside though, I really enjoyed the game. Not sure how I'd rank it amongst all Zelda games yet, but it is definitely my favourite Switch original Zelda game. I like how they respected the lore of older games while still adding to it in an interesting way. While none of the regional quest you had to do before each dungeon were particularly stellar stories, they were at least a step up from what we got in TotK. Plus I do have a bit of a soft spot for Conde, he's a very good boy. And thank god for the return of classic dungeons. Probably still on the weaker side of dungeons in the series as a whole, but still much better than what we got with BotW and TotK. I enjoyed the bosses as well.
My favourite part of the game was when Link fended off Null a primordial entity, with a STICK to protect Zelda. Good shit!
P.S You said you wished we got a whole dungeon with Link and Zelda working together the way they do in the final segment. Well I'd take a whole multi-player co-op game using that idea, actually.
Stamp Guy has stamped his *_fabulous_* body and love into our hearts forever.
Gay
How refreshing is it for a content creator to say they were wrong and not try to justify it, and then go from having a negative first impression to having a positive overall impression. Thanks for the review.
Deku being back really made me want to play this. I love the deku specifically the mad scrubs. Too bad they're not in here just the business scrubs but them not being forgotten brings a teat to my eye. Not sure I will since I'm still bitter about new Zelda but happy to see some old Zelda back and especially the deku. I love them so much man.
What? There's a whole region populated by deputy scrubs and they're extremely adorable. What do you mean there's only business scrubs?
@HopperDragon all I saw was business scrubs. I assumed they all shared that model. Point still stands though no mad scrubs but I'm just happy deku are here at all.
Heres to hoping they continue running with the deku scrubs
@@Touma134Have you been in the Faron Wetlands? If not you should, might find what you're looking for
Ratatoskr. Null is actually very much connected to Ganon.
Null was sealed deep inside the earth’s core, where demise appeared from a fissure or rift and later reincarnated as ganondorf to
be able to use the Triforce. This means that demise and subsequently ganon are creations of Null, perhaps even his avatar, and explains why it has an echo of ganon and why ganon cannot truly die since he is an echo of Null.
there is hope, thanks for this review. If they made another Zelda game & didn't make good dungeons & was going to quietly step out. People think that the dungeons didn't need to returns but their excuse was the progress of doing them was getting stale (get dungeon map, compass, item from the place, then boss key). If the can evolve from that, they could still keep it Zelda while making the process of dungeons fresh
I agree with most of your review, but I really like this game's puzzles. Maybe I'm just stupid, but I've found many of the puzzles in this game quite difficult, especially in the back half of the game.
Also I find combat with echoes more interesting than combat with swordfighter form. Combat in swordfighter form mostly boils down to spamming attacks, whereas there are a lot of fun little optimizations you can figure out to increase your DPS with echoes.
Also I really like Hero Mode in this game, for forcing me to engage more with the smoothie system, which I probably would have ignored if I was playing on normal mode. It made finding smoothie ingredients in the world, and getting them as quest rewards, feel more rewarding.
I played hero mode and I still mostly ignored the smoothies. I just used beds when my health got low.
I kind of agree with the puzzles namely two stand out.
1: in the Faron wetlands temple with the switches you have to press simultaneously and not leave an object on (seriously that didn't feel fair as a puzzle with no sign to read to understand what they do or better indication from the actual switches.)
2: That one puzzle in the Lanayru temple where you need to refreeze the water to get past some hot steam vents... I didn't do this as I only figured out the puzzle after leaving the room as I thought my solution was way to stupid and only possible due to my number of Tri shards.
Echoes of Wisdom: releases
All the lore theorists: we're back
Nintendo has such an impressive ability to create games that are just plain old FUN.
Despite the marketing making it feel like it was going to be another outside the box Zelda game, the dev team made a very comforting return to form. The game is like Zelda comfort food, coming in a time where no one knew where the franchise was going exactly. Like hot chocolate on a rainy day. Maybe not going to win any awards, but I really enjoyed this game and what it means for the future.
This is the reason why I prefered 2d zelda than 3d zelda.
Way less downtime because of dialogue/story, more framerate and more action.
But I largely prefer the BotW/TotK formula, I never liked the old 3d zelda although they were good games and worth doing it one time.
Ah! my most anticipated EoW review has come out!
I'm surprised you mentioned the smoothies taking a long time, but not the dojo challenges and minigames throwing you out completely every time you lose, instead of letting you retry immediately. It was soooo frustrating having to spend like 30 to 40 seconds talking to the NPC, waiting for menus to pop up and maps to load every time you lose a 20 second challenge.
This should not be an issue in this year of our lord.
Me doing the short course horse race for the 20th time 💀
@@doolenny9458 FR why was the first race the hardest of the three.
@@Logicalleaping yeah I literally couldn’t beat it normally it was way too tough
The other two were very easy in comparison
Second I beat first try mastered and long took 3 runs
While playing EoW, I felt like the moment-to-moment dialogue was actually better than it was in ToTK. It may be because there are no generic NPCs that repeat the same lines as each other, but they characters felt far more alive to me.
The biggest flaws are that water blocks and beds are too op
And
Zelda only has 8 in game outfits( not counting amiibo pallette swaps.)
YES! A lot of people complaining about wanting their formula back fail to see how this is pretty much the ultimate amalgamation of old, original, ACTUAL classic Zelda, the crappy early 3D era Zelda, and the 2 most recent incarnations of 3D Zelda. You said something along the lines of "the echoes basically are the dungeon items." EXACTLY. It doesn't really feel repetitive because it doesn't have the korok seeds, shrines, and caves dotted all over the place, and exploration almost feels even more rewarding because of that.
They need to do something about that damn UI though. I wasn't nearly as frustrated as you sounded with it in your reaction video of other people's reviews, but I also don't agree with the first one you watched. I'm kind of in the middle. I was really disappointed to see the same long single file list to scroll thru endlessly, but the sorting options they give you, and the tendency(my own personal tendency, anyway) to use a small handful of echoes pretty regularly, along with the fact that you usually find relevant echoes near the places you need them, has made it a mostly painless experience... So like, it WORKS, but I'd still be lying if I said I never had to scroll for a long time. Every time I enter a new water area in a cave or dungeon I have to scroll to find the shark again. But then yet again, I guess I COULD just sort by cost since I know the shark is a 4, and maybe I'll find it sooner.
We definitely need to at least have some ability to favorite things or set up custom sorting options(although that would get really tedious too, but on the plus side, once it's set up, you're good until you get another echo, and then you just choose which one to add it to right then and there. Or maybe even just sort based on element/environment/mobility type... Flying ones, fire-based ones, swimming/water based ones, etc.
I was also pretty disappointed at the fact that we can only have one echo selected at any given moment, one button to assign echoes to, when past games have given us more than that for the items, especially considering how they designed this to have the monsters basically become our items. I feel like we could come up with some really interesting combos with these things if it wasn't so cumbersome to spawn one, select another, spawn that one, select another, and so on...
And you know, honestly, that's a LOT to say about the UI, but that's really my only real complaint with this game. It's pretty much perfect, although it can feel stupidly easy at times. And there were some times where I felt like I was kinda backed into a corner and forced to use the swordfighter form, or the fight was gonna take half an hour. Or maybe I just didn't find the right echo strategy. I'd like to play around with different, less used ones more often to actually learn the nuances of the rock-paper-scissors game we're playing here, except I have no desire to scroll endlessly thru the echo list.
I was very pleased with the map design and size(it could always be bigger though) and the music. Can't say much about graphics, as it's what we got before with Link's Awakening. I don't hate it, but it's not my favorite art style. I'm not a fan of the emoji faces specifically, but everything else is fine. I don't care about framerates or resolutions. If I can see what's going on and it at least looks stable to me 75% of the time, I'm good. Remember when NES games used to slow down and blink? I saw some video analyzing the game's graphical performance, and the framerate was jumping all over the place... but when I'm playing, I don't notice it, and I honestly couldn't notice it while watching the video either. I noticed some slowdown specifically while loading into an area if I immediately start running and chopping down grass, the whole thing will slow down a bit and rupee spawning is delayed.
Oh, one LAST thing: God damnit, Zelda used to have some dungeons that you had to search for and find. You didn't have map beacons or NPCs telling you exactly where to go. I want that back. PLEASE, give us that back.
The echoes give a really good incentive to explore, every cave you have the potential of finding useful tools. This game was so much fun and gives me hope for the future of the franchise
So glad to see your take. Can't wait to watch this after I finish it.
I gotta give this silky voice my full attention !
I'm nearly finished with the game so I'll save this vid for later. But I really am having a blast with it. This is such a necessary step in the right direction for Zelda and I couldn't be more excited to see what's next.
The game should have had 2 or 3 customizable items/powers buttons like previous classic games. Minimize the time in the menus and could incentivised ppl to use echos that they normally wouldn't use in a given situation.
I thought it was really good. I was a one play through was enough botw player and didn’t even finish totk because of all my gripes. Anyway I hope one day we get some sort of happy medium. The menus need work big time. And I think it would have been cool if each dungeon had a mini boss who’s echo acted like the items found in previous games. Would have made it feel alittle more rewarding. But if oot is a 9.5 I think I’d give echoes a 7.6. Super solid
I’m playing right now and I’m on the last 3 or 4 dungeons, I think. I love classic zelda and a link between worlds is my favorite. Plus this one we play as zelda which is neat. I dont hate botw or totk but prefer these. I really do want more.
one thing they could do to balance the echo system is having something akin to a stamina bar, since that would mean you cant just spam your echoes you need to use them in a strategic way or you leave yourself open to attacks if you use up that stamina bar as zelda could get in a tired state, and combat scenarios in dungeons could have included that certain monsters in the dungeon could have worked for certain encounters or have more interactions, the system really has a lot of potential
There's full optional dungeons with optional bosses! Wtf Nintendo. Where were these in Tears of the Kingdom?
It’s not really a classic Zelda for anyone wondering but there was a much better effort with dungeons in eow over totk.
There’s keys and progression to them but you can also break the puzzle or sequence break
I’d say the best of modern and classic combined imo.
there is one broken echo you didnt mention: flying tile
it doesnt change your assessment of the puzzles i more or less 100% agree with you, but i skipped maybe 80% of the platforming/traversal challenges in the game just by either jumping on or binding myself to a flying tile. im almost surprised i havent seen more people list it next to crawltulla, it has even fewer downsides IMO
There are more and more people catching up with that.
Unfortunately, the flying tile is this game's equivalent to the hover bike in TotK.
Granted, it's not as game breaking as the hover bike was, but it's still up there.
Dungeon and item design still has longs way to go before getting the magic back.
Hero Mode also eliminates any heart/fairy drops in the game. Completely nullifies at least 2 Accessories
This game is fun, just started. My only complaint is the menu diving. It would’ve been cool to assign echoes to hotkeys. Like L1 + a = snake, b = sea urchin, y = trampoline etc. Then it would’ve felt more like an action game instead of a strategy/puzzle. The music is amazing. Among the best in the series.
You get to control a Lynel like a Pokémon.
Honestly I barely use the smoothies because beds are so effective, especially with the silk pajamas.
Though it is a touch harder to heal mid battle without the smoothies, but I mainly used them for buffs or to restore energy. So i maxxed out once, and then fom there I needed like, 3 or 4 per visit, and only one visit per dungeon or the dream battles (when the latter lets you use them).
Great review Rata.
As someone who didnt like and got bored 8 hours into botw+totk..
I was very skeptical for this one. I am at the last dungeon atm, and I rly like it. Felt indeed like a classic Zelda game!
The structure and atmosphere is rly good. Real dungeons!!!
Healing and ui sadly new gen..but
I am still a Zelda fan!
My hope is renewed, at least for 2d Zelda's.
For making smoothie one at a time, I wonder if it's a child proof thing. Remembering back to my childhood I would accidently buy 99+ potions in pokemon.
If Dark Souls has Fashion Souls, I want The Fashion of Zelda! (Give us more Outfits!!)
I just picked up Echoes finally so I'll watch this later. Though I've caught bits and pieces of some of the streams and I suspect that the overall opinion is something like, better than expected but not without some glaring flaws.
Just completed the game myself, and I'm surprised at some of the echos you're using! Like, I didn't think of using the little rock dudes to cross lava and didnt know the Whirro as my grab-flyer!
Not sure if I agree on adding restrictions to Echos - I think for most people, adding those restrictions would only push them towards Swordfighter Mode more, and for me, I focused on an Echo-first playstyle, especially when I had my high-level enemy Echoes. Sure, when I started maxing out my Swordfighter stats, there were a few times I popped it on, but most often I used my squad.
12:32
Feeling slightly called out lol
That’s exactly how I handled the second-to-last boss fight.
Maybe kinda spoilers as far as my default puzzle solving intuition
While there are some echoes that can feel like they become your standard solution i feel like each person ive seen play has had different "cheat" echoes, like i never realized how useful water blocks were cause they seemed to disappear unreliably or wouldnt place sometimes, instead i used clouds flying tiles and those big raising platforms, i hadnt noticed i could use repeated echoes as a form of attack untill partway through where i used the buzz blob and octorocks (after i beat the game i realized i could use caromadillos as sortof ranged attacks) i avoided using swordfighter form because sometimes it seemed like you basically needed it so i was concerned about running out of energy, on that lava area id never connected that i could just use the little talos, and i hardly made smoothies cause i forgot to and kinda felt like i had to go out of my way to make them.
Distortion world pokemon platinum is all i see with the still world. Which isn't a bad thing.
In my opinion, I think this game is... playable. I think the story is bland; and the puzzles are poor. I don't believe the combat is good. Echo combat is so ungodly slow. Smoothies let you use link mode basically ad infinitum.
The thesis of "What if it was a link to the past but you could scale vertically" is something a grade schooler would come up with on the playground. It's neat, but it's not very deep.
I haven't quite gotten to the end yet, so I haven't heard as much music as you have. But, in the time I've had with the game, about 10 hours, I have found the music almost grating at this point. There's not a momentum to it. Compare briefly Tal Tal heights from Link's Awakening to Zelda's overworld theme. That's another thing. Even in Link's awakening, a Game Boy game, there were multiple overworld themes. Echoes just doesn't have that. The link mode music is also in this camp of grating over time.
The dungeons are noticeably short, as well. Although this has been a problem in every zelda post Link between worlds.
Lastly, the frame rates are just awful. I know it's the switch. I do. But it's so bad. Smash runs fine, metroid prime runs fine, even totk runs great. Although they spent an ungodly amount of time optimizing it for the switch.
The game feels like a slog to play. I'll eventually get through it, but man is it hard.
Princess Zelda's 18-in-1 water block
What does this mean?
happy for you.
I was waiting for this. Now I don't have to play the game myself
I would play this in a heartbeat but 60usd is a steep price
Gonna be honest, I was worried with the fandom's growing opinion that everything from the Wild formula should be thrown out and we should just return to the Classic formula. I understand why that opinion was growing BUT doing that wouldn't be healthy for the franchise in the long run. Going back and leaving everything behind would be a regression and eventually lead to stagnation if no meaningful changes are made going forward.
So, I'm glad that EoW showed fans that the modern formula CAN mix with the classic formula. It doesn't have to be one formula or the other. Its all about finding the right balance/execution.
I thought in the smoothie menu you can go to the recipe section and choose to spend a larger amount of rupees to make several at once
Economy is wrong in this game:
1 milk = 50 rupees, 1 honey = 40 rupees, Fee = 10 rupees
but the smoothie sells for 45 (loss 55 rupees)
Have you ever played a duology of games by FromSoftware called Lost Kingdoms? It feels like the developers of Echoes of Wisdom have and they captured a very similar feeling that I haven't felt since I played those games as a little girl. I'm glad that I'm getting to enjoy this game and it's a welcome surprise after Breath and Tears not really being my cup of tea.
they should have 3 main line zeldas running. these og ones. ,the oot style and then of course botw type . they'd never have anyone complaine
BEING an old school fan of Zelda restricted games for just nostaglia". Eiji Aonuma would consider me of, i was a little concerned going into this. but i was wrong, how funny i actually enjoy this story more than TOTK. The dungeons felt great. playing it the beginning with the echoes i was saying to myself worried " damn, so are all ZELDA GAMES coming forward gonna keep making whacky mechanics like ultra hand and echoes on the drop?" but these mechanics go well with this game and don't take away from the story unlike TOTK.
I think the thing that really kills it for me is the UI. Having only a single button to map an echo to combined with that horrid scroll bar for selecting an echo is just way too much of a pain. Plenty of Zelda games in the past gave me 3 buttons to keep items on, and there were way fewer items in those games than echoes in this game.
Nice review!
It’s *okay*
The goat of game reviews
agree with you, like it takes two, you control link and zelda in the end game
Rata being positive?! What world are we living in?
As a fan of both "styles" of zelda games, I'm eating good.
I felt like the final boss was a little underwhelming and nulls body should have been a full on dungeon in my opinion. The final boss was way too easy and they should have made it harder. Link does way too much damage with the upgraded sword and arrows and the echoes
This game have the right amount of cheese.
My dream come true would be Miyazaki directing a Zelda game 😢
wait you can win without teeing link up?
I really really really wish the dialogue went faster or was skippable all together. this game is a slog during the plot heavy moments. makes me dread going to a new area.
The farron wetlands had the weakest story to me, but other then that I felt the story was fine, nothing amazing but definitely an improvement from TotK.
Crawl- Tula?its Crawl- Tchoola, like tarantula
i can HEAR you stopping your self from being more negative. its begging to escape!!! lol
Nintendo needs to remake oot and mm
The good zeldas are the 2D ones now I guess
6:32 killed me 😂
Squirrel man liked a Zelder game? What? Am I taking Crazy pills?
based take as always
I’ve never felt so inclined not to buy something I would definitely enjoy.
why? (not being rude, genuinely asking because i’m curious)
@@annaisntcool Just not feeling it. Nothing about it pulled me in like the other Zelda games.
!!SPOILERS!!
I vehemently disliked the ending.
Taking away the funnest aspect of combat so an AI can do it for you? Are you serious? You can just run, and still beat the boss.
Why is it called the fkn Prime Energy? This whole thing was really dumb.
Your channel is like a joyful journey into the world of fun and entertainment. Keep making us happy with your funny videos!♀️🌒🚜
Pornbot.
Useless loot makes exploration unrewarding. Huge negative. The different areas lacked a lot of creativity too, too much nostalgia bait. Other than that, game was great. Echoes are awesome and the ending was great.
7/10 game. Good, but not great. For most of the game, I thought, "man this would be more fun as Link with his sword and tools."
I REALLY hate this art style and I don't like that you're not Link, but the game itself does looks good.
you being zelda here is really a negative to you lol?
An example of a game that isn't woke labeled by the antiwoke mob. Think I'll pick this game up along with Sparking Zero to dust off the old Switch every once in awhile. Thanks Ratatoskr.
I played the game and now it's gay and woke 😈
this is a nitpick so don't take it too deeply, but I'm struggling to listen to this review because of the narration. You're speaking naturally for part of most sentences, and then seem to stumble or intonate oddly at parts. It's a touch offputting.
It almost sounds automated?
The game would be more fun if we played as link.
Looks like slop, no thanks bro!
Hope everyone pirates this game, fuck nintendo, especially after Yuzu and Ryujinx takedown.
Looks laaaaaaame