The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom's Map is a Blessing and a Curse

 

It’s been a little while since I wrote about video games, huh? My most recent one at this point was my two-part review of 'Cassette Beasts'; I’m still pretty happy with that one, and developers Bytten Studio have gone on to some big things with the game since then (including multiple updates, an entire multiplayer mode, some DLC, and even a BAFTA nomination). I’ve actually been working on a lot of video game pieces in the time since then, but it can be slow-going.

It probably doesn’t help that what I’m covering in those pieces are indie games, and those can bring special challenges. Since they aren’t as big, you do kind of have to introduce people to the game to some degree, which is kind of its own art. Some of them are small enough that they won’t have much attention, and I want to do them justice since they might not get all that much coverage outside of that. But even the ones that get more attention, I’d like to do more than just give a recap and a basic recommendation; I want to bring something unique to the discussion, y’know? That in and of itself makes for more effort, and on top of that, I can feel a little out of practice sometimes.

Built with Kit

Instead, I figured I’d do something a little easier, to sort of work my way back up to those pieces. See if I can kind of shake off the rust a little. What if I covered a single, bigger game, something that I didn’t really have to explain or contextualize, and only tackled a few things rather than feeling the need to delve into every part of it?

So to that end: ‘Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’ came out last year, and I had a pretty good time playing through it! It’s more or less a perfect attempt to bring the more open-world feeling of “Breath of the Wild” to the 2D Zelda format, which is a wild achievement in game design that breaks the traditional format open in some interesting ways. Nintendo once again tapped Grezzo to develop this one, and they bring back the toybox art style that they used in the ‘Link’s Awakening’ remake from back in 2019. It’s still gorgeous, and I’m so glad that there’s now an original game in the series using that look.

I’ve wanted to see a game with playable Zelda for ages now, but I had always kind of taken Nintendo’s explanation of (paraphrased) “we want a game that stars Zelda to play differently than the games starring Link” to be more of an excuse for why it hadn’t happened yet. But the Echoes system is actually a fascinating choice, and I enjoyed it a lot. Scouring the map for every possible item to copy felt like an interesting twist on the traditional Zelda hunt for items, especially since some of those new echoes ended up granting you movement options that opened up the map.

More 3D Platformer Design: Yooka-Laylee & A Return to A Hat in Time

It’s been a while since my last article on 3D Platformers, one where I looked at the level design of Gears for Breakfast’s wonderful A Hat in Time. Since then, they’ve released two new worlds as downloadable content, “The Arctic Cruise” and “Nyakuza Metro”, and finally been ported to the Switch. I recently decided to replay the game, including the new content, and at more or less the same time, I finally got around to trying Playtonic Games’ Yooka-Laylee (which, for those not in the know, first got note for being a spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie series from the Nintendo 64, made by many alumni from those titles). Playing them back to back gave me a lot of thoughts on both, and 3D platformers on the whole, so it seemed like a good time to revisit my last article.

A Hat in Time and Level Design Philosophies in 3-D Platformers

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my favorite indie games from the past year and I lavished high praise on A Hat in Time by the development team Gears for Breakfast. It’s a throwback to the 3D platformers of the ‘90s and early 2000s that I loved growing up, but like all of the best nostalgic throwbacks, it’s good not just because it references the classics of a past, but because it understands what made those classics work, and consciously decides to do its own thing. Now that I’ve more or less finished the entire game, I feel like I can begin to break down some of the things that the game does especially well.

Every aspect of A Hat in Time is meticulously designed and pitch perfect. The aesthetic side of things are incredibly strong; the game is filled with beautifully-animated, cel-shaded style worlds, each with it’s own hilariously-written and quirky side characters. The entire thing is scored with a triumphant and exciting soundtrack that makes you feel ready to set out on an adventure. Protagonist Hat Girl is given a strong personality with almost no dialogue, and is one of my favorite new main characters in the past decade or so. The controls are tight and so much fun to use, which is critical to a platformer that relies on navigating spaces. Few games make simply moving around a level feel so natural and easy.

And while that all is nice, there’s one specific aspect of the design that I’d like to focus on: the construction of the worlds that serve as your digital playgrounds. A Hat in Time makes some interesting choices in how they went about building these stages that I feel like digging into a little, because I think the variety they provide are part of what keeps the game feel so exciting and new at every turn.