Zelda is finally the hero in this game! Echo ability’s a smart way to make her play differently from Link. Instead of swinging swords, you capture echoes of objects and enemies, then duplicate them for puzzles or combat.
I stacked tables to cross gaps, spawned cuccos for switches, and turned a Like Like echo into a vacuum for debris. The combat is puzzle-forward - you kite enemies into echoed traps instead of brute force. You do have “Link Mode” to do some more traditional button-mashing combat however, which I did use quite a lot.
Each puzzle can be solved in multiple ways. The system encourages creativity. The story follows Zelda through Hyrule. It’s told through environments and light dialogue. Castle Town has NPCs with requests and hints at Zelda’s diplomatic role alongside dungeon crawling.
It has Link’s Awakening toybox art style with better lighting and bigger towns. It’s colorful and more chibi, the soundtrack is decent.
A nice 2D Zelda experience. I was happy to see Zelda finally get her own gameplay style.