Talking Point: How Would You Fix Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom's Most Frustrating Feature?

1 month ago 62

We've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom pretty consistently over the past week and it's safe to say we're really rather fond of it. Sure, the frame rate could be improved (not that it bothers everybody) and the lock-on can be a little fiddly, but overall it's a jolly good time and a fine return for top-down Zelda.

There is, however, one issue that we've come up against time and time again. A single thorn amongst the roses that makes every piece of adventuring feel more like a chore than it really should. We're talking about that darn Echo selection menu.

You know the one. Whenever you want to select an Echo other than the one you're currently holding (normally the bed, we won't lie), you have to hold right on the d-pad and scroll through the single line of options until you find what you're looking for.

Initially, it's not too bad. With only a handful of Echoes under your belt, the selection is a breeze and you'll have your Table, Spear Moblin, or Pot selected in no time. But as the options stack up (and boy do they stack up), so too does the pain of finding what you're after.

There are a few filter options — Last Used, Most Used, Last Learned, Cost, and Type — which help to narrow down your search, but even after selecting the right order, we still find that it regularly takes far too long to stumble across the Echo we were after.

It's a hangover from Tears of the Kingdom, of course, a game that employed a near-identical system when selecting Fuse items, but it all feels a touch more of a nuisance in Echoes of Wisdom.

While not ideal, it was very possible to go long stretches in TOTK without opening the selection menu, cracking on with the game as normal. But no such option is available in Echoes of Wisdom. Puzzles, combat, even navigation are built around the summoning system and while the 'Most Used' tab is handy enough when out and about, it's usually only a matter of time before we're frantically scrolling to find that one monster we picked up four hours ago and haven't had a chance to use yet.

What makes it more frustrating is that we can think of a few different ways the selection menu could be improved. The simplest approach that springs to mind is another couple of menu lines. That screen is plenty big enough to squeeze a few more options on there and the ability to bypass 10 useless items with a simple downward flick would certainly make things a little snappier.

What about an additional 'Favourites' tab, where you could select a handful of Echoes to appear in a line all of their own? We could even go crazier and bend that line into a circle à la Animal Crossing: New Horizons' tool selection. Just like that, you have all the tools you need for a select location (say, in a dungeon) and you don't have to scroll through lines of pots to get to them.

Maybe certain item groups could be mapped to specific buttons, so you could switch between your recents on the fly. Or a separate upgrade could let us pick default options for combat, exploration and puzzles, similar to TOTK's Autobuild.We're not saying that these ideas are solid gold; we're simply pointing out that a single-line selection menu quickly feels inappropriate — particularly once those Echo options start spreading into the hundreds.

But what do you think? Would you fix Echoes of Wisdom's menu problem with any of our solutions, or do you have one of your own? Perhaps it doesn't bother you at all and we're just being picky! You can share your thoughts with us in the following poll.

Any other ideas? Be sure to let us know in the comments.