Echoes Of Wisdom Builds Zelda Up To Be The Hero, Only To Take It Away

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is out, and this fresh 2D outing for the franchise is a fun romp through a chibi world as well as Zelda's inaugural leading role. Unfortunately, while the game does a lot to build Zelda up by providing her an arsenal of Echoes and limited transformation powers, as you reach the final challenge of the game the story seems happy to put Zelda back into her box as a supporting character.

We're going into endgame spoilers, so if you haven't completed The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, it's best to bookmark this and come back to it to share your thoughts on the ending.

Echoes and Swordplay

The main power that you'll be using through your adventure is Zelda's Echoes, which she can learn and create with the power of the Tri Rod. At the beginning of the game, you get echoes such as a bed, a small rock, and common enemies like Zol and Guays.

With each new region that you explore, you'll get to find increasingly powerful enemies to take as your own. You might not be able to take on a Wolfos alone, but a small army of other creatures will be powerful enough to turn the tide of battle.

This power allows Zelda to summon the creatures, and then be on the defensive. You can create some level of offence by directing or throwing these enemies but it's normally better to just let them do their job.

For when Zelda does want to go on the full offence the other ability that she picks up through her journey is a limited transformation into a Swordsman. Here she can swing a sword to create a more traditional Zelda experience. The energy to use this power though exclusively comes from creatures made of the Still World.

Boss Battles Teach You Balance

Boss battles in Echoes of Wisdom show you the best way to balance each of these abilities. A boss might need an Electric Keese to knock them to the ground, and then in that short moment of vulnerability by transforming into a Swordsman you can capitalize on damage.

The game even specifically rewards this type of play. Each time a boss gets up from being knocked down, it also dispenses some of the energy required to recharge your transformation gauge. It's the game telling you "The best time to use the Swordsman transformation is to take down the boss," which is why it makes no sense that for the final fight of the game, they rob you of this power.

Link Is the Hero of This Story

Echoes of Wisdom starts with Link freeing Zelda but falling into the Still World, and it does make sense that by the end of the adventure Zelda frees him. But after freeing him, Zelda returns all of Link's items to him. That power of transformation that has been integral to every single boss fight is now unavailable to you.

This leads to a final boss fight where Link is not only present, but is active in combat and has unlimited health, allowing him to constantly be damaging Null, while Zelda is limited to only the ability to summon Echoes.

This final boss fight isn't some small endeavor either. With three major phases each of which has smaller segments, you'll be forced to experience the end of Echoes of Wisdom not as a triumphant hero but instead a witness to Link's almighty power while you spam Echoes that disappear in a single hit and dodge oncoming attacks like you're playing a bullet hell.

How Zelda Has Assisted Link in the Past

The formula for what has transpired here is not new. It's quite common for the climactic fight of a Legend of Zelda title to be Link getting support from Zelda to defeat the final foe.

In Windwaker, Zelda would shoot a Light Arrow for you to reflect, in Tears of the Kingdom Zelda allowed Link to get above Ganondorf's draconic form to slay him, and even in Ocarina of Time Zelda threw the Master Sword back to Link for the final strike.

While I was hoping the formula would be "The main character gets support from the character they saved," instead the formula really is "Link saves the day with the help of Zelda."

How Echoes Of Wisdom Should Have Ended

There are two key ways that the final battle of Echoes of Wisdom could be altered to provide not only a more fitting finale, but one that Zelda deserves.

The first change would simply be to not rob Zelda of a major part of her move set for the final fight. Allow Zelda to keep the Sword, Bow, and Bombs and provide Link a variety of backup items to assist with. To keep Link in a truly support role this might be something as simple as having him outside the arena of combat, but able to throw in useful items that could put the final boss in a stunned state.

This would mean that Zelda is still the one driving the show, but in a similar way to how Zelda has supported in the past, it's now Link's turn to contribute without hogging the spotlight.

The second change would be to have the final fight be more than who can hit the hardest. Ultimately this final battle is just "Can Link and the Echoes deal enough damage while Zelda dodges oncoming attacks."

When previous battles have you utilizing Electric Keese to shock enemies off walls and into reach or alternating fire and ice attacks as the arena changes, to have a battle that's just "summon Echoes and hope they hit before they die" is lackluster.

So much work and planning went into the start of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom to gracefully sideline Link, create wholly unique and fun powers for Zelda, and carefully scale those abilities throughout the game. It was truly a shame to see it end with Zelda becoming a damsel in distress.