So I beat Echoes of Wisdom the other day. (Not having a job makes beating the latest Zelda game very quick)
Some thoughts (spoilers ahead!):
I really enjoyed messing around in the overworld, traversing, and exploring the mechanics. The echos system is really great and makes for some very expressive gameplay. There's a lot of really interesting ways to use bind as well, and I know for sure that I underutilized it in my playthrough.
The story is a small step above for the typical top-down Zelda game. The NPC dialogues are usually a bit more expressive than the past few games, and some of the side quests go beyond, emotionally, the usual depth for Zelda. This is partly because Zelda as a character has a defined family and connections that are deeper than those of Link, whose usual interactions and relationships are fleeting and brief. The primary example of this is the interactions with your dad, the King. Although there's only one main side quest involving him that I can think of, the tone of the dialogue with him is something we don't frequently see in Zelda games because Link has never had quite the same kind of relationship with another NPC before. A real focus is placed on the kings love for his daughter and the admiration and love the rest of the people of Castle Town have for the princess.
I think the biggest issue I have with the game is the dungeons and especially the bosses. There's a few reasons for this, I think. Because the use of Swordsman mode is extremely limited (especially early on), all of the bosses require a certain amount of experimentation to figure out a viable strategy. It's not always obvious which echoes will be useful for any given encounter. This wouldn't be a huge issue, except that you have to rely on NPC monster echoes a LOT. This means you have to deal with their limited AI. (As an aside, it feels weird to use that term here now because the well has been so poisoned) It leads to extremely frustrating boss encounters where you're pitting dumb and weak enemies against huge bosses (unless you've managed to pick up just the right echo beforehand), and it's often a bit of luck getting them to attack the right place at the right time. It also doesn't help that the amount of non-enemy echoes that can be used for combat effectively is very low. Combine this with very sparse swordsman energy drops from most bosses, and it often becomes a war of attrition. I usually resorted to cheesing the boss encounters, but then again it seems that's what's called for in this situation.
The only exception here is the final dungeon and boss encounter. I won't say more, except that despite the issues I listed above it was still enjoyable and fun.
As a side note, and not something I have much room to speak on myself, I did notice that they really tried to play to stereotypical "girl" interests and themes throughout. It makes sense that they'd want to make sure this reaches a wider demo, but I think the idea that they had to do anything more than just make Zelda the hero is a little misguided. I don't have their market research available, but I suspect that the Zelda series is already popular enough young women and girls that some of their choices seem unnecessary. For example: instead of items to equip, they're called "accessories". Instead of meals, you make smoothies. Horses have never been used in a top-down Zelda before, and I feel like their inclusion here is to grab the attention of horse girls. I don't know, ultimately it's for someone else to talk more about, but I just wanted to point out what felt like a very deliberate attempt to incorporate what marketing departments usually think of as "girly things". No that it's wrong to try to aim the game at young women and girls, just that I don't know if this is the way to go about it especially considering the wide appeal the games already have.
Side note two: why are they moving away from using the term "Triforce?" I don't think that word came up once in this game (and it didn't come up in BotW and TotK either iirc). This time they called it the "Prime Energy", though they did acknowledge the three parts of Power, Wisdom, and Courage and (SPOILERS) the Triforce itself does appear at the end of the game. Anyway, just something I noticed.
Overall I really loved Echoes of Wisdom. It was really exciting to finally play as Zelda after all these years, and the incorporation of her role as keeper of the triforce of wisdom deeply into her gameplay was very satisfying and I think it paid off very well overall.
