Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Breaks Ice By Mirroring ToTK in a…

Summary

Fans of Tears of the Kingdom's Ultrahand mechanic will appreciate Echoes of Wisdom's Tri Rod for its similar problem-solving abilities.
The Tri Rod serves as a thematic bridge between past Zelda games and the future, giving players a familiar mechanic to hold onto.
Echoes of Wisdom continues to uphold the tradition of player freedom in problem-solving, allowing for creative and imaginative solutions in gameplay.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is charting new ground for the beloved series, but it has the perfect way to welcome fans into its new world. Coming off the heels of Tears of the Kingdom, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom shares one important aspect that fans of the previous game have come to love. Link’s Ultrahand ability in Tears of the Kingdom is one of the things that helped define that game’s identity. Players were drawn to it as a way to creatively solve problems, take down enemies, and push the boundaries of the game’s design.

Some fans have grown so attached to the mechanic that they were disheartened to learn that Ultrahand will not be returning in future Zelda titles. The decision to leave the ability behind likely stems from the need to make each game feel different from the ones that came before it, but fans of Link’s latest power should keep an eye on Echoes of Wisdom. The new game’s Tri Rod allows for a similar anything-goes style of problem-solving and experimentation as the Ultrahand, acting as a link between the two games that fans are sure to appreciate.

Zelda Echoes of Wisdom Another Playable Character

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom Confirms Another Playable Character

The upcoming Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom recently confirms another playable character alongside Princess Zelda herself.

Posts 4

By Trumann Tu

Zelda’s Tri Rod is the New Version of Link’s Ultrahand

With such a stark change in perspective between the two games, it’s hard to imagine a version of the Ultrahand functioning the same way as it does in Tears of the Kingdom. This might even have played a role in the decision to make the next entry a top-down game rather than continue the open-world trend. However, the shift of gameplay styles doesn’t mean that the essence of the Ultrahand is gone, as the Tri Rod’s echo powers are an evolution of the Ultrahand mechanic. Both abilities provide the same type of feeling for the player, allowing them to take the objects around them, and reinvent their use.

Giving players the ability to utilize any object regardless of where they originally found it, the Tri Rod may even be more useful in some regards than what fans have become accustomed to. The key difference is that uUtrahand was a multipurpose tool, allowing for the movement, fusing, and rewinding of objects, while the Tri Rod only seems to allow for replication and placement. With the difficulty that the development team faced when implementing ToTK's Ultrahand ability, it’s no surprise that some of these elements were dropped from Echoes of Wisdom. The result is a new gameplay innovation that improves on the Ultrahand’s main function at the cost of losing some of its other features.

The Tri Rod’s Similarity to the Ultrahand is Key

The similarity between the two game’s main mechanics is no coincidence. Now that the Ultrahand is gone, the Tri Rod can act as a thematic bridge between the previous era of the Zelda series and the future. It’s important that a series changes over time while still holding on to what players loved about the previous games, and that’s just what the Tri Rod does. It gives fans something of the

Ultrahand to hold on to as a way to introduce them to a Hyrule very different from the one they’ve spent so much time in. The exact types of puzzles from Tears of the Kingdom may be gone, but the creative process of solving them remains.

An important precedent was set by Tears of the Kingdom and the Ultrahand of allowing players the freedom to solve problems their own way, and Echoes of Wisdom continues this trend expertly. It remains to be seen just what the Tri Rod and its echoes will allow players to create, but based on their inventions in Tears of the Kingdom, anything is possible. Players used their surroundings to create vehicles and homes, and even used the Ultrahand to mimic the game’s most fearsome creatures. On the surface, it might seem like the Tri Rod isn’t built for the same type of experience, but when players put their minds to it, anything might be possible in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.

Rating block community and brand ratings Image