Nintendo Gaming
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I completed it yesterday. My thoughts: The first mainline Legend of Zelda game that features Zelda herself as the main character, while also taking some inspiration from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and incorporating aspects of those into a more traditional 2D Zelda, with the style of the Link’s Awakening remake and a map heavily inspired by A Link to the Past. It’s quite an amalgamation of different Zelda concepts, but it all blends together to form a lovely package. As Link falls into a dark void after saving Zelda, Zelda teams up with a mysterious entity called Tri to try and fix these rifts that are tearing Hyrule apart. Together, they have two main powers, Echo and Bind, with the Echo system being the core concept of the game – hence it being part of the game’s title. Zelda can scan various objects and any non-boss enemy (after defeating it) to add it to her collection of Echoes. After this, she can then summon it at will, with a certain number being “active” at any one time – summon another and the earliest one you summoned will disappear. There’s no recharge timer, so which opens up a lot of possibilities for how to use them – in ways, a few too many. Hold right on the D-pad and you get a colossal list to scroll. This was one of the big problems in Tears of the Kingdom and it doesn’t get any better here. It’s potentially even worse as Echoes are the main way you interact with the environment. There’s a few ways to sort, but they really don’t help. What Echoes of Wisdom really needed was to let the player create their own lists. For example, there are a few echoes such as the Strandula, Bombfish, a Carrot and a Wind Cannon which are more or less vital items that you’ll use every so often. If you play around with Echoes, they can end up quite a way down the list, which is not only a pain, but you can also easily forget their use. I would have liked to have made separate lists for attacks, platforms and items. Once you get used to the frustrating system, though, then they really are a joy to use and you can adapt them to suit your playstyle. Some people prefer to summon a few monsters and sit back, while I like to be a bit more active. If you’re targeting an enemy, your Echoes will start off by launching an immediate attack. With the more powerful Echoes, you can keep summoning new ones and have the old one vanish after one hit, making it feel more like you’re more active in fights. But at the same time, the openness of the system is also a bit of a flaw. It’s easy to get stuck into habits (especially as experimenting can make it a pain to scroll the ones you like) and some tactics just work a bit too well. On top of powerful enemies, some platform objects can make it easy to get around obstacles and the beds let you rest and recharge your health, even in the middle of boss battles. I found myself often tanking damage as environmental hazards are quite weak and just sleeping afterwards, a tactic which renders the smoothie creation fairly useless. The dungeons in Echoes of Wisdom take a more traditional, structured approach, with a few instances where you can go through a couple of dungeons in any order. I really enjoyed the dungeons in the game, as they provided some fun puzzles that make use of the Echoes as well as the Bind move, where you can grab and object and move it as Zelda moves (or reverse it so Zelda follows the path of the object). Some of the platform challenges can be cheesed, but there are still some good ones to be found. Bosses are one area where I use another one of Zelda’s abilities: being able to turn into Link for a short time. It starts out as just using a sword, but you add a bow and bombs throughout the game. Their tricks are easy to figure out and they usually don’t last long, but they’re enjoyable. You can use this ability at any point, but outside of bosses I just preferred using Zelda’s other abilities – it seems a waste to just resort to using Link’s abilities. The overworld itself is adorable, being based on the map of A Link to the Past but much bigger, with locations from that game now being ruins. There are a lot of things to find and a lot of people to meet, and the side quests are enjoyable to complete. This is especially important because the rewards for the side quests are dreadful, usually rupees or smoothie ingredients, which aren’t really needed that much. There’s a lot of charm and character throughout every moment of Echoes of Wisdom. It’s in the graphical style, the animations, the dialogue and the many enemy designs. It’s hard not to be smiling the entire time playing the game. There are lots of little details and touches all over the place and everything just works together really well. Despite some flaws and annoyances, I had an absolutely lovely time with Echoes of Wisdom. Everything about the game is adorable and there’s just a wonderful atmosphere. The Echo system does lead to some issues with letting you break the game and resort to some easy options, but the freedom is also amazing, especially in combination with the more traditional structure of the game. If I were to change some things about the game, it would be letting players categorise Echoes themselves, and add a few more accessories and clothing as side quest rewards. Overall, Echoes of Wisdom is an immensely cute and happy game. Gameplay Overworld Dungeons Sound Style Overall -
Those visuals actually look pretty nice for the 'ol N64. -
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Toon Panic NA release: N/A PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Bottom Up Publisher: Bottom Up N64 Magazine Score: N/A The most interesting thing about this prototype is that there was little information about the game itself until the prototype was found on a dev cartridge, with only this and a few bits of concept art being all we know about the game. The game itself isn’t particularly interesting – an arena-based fighting game with an isometric view, a style of game that was quite popular in the early 2000s, especially for licensed games. The prototype itself is very early – the singleplayer doesn’t work and only one multiplayer mode does. Here, you’re trying to get control of a hammer to smash your opponent’s crystal. The characters, which are all fantasy tropes (and, oddly, a few have Final Fantasy VIII artwork as a placeholder), just have a few basic moves and they all feel the same. When Bottom Up were downsizing, they possibly noticed that some similar games with licensing were approaching, and saw that this didn’t have much unique to offer. Poor Should it be finished? Not really, we saw this sort of thing plenty of times.
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First game of 2025 complete! Ok, granted I payed 90% of it last year, and I think I started it months ago, but nevertheless I have finished Uncharted 4! Christ, it went on a bit. It did not need to be that long - it could have been half the length and I think it would have felt complete. The epilogue was so mind numbingly boring to complete, it clearly should have just been a cut-scene. Anyway, I enjoyed the game. It really is visually stunning, and has some really fun set pieces in it. I think it might be my favourite of the 4. I liked the piratey theme and locations - it just needed trimming and removing a few dull chapters (wandering around that mansion during flashback; the chapter with all the exploding mummies; the epilogue). Not sure what to play next. Maybe I'll make a gaming pledge! Although the idea of even attempting to compete 10 games is laughable, I may put a few on it that I want to play.
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