Release: 2024
Developer/Publisher: Nintendo
Gameplay Stats: All echoes, pieces of heart, might stones and stamps, 30-ish hours?
A new game starring Zelda made in the aesthetic of the Link's Awakening remake! I think you can look at my thoughts on the aesthetics of that game if you're interested, I'll just do the plot and gameplay here. In a nutshell though, the game looks and sounds beautiful.
Plot: I'm not sure if this game has more plot than the recent releases or if it's shorter overall length makes it feel that way, but it feels like the game has more story than the previous two entries. I do think it's weird that interacting with others works the same way that it does for Link but they make sure a big deal about Link being mute. Zelda does the same emoting that Link does and we never see a speech bubble with her name on it. That weirdness aside, we have new characters and a new incarnation of the Triforce/Gannon story but without using those names/nouns. It almost feels like this game was made as a generic Zelda-like but then turned into actual Zelda at the last minute. I kinda like the new coat of paint on the tried and true Zelda story, but I was a little disappointed when it resolved so similarly. It was fine, but I was hoping for something a bit more different. I do wonder if they will continue the story from this game since it seems like it could come back around like the Zelda/Link/Gannon one does.
Gameplay: Kind of BOTW/TOTK lite? Heavy on puzzle solving with a bit of combat thrown in. Felt like a really good mix of ALTTP and TOTK actually. How would I describe it without using other games in the series? Well, you use a magic wand to absorb objects/enemies and then can conjure copies of the objects/enemies to solve puzzles and fight. I liked the idea quite a bit but in practice it involved a whole lot of menu-ing which I don't really like in my action games. I liked figuring out the puzzles, but wish swapping back and forth between all of the tools wasn't quite so tedious. There are 127 echoes in the game and they are arrayed in a single line with a few different sorting mechanisms or you can open up the full pause menu for a matrix of the options with a static sort. Having a quick-swap wheel of maybe 8 favorites would have been amazing in cutting down the time in menus since many puzzles could be solved with a few items. I walked away from the game feeling a little down on the combat since Zelda is largely passive, but on reflection I remembered that I could have been repositioning enemies/allies at will but forgot about it. Most top-down Zelda games feel very 2d but this one felt more 3d which was cool.
Overall I think this game is really strong. I don't think it reached the same highs or lows of the BOTW/TOTK previous entries and it certainly didn't overstay its welcome. I think I'm more likely to replay this game than the previous two. The framerate stutters a bit which is unfortunate but otherwise this is a gem. I sincerely hope they re-release ALTTP and the Oracle games in this same engine/aesthetic.
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