With the Nintendo Switch on its last legs, and a successor looming, you may be wondering if it’s still worth buying new games for the seven-year-old console.
If the latest Zelda is anything to go by, the answer is a resounding yes. By making the titular princess the protagonist in the newly released The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Nintendo has revitalised the 2D series, once shrugged off as inferior to its 3D counterparts.
Add to that the inventive gameplay, borrowed from the masterful open-world games, which are on an all-time streak after the back-to-back success of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and it sounds like Nintendo has another must-play game on its hands.
Here’s what critics are saying about the new mainline Zelda, which is available now on the Switch from £40.
What is Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’s Metacritic Score?
All told, Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom has an 86 Metacritic score based on 89 reviews.
That puts it in the 35th place on the site’s list of best games of 2024, with Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Astro Bot, and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth occupying the top three spots, respectively.
It also means it doesn’t scale the heights of the most critically acclaimed Zelda games of time, among them Ocarina of Time from the N64 (99 Metacritic score), and the aforementioned Breath of the Wild (97) and Tears of the Kingdom (96).
It’s the cutest Zelda game ever
The first thing you may notice about the new Zelda is just how unabashedly cute it is. While it’s not a remake like its predecessor, Link’s Awakening, it has the “air of a retro game”, writes the Standard’s Vicky Jessop in her glowing review of the new title.
“Its Polly Pocket-style cartoon aesthetic renders everything looking almost absurdly cute – even the monsters... Hyrule has never looked so dinky, but it still comes with caves to explore, fun challenges to complete (picking up acorns, finding runaway horses) and quirky inhabitants to meet.”
Playing as Zelda adds a much-needed dose of heft to the story
Echoes takes a bold, refreshing turn by placing Zelda at the centre of the narrative, making it more compelling than the traditional hero's fable embodied by Link, the series’ long-running lead, according to IGN’s Tom Mark.
“Perhaps the most surprising difference to me, however, was how it makes the story that much more engaging. Rather than being yet another remix of a destined, mute swordsman’s journey to save the day, Zelda is the central character of the plot,” he writes in his review.
It’s as joyful as Breath of the Wild
For those unfamiliar, the game’s central conceit lets you create “echoes” or copies of objects and enemies you encounter during your quest to restore order to the land of Hyrule. Armed with a magical staff called the Tri Rod, Zelda can clone everything from trampolines to Moblins (a cross between a pig and a goblin).
Not only can these echoes help you uncover secret areas and defeat bigger baddies, they’re also a blast to use, states Eurogamer’s Katharine Castle.
“Manipulating these Echoes to reach all sorts of nooks and crannies in its gorgeous, almost toy model-like map captures the same kind of delight I felt playing Breath of the Wild for the first time, as though you're sculpting the world to your will, and it bends and leans right back with you.”
Echoes is the perfect swansong for the Switch
It’s easy to write off Echoes as a second-tier Zelda adventure because of its 2D graphics and more compact duration compared with the sprawling 3D games.
But, don’t be so quick to judge because Nintendo has distilled everything great about the franchise into a tightly crafted experience, per VG247’s James Billcliffe.
“It’s a colourful, accessible epic that pushes its console to the limit, with all of the mechanical depth and invention, artistic design, whimsy, and spirit of adventure that you expect from a first-party Nintendo adventure,” he writes in his four-star review.
It can get repetitive pretty quickly
Not everyone is raving about Echoes, however. Despite Zelda's central role, the game's lacklustre environments, predictable dungeons, and basic platforming and puzzles leave the princess feeling underutilised, according to the Verge’s Ash Parrish.
“In Echoes of Wisdom, there are basically only two kinds of challenges: something’s too high or something’s too far. And, in nearly every instance, those challenges can be solved with the same handful of echoes. I had so many of them, like a gnarly rolling log of spikes, that I never got the chance to use. The game never gave me a reason to,” she states.
