Tradition has always been at the forefront of The Legend of Zelda series when it comes to storytelling and gameplay. That in mind however, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom flipped the script and brought Princess Zelda into the spotlight. While many might see that as a deviation from the originals, the main storyline kept its course, and brought forth a title that was positively received by fans and critics alike. However, the developers behind Echoes of Wisdom revealed in an interview that a key franchise feature was cut during production for a valuable reason.
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The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom brought along the addition of echoes, which are copies of objects and monsters found throughout Hyrule that can be used to get around quickly and fight monsters. From puzzle-solving to traveling faster, the new feature brought along its own set of opportunities and, of course, challenges. To cope with the innovative aspect of echoes, the development team had to cut the fall damage feature, which has been integrated into The Legend of Zelda franchise for quite some time.
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In an interview with Famitsu, co-director Tomomi Sano and series producer Eiji Aonuma addressed the absence of fall damage within Echoes of Wisdom. In a translation from Nintendo Everything, Sano said, “The core essence of Echoes of Wisdom as a game, and the first step to fun, is the room for players to undergo trial and error with the Echoes, so we made sure not to set any restrictions that would hinder this process. We had fall damage at first, but when using Echoes to reach high places, we wanted players to not worry about getting a Game Over from falling off but enjoy the feeling of managing to reach a high place, so we removed it. When falling into water, more often than not you could not swim in the series, so we made it so that you can try swimming.”
For those who have played titles such as Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom and have witnessed the sheer dread of falling after climbing up so far, it makes sense to see why the teams at Nintendo and Grezzo decided to drop the feature. On top of this, Aonuma discussed how The Legend of Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto had a part in excising this feature from Echoes of Wisdom, adding:
“Having players reach the final stretch, see the ending and feel happiness is what we design towards, so it would be a huge shame if people gave up halfway or lost the motivation to keep going. In that sense, I think this time we finally made a game where everyone can reach the end.”
When it comes to enjoying The Legend of Zelda games, players have been exploring Hyrule repeatedly with each new installment. While there is no indication of the next mainline title, it’s safe to say that fans are still traveling through the skies in Tears of the Kingdom without much hope of surviving a fall from that height.
What do you think about the developers getting rid of the fall damage feature? Do you expect the next titles to follow the same guidelines? Let us know in the comments on social media!
