#mogryph

[shishuri]

Yo like Mogryph is just a 3d Morocco mole 😂

[estercity]

THEY'RE ALIIIIIIVE!!!!!

NO FUCKING WAY THEY BOUGHT BACK MOGMAS IN ECHOES OF WISDOM

[deuterosapiens]

And that's that for Echoes of Wisdom! A pleasant, charming game to be sure!

There's good and bad to be had, but it's certainly an unusual game. I'll definitely be going back over it to collect those Echoes I'm missing, which luckily for me, is a scant ten, per the post-game break down. One of which, humorously enough, is the damn carrot Echo used to summon your horse. I did not actually bother to do the Horse Ranch quest until just after my fifth (or sixth, depending on how you're counting) dungeon. Just going to drop a break here though, because I want to talk a bit more freely about this game.

So, there are a couple of Echoes I've discovered fairly trivialize most combat encounters. The Wolfos echo, any of the Darknut series echoes (the Level 3 variant I actually used basically as a blender throughout the entire last act, in the Still Ancient Ruins), and the Chompfin echo for water.

This game does a fair job of combining the "play it your way" mentality of the recent Wild era titles with the more strict flow of classic dungeons' puzzles. While you have considerably more options in this game, they will typically amount to being a variation on the same sorts of themes. Use fire to light torches- whether that comes from a Brazier, a Torch Slug or an Ignizol is entirely up to you, for example.

Let's talk about the key feature that honestly probably amounts to one of the biggest draws of the charming little game: DUNGEONS (and their BOSSES).

Let's see, there's three main dungeons, followed by Hyrule Castle, then three more dungeons (plus the endgame). Which means we follow the Ocarina of Time dungeon structure, which actually means we follow the A Link to the Past dungeon structure, which is appropriate, all things considered.

Each dungeon requires the traversal of a short Still World segment, which will bring Pokémon Platinum fans immense joy, before pissing them off at the memory of the Distortion World's absence in BDSP, and Legends-Arceus. These segments are mostly platforming with little significant puzzle-solving. They are the reason the Old Bed echo appears at the front of my Most Used list. But the weird eldritch, distorted scenery is quite nice to appreciate. It really does a fine job of setting up the game's final boss too.

I'm a bit torn on if I have a favorite dungeon. I definitely have a least favorite, in the form of the Lanayru Temple. Oh sweet Demise, these ice puzzles pissed me off. I did, however, find that dungeon's boss (SCORCHILL) to be quite fun, so we've got serious points awarded. Eldin Temple is weirdly small, and kind of hallway-y, if you get my drift, but it has Volvagia which I absolutely refuse to complain about. Hated the Mogryph fight, though I expect that's because I made it significantly harder than it should have been. The Faron Temple is interesting in that it really tries to hide its linearity: the theme is Jungle Temple and it honestly captures that feeling pretty damn well: the miniboss is also immensely fun, at least in how it is presented to you, though it's not particularly challenging: Gohma is, well, Gohma, so I don't think we're winning any Boss points with it. Vocavor is a boss with an interesting design, but underwater fish bosses have never won any awards and they aren't starting to now (it did bring to mind a Bowser Junior fight in Mario Wonder, so there's that).

Huh.

Oh, right, Ganon. Eh, this is literally the exact same fight as in Link's Awakening and, if I remember correctly, A Link to the Past. Somehow, however, and I cannot for the like of me figure out how, Grezzo has completely thrown off the timing of this fight: for some reason, and I'm admitting this solely for opacity, the Dead Man's Volley sections are timed, and I literally cannot find a better word for it, wrong. Luckily, they are technically optional if you have the right Echo (which you will, as it's given to you in this very dungeon), but it brought me death and therefore annoyed me.

This game follows up with our recent (if you call Skyward Sword recent) trend of having a massive horde battle precede the final boss. Well, sort of a horde- Zelda's Echo casts Echoes of her own that should be a challenging horde, but alas! The Hylian Blender renders this fight significantly easier than any other.

I will have to look this up, bit did anyone on the dev team have any involvement with Kirby Star Allies? Everything related to Null reminds me of Void Termina, and I am struggling to believe this is simply a coincidence.

Speaking of Null, let's talk about Null!

This thing is one hundred and fifteen percent definitely my favorite thing this game presents us with. Null is an entity from the void, imprisoned within the world itself by the Goddesses of the Triforce (sorry, Prime Energy- this bothered ne immensely), imprisoned to prevent it from devouring all life that might appear within the void. A classic primordial horror, if I do say so, and if there's one thing I'm a sucker for, it's primordial entities who are world-bent on the annihilation of existence itself. When you see this thing's lair, Earthbound had better jump so far forward in your mind you are given extradimensional whiplash.

If I were a timeline fanatic, I imagine Null would screw it up so damn much.

So, where do I stand here. Where where where.

The ideas behind this game are quite odd, to say the least, and their execution is a bit short. I feel like if this map were larger, and if there were more Echoes and quests, I would have more thoughts on how it plays. I just finished the damn thing and I'm not quite sure how I feel about the actual experience of playing it, which is absurd, really.

This one does feel like a love letter to the franchise's highs and lows, a bite-sized sandbox just screaming "We love Zelda!"

[birthbynightmare]

Just finished Zelda Echoes of Wisdom and the verdict is... It left me tear eyed :')

Not to badmouth Tears of the Kingdom but I finished EoW with a lot more feelings that I did with TOTK.

(that and the fact that I stopped playing TOTK for almost a year, just when I was about to face Ganondorf. I think the reason I stopped playing was because I wanted to complete all the shrines to obtain the secret outfit and find all the lightroots before facing the final boss that I found myself losing interest. But I finished it in time for EoW)

My favorite region has to be the Jabul Waters with the River and Sea Zora villages as the best location and inhabitants. I love the Zoras.

But I have to give negative points to the Deku Scrubs: (the Faron Wetlands and the village were great locations but it's people not) they were very rude for imprisoning Zelda and didn't help with the Rifts. :(

And I was very happy with the bosses of the game because after the reveal of the first boss, Seismic Talus, I feared that the rest would look like they had Raymanitis, without limbs (something that's been happening in some Nintendo games like Kirby, a method used to reduce the model's polygons so it's easier to animate)

I think my favorite boss, aside from Volvagia (because it's a returning boss) is Mogryph.

Also, very surprised to see that Ganon wasn't the final boss or the true villain of the story both socking and refreshing, although aside from the first half of the game he didn't seem to had a lot of presence.

In the end I love it and I hope the next time we play as Zelda is in a more 3D style adventure, like Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess.

[hellman55]

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - 04 - Gerudo Sanctum + Boss: Mogryph

[alwek]

Mogryph was fun! I liked the tornadoes, and I bet if I do it right I could make him dive onto a statue. And having the sand shoes was sure nice