The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - Analysis and Theories

The next title in the Zelda series is about to be released, and even with just a short trailer, fans have already dissected it to come up with new theories. In this article, we will analyze the main points of the trailer to evaluate what is to come in Nintendo's newest game.

Timeline

The Legend of Zelda is surrounded by several theories about multiple timelines between the main games. What is most believed, based on the events shown in the trailer, is that this game takes place in the Fallen Hero timeline, which happens after the hero of time fails his mission and Ganondorf takes control of Hyrule.

What strengthens this theory is the map being very similar to that of A Link to the Past, almost as if the game were a direct sequel, and also the fact that Ganon is in his bestial pig form, very common in games of this chronology!

Hyrule Map

From what little you can see in the trailer, the map has the same locations as Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, almost as if it were a reimagined variation of it.

The trailer also shows that they’ve expanded the region with new areas, with a Gerudo Valley and a Death Mountain, which never appeared in the top-down series' games.

Blue Hood

The blue Hood that Link appears wearing at the beginning of the scene, and which Zelda later picks up to possibly disguise herself during the game, is very similar to the one Link wears in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, indicating a possible connection between the most recent titles and the oldest games in the series.

Zelda arrested and disguised

Without a lot of explanation, one of the scenes that appears in the trailer shows the princess trapped in the same dungeon she was in A Link to the Past, where she meets the fairy Tri , who gives her staff to Zelda so that she can escape.

In the scenes, the guards do not appear to be controlled by Ganon as they were in past games in the series, and there’d be no reason for them to be since the villain is lost in the Rift with Link, so there may be a new villain who is usurping the throne. This means that Zelda needs to use Link's hood to go unnoticed through places.

Weird Rifts

After defeating Ganon, a strange rift in the ground appears and pulls the hero in, and before he is completely sucked in, he frees Zelda.

Apparently, Ganon is not the real culprit for the rifts, as they only appeared after he was already defeated and also lost with Link. They appear in several locations throughout Hyrule, and several people are being sucked into these rifts in the plot.

In addition to being after Link, Zelda will also have the tough mission of stopping the rifts before all of Hyrule is consumed.

In the trailer, a scene is also shown where Zelda is on a boat in one of these rifts, which shows that we won't just have one map in the game - an idea similar to the Dark World from A Link to the Past and also the underground map from Tears of the Kingdom.

Gogo Mechanics

This new Zelda will have different mechanics than its top-down screen predecessors. The old games were based on Link entering dungeons, and finding some key item that helped him pass through specific locations, such as a bomb to blow up places and allow access to new areas, hookshots that helped Link reach new locations and arrows to press buttons. .

Echoes of Wisdom, though, is trying something new: Zelda will receive a staff from the fairy Tri, which will allow her to create specific objects, such as a table, a bed, bounce house or even enemies, where the fairy signals with small triangles the number of objects that can be created, and each object needs to spend a different number of triangles to be summoned.

This mechanic is a way of giving the player freedom to solve problems or access new locations on the map, where each player can access the same area in different ways, a mechanic which was one of the key points of the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom games, which has always been praised for giving players a lot of freedom, and where each experience was unique.

Zelda as the Playable Character

The franchise's games have been removing Zelda's defenseless lady stigma and giving her a more active role for a long time: she has disguised herself as Sheik and was an important part of Link's journey in Ocarina of Time, in Wind Waker, she was a fearless pirate, and in Breath of the Wild, she was responsible for sealing Calamity Ganon while Link was recovering in the temple.

For the first time officially by Nintendo though, she will be the hero in a game in the series, where the fate of all of Hyrule will be in the hands of the Princess.

A small curiosity is how Echoes of Wisdom may be the first time we control Zelda in a game from the franchise's official timeline, but it is not the first game in which we actually control Zelda - In a partnership between Nintendo and Philips, Three Zelda games were made for the CD-i console, two of which starred the princess, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and Zelda's Adventures.

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon is a 2D side scroller with gameplay similar to that of The Legend of Zelda II: Adventures of Link, the game became more famous on the internet for its cutscenes with strange and funny drawings, even spawning memes on the internet.

Zelda's Adventure is a top-down game, similar to the first game in the series and to A Link to the Past, but it set itself apart for trying to make a game with sprites using real people, a technique similar to Mortal Kombat .

But while in Mortal Kombat the artistic composition took great care with the characters and scenarios, in Zelda’s Adventure all we saw was a game on the top screen with a dirty and ugly appearance, making it difficult to even identify what each element on the screen was. The game also had live-action scenes with terrible interpretations and shameful costumes, even for the time.

The three games released for CD-i are not canonical in any of the series' timelines, and Nintendo chooses to forget their existence.

Sheikahs

Like the Gerudo people, what appear to be sheikahs appear in the trailer, possibly in a Kakariko Village, which was not present in the game A Link to the Past, which proves the open world expansion.

It is interesting to note how the game takes advantage of the visual identity that the Sheikahs adopted in the Breath of the Wild games, in a scene where Zelda is in a laboratory, the scientist is very reminiscent of the character Robbie from BOTW, and his equipment is quite similar to the previous game.

We also see an elderly woman saving Zelda, which many believe to be the Impa of this game, a character who already played the role of guardian of the princess in other titles, and was always represented as a sheikah, being an elderly woman in some of them.

Two Generations of Zoras

A scene which left many fans curious is one where two species of Zoras appear in what seemed to be an argument, each one from a different generation of games: River Zoras and Sea Zoras.

Originally, the River Zoras were enemies in classic games, always appearing to get in the way, there is even a boss fight in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past against King Zora, and they are usually represented as a wild and monstrous species in games.

The Sea Zoras, on the other hand, are an anthropomorphized species allied to the kingdom of Hyrule, who had their first appearance in Ocarina of Time, where they are totally friendly with Link in their kingdom, and the king even presents Link with a tunic from the kingdom of the Zoras, an item of great value. At the end of Ocarina of Time, the Zoras celebrate alongside other people, showing that they were a friendly one.

Previously, there was an explanation that, in the Fallen Hero timeline, as Ganondorf took control of the Triforce, became Ganon and began the Era of Light and Dark, the Zoras over time, began to become savage and regress to a more animalistic species.

Apparently, Echoes of Wisdom will discard this old explanation, and possibly the two species of Zoras will be different races.

Despite the short trailer time, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom showed several interesting elements for fans to theorize and get excited about. This is the first time that we will have the return of a classic top-down style game since the remake of Link’s Awakening in 2019, and it shows that Nintendo still knows how to reinvent classic gameplay.

As the game brings elements from several games in the franchise, such as the two generations of zoras, the gerudos, Sheikah elements similar to those in the last games in the series, and the Deku Three in Lost Wood, where the Master Sword's pedestal is located, it seems to attempt at connecting all generations into a single game, which some fans even theorize could be a way to "unite" the three timelines and the Breath of the Wild timeline.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will be released on September 26th, and will be the first game in the Zelda series fully officially translated into PT-BR by Nintendo.