Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

@N00BiSH The middleground is having a linear story in an open world. Technically allowing players to go anywhere, but still having a story that effectively has to be done within a specific order. Other games do exactly this, and they thrive with it. It's just the Zelda team believes in either having an ultra linear story, or having a story that barely exists at all.

Edit: Also yeah, looking at the trailer it seems like Echoes of Wisdom might end up being a good middleground game, where it looks like things aren't fully open.

@VoidofLight While I thought the method of storytelling in BotW was the perfect match for that game, I'd agree it wasn't a great fit for TotK.

BotW is all about finding yourself and uncovering the mystery of your past in the devastation of the present. Recovering memories from key places in your life made perfect sense, and integrated well with the design of the game. Whereas TotK involves you finding memories that aren't even yours, so it's not as intimate or interesting, and just ends up forcing you to experience someone else's story out of order.

I'm excited to see what they do with a new iteration of the series that isn't saddled with the baggage of being a follow-up to Breath of the Wild.

@Ralizah I know your comment was narrative-wise, but do you feel the same gameplay-wise and can elaborate without heavy spoilers? I’m quite enjoying botw, but I can’t know for sure if it’s a game I can play twice >.> (at least that’s the vibe some of my friends’ comments on totk give me)

Gorons!

@Yousef- TotK does a lot to distinguish itself from BotW in terms of content density and mechanics in terms of the open world-ing. Without spoilers, there's a LOT more to explore and do, a heavy emphasis on resource collecting, and the vehicle building stuff people were doing in BotW has been fully and officially integrated into the game, which has changed up game progression pretty dramatically. And even with the same above-ground map, major settlements have been changed up pretty drastically.

The look and feel of it are almost identical to BotW, though, for better or worse.

It's a ludicrously huge, ambitious, incredibly impressive game that seems to go about as far as you can possibly imagine in the sandbox game design direction. But, I will warn you: the game can and will burn you out if you get too lost in its side content.

I don't really see where they can go from this point on without dramatically scaling back the scope of the next game.

Y'know, the more I rewatch the new trailer, the less it makes sense to compare Echoes directly to BotW, when if anything the more appropriate comparison would be the original prototype for the game. I'm reminded of that more than the final version.

I'm just trying to keep an open mind about the game because, whenever anyone tries to nail down what it'll be like, they get contradicted with the next lot of details that are revealed.

It's clearly a much bigger game than early predictions suggested, and the jury is still out on how much it's going to be pulling from BotW/TotK versus the earlier games.

I mean, I predicted the world was going to be larger-scale if not more on the open end, mainly given how BotW and TotK were.. and how they were already taking a lot from those two games in the initial trailer.

This is zelda for me, more than botw/totk. Will buy it day 1 😊

So who has the best pre-order bonus thus far? Best buy and gamestop seem to have some goodies.

Oh yeah, performance. Link's Awakening had mediocre performance for me, it couldn't hit 60 during any level of battle, in any town and even just walking around a heavily grassy area. I hope this one's more optimised.

I know we have very limited info, but do you think this will be a bigger game relative to other 2D Zelda entries? I found Link's Awakening a little small in terms of the world size and things to do there. I expect it won't be BOTW/TOTK size and will be smaller scale (smoothies, not gourmet recipes!). Still, the presence of the RPG-style quest tracker and the presence of distinct domains (Zora, Goron, Gerudo, Faron etc) might mean more to do. I'm not talking about linear vs open world, just game "size". I know if I'm going to spend $60 on a game I'd want more than a 10 hr experience.

As someone who has not quite beaten TotK yet (I am on the final quest but having trouble beating him lol), I love the open-endedness of the game, and I can't wait to see how EoW does it!

amiibo support confirmed, any amiibo can get clothing! im excited to use my zelda and ganondorf ones!! so excited for echoes, day one for me 🫠

Replaying Link's Awakening for Switch has been the perfect way for me to get hyped for this game. Of course Link's Awakening is more simplistic because it was a Game Boy game, but still. Echoes will be a grander game in every way.

I hope it's a smoother game as well. Not that I care too much, but the somewhat common frame stutters in Awakening are a bit jarring for a first-party Nintendo game.

Just pre-ordered from best buy since they have some pre-order bonus item. Figured this will sell out quick with Amazon not carrying anymore. I don't think Walmart has pre-order either actually.

New trailer.

Well that should make people happy. But also.. Peach Showtime vibes 😅

Awesome trailer. Gets better and better.

This game is shaping up to look better than Tears of the Kingdom. They somehow seemed to have blend together the best elements of the 2D Zelda titles with the best elements of the new 3D games.