Revisiting Zelda’ Echoes of Wisdom on the Switch 2

I reviewed Echoes of Wisdom back in May. This occurred before the launch of Switch 2. Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is already fantastic on the Switch, and proves to be a decent candidate as a swansong for the Switch 1. However, there are performance issues, especially in terms of frame rate, on the last-gen portable offering. Echoes of Wisdom gets a whole new life on the Switch 2. I put in around 5 hours revisiting the title, completing a few side quests, and roaming the world to see how it all fares on the Switch 2. 

New Gameplay additions

Right away, the game notifies me that there is now a Favorites tab for sorting the Echoes. The game explains it very briefly, but it’s rather simple. Players can mark their favorite Echoes, and they will be marked with a white blue star inside of a blue bubble. Any of the Echoes that are marked as favorites are in their own tab in the Echo selection menu.

Performance & Resolution improvements

Now, onto the biggest area of improvement for Echoes of Wisdom: the performance. The game looked decent on the Switch 1, but performance was lacking. In the overworld, the game features frame-rate drops and constantly shifts from 60-30 fps, creating an uneven experience. However, on Switch 2, Echoes of Wisdom sees improvements across the board.

The frame rate is a buttery smooth 60 fps, in both portable and docked modes. In addition, the resolution also gets a pretty massive bump. To my eyes it looks a slight notch below 4k. Somewhere between 1800p and 1440p is my guess. I will be keeping an eye out on Brazil Pixel’s YouTube channel for the exact resolutions, But on top of the resolution and performance additions, HDR is added as well.

Mopping up some remaining Content in Echoes of Wisdom

I still had a few side quests remaining after completing the title. The side content overall is fun, and there is always the potential of having a much larger reward than one may assume. One of the side quests I completed on the Switch 2 was titled Let’s Play a Game. This quest took me through a mini dungeon, which culminated in a boss battle. And after defeating the boss, I was given a heart piece for my efforts. 

The other side quest I want to highlight is titled Glide Path. In this side quest players have a destination marked by a flag. And to get there Zelda has to glide without touching the ground. Up to this point I did not realize gliding is a mechanic in this game. To explain it is simple. Just summon one of the flying type echoes, run up to it and grab it, and then walk off a ledge and Zelda will start gliding. Pretty neat! 

Closing statement on Echoes of Wisdom switch 2 update

Echoes of Wisdom is already an amazing Zelda title, but these subtle quality of life changes, alongside much-needed performance and resolution updates, make Echoes of Wisdom an even better time. In many ways, it acts as a pseudo launch window title for players looking to play a new game on their new Switch 2.