Echoes Of Wisdom Is The Perfect Payoff To A Controversial 37-Year-Old Zelda Feature

isn't like any game that came before, but it does take plenty of inspiration from its predecessors. wears some recent influences on its sleeve, like the art style brought over from the remake and the tinkering that emphasized only a year before. Other concepts have lurked in the background of the series for much longer, however, and just happens to find a way to rework old gimmicks toward entirely new aims.

While the development of games over time is often tied to its most landmark entries, like and, the series has never been willing to universally discard ideas found in the less iconic titles. For one example, the stylus-controlled movement of might never have appeared again, but the fluid directional movement that accompanied it has remained the standard in top-down since. There might only be one true black sheep in the mainline series, however — .

Although Nintendo is known for careful progression of its franchises today, that wasn't the case on the NES, and was one example of a sequel that experimented heavily with the formula. Rather than top-down exploration, featured challenging side-scrolling action and an emphasis on RPG elements. A strong critical reception and a community of ardent defenders that's just as prevalent today prove that wasn't just a misstep, but the fact that it's so different from where the rest of the series ultimately went makes it an uncommon pick for franchise favorite.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link took a hard left turn from its predecessor, and the franchise has never seen another game quite like it again.

has way more in common with than it does with, but it also revisits the side-scrolling formatin a way that feels uniquely meaningful. Side-scrolling has cropped up here and there in the years since 's release, with and the games inserting relatively simple sequences into some dungeon environments. In, however, the feature interacts with the game's puzzle concept in a new way, as the use of echoes gains an extra layer of strategy