Gaming Journal: Echoes of Wisdom

        Earlier today Nintendo debuted The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and for the first time in the mainline canon, you play as Zelda instead of Link. Now if you’ve read any of my other posts you might have picked up that I don’t like change when it comes to the canon I care about. Nintendo will most likely not place this one on the timeline as they prefer to keep things ambiguous, which I respect, so my assumption will be that this game is canon until I know more about it. I’ll say at the outset that from what I observed, this game still feels canon to me despite the massive change of playing as Zelda. 

        First off, the player sprite does not just seem to be a skin swap of the Link sprite. By that I mean the playstyle is very different. This isn’t Zelda swinging a sword around. If Link is the warrior with high strength and courage stats, Zelda is the mage with high intelligence and wisdom stats. From a playstyle perspective they must play differently. If they play differently than that adds to the immersive aspect of the game when it comes to the characters themselves. Link is an established character with his own strengths and weaknesses which we experience during gameplay. Zelda, (at least what we’ve seen from the trailer) also has her own unique strengths and weaknesses. I’ll have to rewatch it but I observed that all combat was done through the conjuring of items and enemies under Zelda’s control. This playstyle fits her character and truly makes her unique. One of the reasons I despise the Hyrule Warrior games is because every single character plays the same way. Zelda’s sword strike can do the same or more damage than Link’s. You need to turn a part of your brain off when playing the game vs when you watch a cut scene to view the protagonists as actual different characters. I want Zelda to be her own person in both narrative and playstyle, and from what I observed Echoes of Wisdom delivers on that front.
From a story perspective there’s not much to go on, but I do have some thoughts. First off the title fits as Zelda is the bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom. The Triforce is present in the game, and Link defeats Ganon at the start rescuing Zelda and starting off the adventure (See my post on Damsels in Distress which I think fits here). What I’m getting at is all the narrative beats of a Legend of Zelda adventure are in place along with new additions. Zelda rescuing Link would be the biggest Narrative change but one could argue that TotK Zelda wasn’t really rescued, it’s just her goals and Link’s goals could not be achieved unless they both acted. Link needed Zelda in her own way to act and Zelda needed Link to act in his own way. A narrative theme that’s been in place since Ocarina of Time. I hope they keep this in place for the climax of Echos of Wisdom, but if Link were stuck with nothing to do the whole game I wouldn’t count it against the game as we have precedent for that in many other Zelda games when it comes to Zelda being captured. 

        All in all the game looks really fun, and I’m excited to play it. It could be a very good game and not be canon, but I would prefer Nintendo to maintain consistency in its IPs as it adds to the world building of the Zelda series in a way that makes sense. If they put in the work to make Zelda a playable character make sense in both gameplay and narrative, then changes will be less jarring and therefore more accepted by the player base