Summary
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdomhas the unique honour of being the first game in the series where the titular princess is the game’s main character. However, this almost wasn’t the case.
In part three ofNintendo’s Ask The Developer Volume 13: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Eiji Aonuma and Katsuya Terada revealed that while it wasn’t the original vision for Echoes of Wisdom, eventually the team realised that Princess Zelda was the perfect candidate to take control of the game’s signature echo mechanic (thanks,GoNintendo).
“We were initially thinking that Link would be the protagonist,” Aonuma revealed. “But when we focused on the gameplay using echoes and had Link copying and pasting things into the game field, the sword and shield got in the way. If you have a sword and shield, you can just fight using those. There’s no need to rely on the monster’s power, right?”
Welcome Princess Zelda
Nintendo believed that if the player played with a sword and shield, they would ignore the echo mechanic in favour of something familiar to them. Their next solution was to not allow Link to get his weapons until later in the game, but that just delayed the problem until later in the game.
“If that’s the case, it must be someone who doesn’t fight with a sword and shield, right?,” Aonuma said. “Who in the series would be a good fit for these powers and bring their insight to them? Well, that would have to be Princess Zelda.”
When questioned in the past about whether they would ever use Zelda as a protagonist, Aonuma would always say it will happen when they found a game that would do justice to her character. While the opportunity hadn’t arisen for a long time, Aonuma saw Echoes of Wisdom and thought “this is exactly the game for her!” when the team was struggling to find a protagonist.
In their4/5 review, our own Jade King called Echoes of Wisdom “a warm hug of a video game that enraptured me from start to finish,” but one that is occasionally not ambitious enough.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
WHERE TO PLAY
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom sees you play as the titular princess, searching for Link and saving Hyrule in the process. She uses the Tri Rod to created echoes, duplicates of everything from tables to enemies, to help her on her journey.
