The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdomis the largest 2D Zelda title to date, with masses of content compared to previous top-down incarnations of Nintendo’s classic fantasy series. Full of side quests and opportunities for exploration, you may take your time scouring this version of Hyrule for details.
In spite of this, it’s easy to feel like you want something more even after going for the 100 percent in the first Zelda entry with the princess in the forefront. While Echoes of Wisdom is an incredibly unique game, straddling the line between an action RPG and puzzle platformer, there are still a handful of games you can move onto if you want something similar, so which are the best?
A twist on the classic 2D Zelda formula and a trippy first-person puzzle game don’t seem like the most comparable games at first glance, but once you’ve come to terms with Echoes of Wisdom’s Echo system, you’ll find the puzzle-solving in Superliminal feeling pretty similar.
Superliminal challenges you to make your way through mind-bending puzzles as your character is stuck in dream therapy gone wrong. Especially in the earlier sections of Superliminal, the puzzle-solving style of moving objects where they need to be feels surprisingly reminiscent of some of the dungeons in Echoes of Wisdom.
Perhaps the most obvious recommendation, you can easily interpret Echoes of Wisdom as the spiritual successor to Link’s Awakening after the Switch remake was so popular. In spite of the Switch version feeling so fresh, the title is a faithful remake of a Game Boy title from the early 90s, and is one of the best condensed Legend of Zelda experiences.
Only taking about half as long to complete as Echoes of Wisdom, Link’s Awakening feels similar thanks to the look, but the gameplay style is much closer to a typical 2D Zelda experience. If you want something similar but with a more classic style, this is the best option.
There are a wide variety of games that have taken inspiration from The Legend of Zelda series released since the series began, but one recent indie success that liberally borrows from the Zelda series is The Plucky Squire.
Following Jot, thedefault gameplay style of The Plucky Squireis very similar to classic 2D Zelda, but it switches things up with various mini-games, and a quirky core mechanic of jumping in and out of the book the game takes place in for unique puzzle-solving opportunities and 3D platforming, both of which feel similar to Echoes of Wisdom.
One aspect that helps Echoes of Wisdom stand out from other Zelda games is the unique approach to combat, using summons to attack enemies instead of attacking directly (which is an option, but rarely the optimal choice). Pikmin is a series that follows this same formula.
Instead of attacking the giant adversaries himself, as Olimar, you’ll strategically send specific Pikmin to fight on your behalf, similarly to how Zelda has to pick Echoes of enemies that are best suited for the foes she is facing. Pikmin takes a more strategic approach with a focus on time management, so if you want a more involved strategic element, Pikmin is a great title to try after Echoes of Wisdom.
While Hyrule’s princess and the titular Umbran Witch have faced off in Nintendo’s Smash series, the two series are rarely compared due to their vastly different genres. However, with Bayonetta’s prequel title, a Zelda inspiration is clear.
Focusing on Cereza as she is in training to become her later self, we explore a mystical forest from a top-down angle with stunning watercolour-style graphics. Controlling Cereza and her personal demon Chesire simultaneously feels similar to Zelda summoning Echoes to fight on her behalf. Learning to control both characters together presents a skill curve, but once you’ve mastered the battle system, it’s incredibly rewarding.
While Echoes of Wisdom most commonly draws comparisons to Link’s Awakening, it is clear that the title has taken plenty of inspiration from the genre-defining Breath of the Wild too. Being the first 2D Zelda after Breath of the Wild, you can feel the influence, with a similar UI, as well as a more open-ended approach to exploration.
In no other 2D Zelda you can climb on top of the trees lining a pathway and break would-be-boundaries like you do in Echoes of Wisdom, and it’s clear developers took inspiration from Breath of the Wild’s approach to exploration. If you want alarger-scale adventurewith less focus on dungeons and more on physics-based puzzles, then playing or even re-playing Breath of the Wild after Echoes of Wisdom is recommended.
Another title that clearly takes inspiration from 2D Zelda, but uses it to make something completely new is Tunic. Even sharing the green tunic of Link, our Fox hero exploresTunic’s island in a more open-endedstyle reminiscent of Echoes of Wisdom.
Tunic’s core collectibles are pages of the game’s manual, breaking the fourth wall in a unique way to drip-feed information about the game’s world and how to interact with it. Challenging you to change how you think about the game’s world in a similar way to the Echoes system in Echoes of Wisdom makes Tunic a parallel to Zelda’s first solo adventure.
