Ok, here we go. This might get a bit messy, but hey, who doesn’t love a little chaos?
So, Naoki Yoshida, the guy behind Final Fantasy 14 (pretty big deal, right?), he’s buzzing about The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. After his guest appearance at Anime Expo, he just couldn’t stop talking about it. Kind of random, since it’s not the first Zelda game that jumps to mind when you think of the Switch. I mean, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are like the rockstars here, right? Those games flipped everything upside down with their open worlds and quirky physics. Took forever to make, though.
Anyway, there’s this picture I saw online—can’t remember why it stood out—of Echoes of Wisdom fitting somewhere in the Zelda timeline. Still trying to wrap my head around it.
In this talk with Famitsu (Japanese mag, if you didn’t know), Yoshi-P, or just Yoshi-P because everyone’s gotta have a cool nickname, mentioned that Echoes of Wisdom really struck a chord with him. Why? Well, the game reused a bunch of old stuff, which sounds meh at first, but it let the team focus on making the game super fun. Fresh eyes and seasoned devs teamed up, and apparently it worked wonders. Not sure why I find this fascinating, but there it is.
Oh, and Yoshi-P thinks future game designers should take notes from this game. He respects how the game’s team kept costs low by recycling assets. Basically, they understood it wouldn’t blow up sales-wise like the big games, but it was worth it. Echoes of Wisdom might not grab every Nintendo player’s heart, but it did one thing fans have been screaming for: made Zelda the star for once. The game wasn’t just a financial win (2.58 million units by September 2024, not too shabby) but also a creative nod to everyone involved.
So, there’s that. A bit of wisdom—or something—from Yoshi-P.