Why Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom devs had to start over 

Don’t you hate when your working on something and then like a year in you say “This isn’t working. We need to rethink this.”

The dungeon maker in the Link's Awakening remake makes way more sense when you learn about one of the original ideas for Echoes of Wisdom

I can tell none of the dungeon maker ideas went to waste bc these dunegons so far have been 💯💯❤️

I definitely would have been the kind of player to only use my sword through the whole game. I love the choice to limit the sword and heavily focus on the echo mechanic with Zelda as the protagonist. It’s a really fun and fresh way to play, both limiting and freeing at the same time.

I missed your narrator voice. A true Zelda fan.

The fact Link is intrinsically associated with being a master swordsman and archer is why I felt Tears of the Kingdom had lost the identity the franchise had established for decades due to Zonai devices completely overshadowing the usefulness of Link's traditional skills. Even the "legendary" Master Sword became second fiddle to everything else in the game. After seeing Echoes of Wisdom, I feel that Tears of the Kingdom should have had Zelda as the protagonist given how she would have been a more natural fit as a Zonai inventor given her well established history as a scientist and scolar. Having Link sent back in time and couragously sacrifice his life to become a dragon would have been far more befitting his role as the current host for the Spirit of the Hero.

The moral of the story: it takes great courage to use wisdom to power through challenges…

This was really pleasant to hear. It is a cool story, and I appreciate that the creative minds at Nintendo are willing to deliver new experiences rather than giving us the same game year after year.

I am absolutely loving echoes of wisdom right now

Ngl but I’m glad they flipped the script

It may be appealing to take in ideas from everyone, but this isn't without risk. You need a clear vision and an understanding of what the game is and is not. The more people contributing, the greater the risk that this is diluted. Good ideas can come from the strangest of places, but so can bad ideas. And it's not easy knowing if an idea is good or bad in a given context.

Great game so far, very happy with my purchase, some people are just unpleasable, you can hand them an amazing game and they will still be upset.

I find it funny how the series is called "The Legend of Zelda" yet Zelda is almost never the main character!

It's a great story, but I'm a little tired of Nintendo leads portraying themselves as the wise sages of the project just because they listened to those under them for once. The real credit for innovation often goes to the unsung young talent who grew up with these game series and worked hard to live out their dream of one day making their mark on them. And you can be darn sure that Peach and Zelda only got their time in the sun this year because the fans have been demanding it SO loudly.

I like how you showed the Water Temple when you mentioned she didn’t finish it. I stopped playing for two months when I got stuck there. Finally got back to it and finished.

At least could keep the old version to maybe rework later on maybe.

How did I know it started as a Zelda dungeon maker? lol

So the millions if tutorials in mrio and luigi is also cuz of sano????

Sano is one of the reasons majora mask 3d was horrible?!???

I wouldn't mind being a game tester for Nintendo so I can inform them of some of their games that weren't perfect. Like TotK for example.

I really hope they don't do a dungeon maker but rather something like dragon quest builders did. Echoes of the wisdom is one of the best games I ever played and for sure my favorite top-down zelda game. I grew up with links awakening and played every single zelda game. This one is awesome, the dungeons are back (yes!) but you got the exploration-part like totk and botw. But I am also craving for a dragon quest builder-esq zelda. Where you can share your islands / dungeons. Just a dungeonmaker would be not that interesting for me... creativity is about more than that, and that's probably what nintendo knows too.

A game that takes forever to make CAN still end up sucking, but a game that is rushed is SURE to suck. Nintendo clearly understands this when it comes to their most venerated IPs.

Kinda wish they went with the dungeon creator idea... the dungeons in Zelda have been so simple for so long, I would have loved to see what other people came up with.

That's why they pay Aonuma the big bucks. This game rocks and I'm glad he intervened. We've needed more 2D Zelda for a long time, and what a return it's had.

It's pronounced "eyy-jii" Aonuma. Not "eye-jii." Can you at least get that right before you throw up more mediocre content on RU-vid?

Soo she was bad a games n wanted to make the games to easy sounds accurate however this game was enjoyable

it's funny how the game was made in part by a woman that kinda is all about less challenge, then have the game screw you over with ennemies that 2 shot you most of the time, i love tbh and indeed the game gives you lots of tools to avoid death but man it did happen, more than in my ALTTP walkthrough! maybe i'm bad with analog movement for top down zelda

Love these videos, but now I'm really worried about that poor moon. What's going on?

I prefer a sword to magic in all games! RPGs or MMOs!

Very good summary of Ask the Developer Vol. 13. Thanks!

So we almost got a Zelda Maker. F.

Wholly new? It seems VERY similar to the systems seen in breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom

So the moral of the story is that all actions games will get watered down to baby pablum over time in the name of exclusivity? That's the end game of the developmental process?

Great video! ..."ocariner"? :D

2:38 you ruined the aspect ratio. Look, the button icons aren't even circles

It's a petty good game but bad stutter andlong boring unskipable dialog drag the experience down. I also wish there was more of a curated puzzle mode like in the dojo but with limited spells and less emphasis on a timer

So that's why the game is so easy.

re-invent the wheel.

So it is this Sano lady..she is the reason the games are way too easy now??

Wow thank god Aonuma intervened, this game is so innovative and fun!

He did a shigeru miyamoto 😂

So that's why the Majora's Mask remake is such a terrible game. EoW is fine, but soo much easy.

Why did you ask for title suggestions if you were gonna go with the losing one? Probably because someone in the comments said it sounds like clickbait so you figured it'd get more views.

I do think this game could have been a lot more interesting.

Oh great... the one leading the future of Zelda is the one responsible for ruining Majora's Mask 3D

CURSE YOU SANO!!!!!!!!

I would say that they still didn’t get it right. The game has so many issues.

Echoes of Wisdom is such a breath of fresh air. I've been playing Zelda games since the original and this game feels like a proper return to form while simultaneously going somewhere new. I'd like the progression framework in EoW to be used iteratively in the next mainline 3D Zelda game. However, how many times will the maps be reused from older games? References are nice, such as various locations in BotW representing key locations from previous games, but entire map layouts being used again is the one major flaw remaining IMO. E.g., exploration gameplay in EoW is great, but the map is just a slightly larger version of the same map from A Link to the Past, which was already reused in A Link Between Worlds.

2:30 So she is responsible to turn Zelda into a baby game? I feel so bad now. People who can't play games and don't want to think in a game are now in charge of Zelda. This sucks.

Eiji is pronounced "Ay-jee" not "Eye-jee".

Ocariner

Not in love with the idea of deferring to people who can't play video games. You wouldn't do this with any other skill based activity. Fortunately didn't seem to hurt this game in particular. But I hope it's not the direction this industry is going in generally.

Start over? The engine is the same as LA's, and running much worse. Meanwhile, games miles more complicated gfx-wise run much better. The irony in having a tier-1 nintendo game requiring either a modded ovwrclocked switch or emulation to run properly is pretty deep... Nintendo should be ashamed of the state of theirs game.

I love that someone bad at games was the player they had in mind. It makes sure stuff doesn’t feel like a grind or unfair. A good game should be approachable and fun for every demographic. So many developers forget that

Fire Sano, making jintendi ganes tooo easy, or at least give us hard modes

Oh...so THATS who we have to blame for easy games, got it lol

Didn't it occur to him that the reason why people preferred to use sword and shield is because using monsters and duplicating items isn't what people look for in a Zelda? can't they just create new IPs if they get tired of doing zelda?

Ya this game was easy pass. Echo mechanic instead of simple sword and bow was bad choice. I understand wanting to switch it up but this game looks extremely boring. (Same problem Tears of kingdom had) This game a failure

So this is why the game sucks so badly.

it is remarkable how unexpressive zelda art style is now since the days of wind waker. really strips the character out

0 likes 28 seconds in. These guys are really falling off