For all the successful strides that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom made in reinventing The Legend of Zelda’s tried and true formula, eschewing the franchise’s more linear progression in favor of a thrilling amount of player freedom, the widespread rejection of every franchise convention wasn’t necessarily all for the better.
Depending on who you ask, the recent duology is either a brilliant recontextualization of Zelda’s defined tropes, or a total gutting and replacement of what originally made the series appealing (with key iconography and terminologies being carried over). While I’ve personally been excited to see Nintendo follow its new vision for the series with total confidence, the recently released, smaller-scale The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom has managed to strike a more idyllic and delicate balance between old and new, capturing the strengths of both the classic and modern Zelda titles in a way that I feel could be hugely beneficial for the series moving forward.
