At its best, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom lets players go off script to create a-ha moments that Zelda games genuinely haven't seen before. Slotting a magician into the shoes of a longtime sword-and-shield hero is mostly amazing in action: convert longtime Hyrulian monsters to do our bidding, then manipulate the world to redefine where, when, and how we can go.
At its worst, Echoes of Wisdom runs out of good ideas too quickly; what could have been a classic 12-hour game instead slightly drags at the 18-to-20 hour mark. The results feel like a higher-budget take on the portable-first Zelda games of old – think Link's Awakening or Minish Cap. If you're looking forward to Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, expect a modest helping of Nintendo-caliber adventure inside an interesting, albeit imperfect, balance between the familiar and the new.
