Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Plays Like A Mini Tears Of The Kingdom

At a glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking that The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom follows firmly in the footsteps of the 2019 remake of Link's Awakening. Stick Zelda in as a playable character, give her a magic wand, sell an absolute shed-load of copies. Job done.

But having now played an 80-minute section from early in the game, this comparison seems only surface-deep. Although it shares the extremely cute, diorama-esque aesthetic of its top-down predecessor, Echoes captures much more of the systemic and improvisational joys of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom than you might expect.

Echoes sees Hyrule beset by mysterious Rifts--purple, vaguely Calamity-looking voids that stretch across the world--that have hoovered up anyone and anything unfortunate enough to be caught in their path. For once, this means the Hero of Hyrule is nowhere to be seen, leaving Princess Zelda to take up the rei(g)ns instead for the first time in the franchise proper. Sentenced to death by an imposter version of the King, the demo picked up with Zelda making her escape from the dungeons below Hyrule Castle.

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Plays Like A Mini Tears Of The Kingdom

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Plays Like A Mini Tears Of The Kingdom

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Plays Like A Mini Tears Of The Kingdom

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Plays Like A Mini Tears Of The Kingdom

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Plays Like A Mini Tears Of The Kingdom