Nintendo dropped a new five-minute trailer for The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom this morning. As you know, it’s going to be the first (canon) Zelda game where you play most of it as the character mentioned in the title. A lot more of her kingdom was revealed this time.
This version of Hyrule seems to be a blend of the old and the new. Deku Scrubs have returned to the series for the first time in over 20 years — we missed the little guys. This game may explain why Zoras went through an appearance change between Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, as both versions coexist here as the “River Zora” (old) and the “Sea Zora” (new). They don’t appear to get along. Clearly one of them is going to take over, but how?
We don’t know how big Hyrule is going to be, but you’ll have multiple means of traversing it. You can possess an enemy and let it take you somewhere. You can activate warp points across the kingdom that will let you cover great distances (we know this is standard now, but Zelda was doing it before it was cool). Bot most importantly, you can get a horse, and it looks like you’ll have many to choose from. You can summon a horse with a carrot, and they can leap over obstacles Zelda wouldn’t be able to pass on her own.
A couple new powers were revealed today: Bind and Reverse Bond. If you use Bind on something, the object will mimic your movement — one use of this demonstrated in the trailer was to get rid of a giant boulder blocking Zelda’s path. Reverse Bond has the opposite effect; it makes Zelda move in the direction an enemy is with no control on her part. Perhaps not as useful as Bind, but there will be locations where, say, a flying enemy can get somewhere Zelda can’t.
We’ve also learned Zelda doesn’t have to be in that robe for the whole game. In the Link’s Awakening remake Link’s wardrobe choices were limited to red or blue outfits, but Zelda, befitting a princess, has a whole closetful of fashions she can wear at will. Some of the wearables may bestow benefits, like the Zora’s Flippers that let her swim faster, or the Frog Ring that lets her jump higher.
The trailer leaves off with another tease regarding the purple rifts spreading across Hyrule, but still doesn’t explain what’s going on with them. Perhaps that’ll have to wait for a later video. The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom will be released for Nintendo Switch September 26.
