Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Moonlights as a Pokemon Game

Key Takeaways

• Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom includes Pokemon-like mechanics with the Tri Rod that can collect echoes for traversal and combat.
• With over 127 echoes to collect, players can use objects and creatures to assist in exploration and battle, much like they can in Pokemon.
• NPCs in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom request to see specific echoes, similar to Pokemon side quests.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom isn’t a Pokemon game, but it certainly feels like one. While its story sees the titular princess making her way throughout Hyrule in an attempt to save it from mysterious rifts that threaten to swallow it whole, Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom includes plenty of Pokemon-esque mechanics in its gameplay.

Most of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom‘s apparent Pokemon influence is summed up in Zelda’s Tri Rod, the echoes it can create, and their uses. However, there are also side quests in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom that emulate a longtime feature of Pokemon‘s gameplay.

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Feels Like a Pokemon Game

There Are Over One Hundred Echoes to Find and Learn in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

In order to bear any resemblance to Pokemon, Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom would need to include some form of creature collecting. While it isn’t traditional creature collecting, players can use Zelda’s Tri Rod to learn echoes of various objects and creatures scattered throughout Hyrule. These echoes can then be summoned at any time to assist players in traversal and combat, with objects generally serving as traversal echoes and creatures as combat echoes. When a creature echo is summoned, it will automatically attack any enemies in the vicinity, giving Zelda some much-needed assistance in battle. Considering this is almost exactly what players can do with their Pokemon in a Pokemon game, the likeness is astounding.

There aren’t just a few echoes to find in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, however, as its Hyrule boasts a whopping 127 echoes in the form of objects and monsters for players to find. Players will quickly learn just how extensive this arsenal is when they are acquiring new echoes left and right within the game’s first few hours. Just as it can be in a Pokemon game, it’s exciting to learn a brand-new echo in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, simply due to the new possibilities that often open up after obtaining one. However, Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom takes this “creature collecting” beyond anything Pokemon has ever done by allowing players to collect and summon objects as well that can assist them in exploration.

Players Can Even Show Off Their Echoes to NPCs in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Like They Can Their Pokemon

One striking similarity that Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom seems to unabashedly share with Pokemon can be witnessed in several side quests acquired in the game. As players explore Hyrule, they may occasionally come across individuals who want to see a certain echo or two with their own eyes, and speaking with them begins a side quest. So long as players have collected the echo requested, they can summon it in front of the quest giver to either complete or progress the side quest. Some NPCs want to see different variants of a monster, in which the quest is several steps. Others, however, would prefer to see an object — like a floating tile, for instance.

It’s an interesting way of encouraging players to acquire as many echoes as they can, but
Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
isn’t the first game to implement such an idea.

Since the release of Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue, players have been able to encounter NPCs who request to see a certain Pokemon, initiating a side quest. In the earliest games, all players would need to do is have the desired Pokemon in their party, and the quest would complete, granting them a reward in return. Considering Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom does almost the exact same thing with its echoes, it is even more like Pokemon than merely in its “creature-collecting” gameplay mechanics. Games don’t need to be Pokemon in order to have similar features, but Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom just seems like an attempt to flatter the creature-collecting phenomenon that is now over 25 years old.