Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom Reportedly Offers 'Normal' and 'Hero' Difficulty From The Get-Go

Thank goodness if that's true

No way.
Difficulty settings. In a Nintendo game. And from the get go! What timeline is this.

Great, now please apply to all other licences and patch it in Mario Wonder to instantly transform it into the absolute best game in the series. That's all it needs damnit!

Missed opportunity to call it Heroine mode.

In other words the game is still going to be bloody easy when it comes to puzzles, which is like the core block of Zelda's gameplay.

@DripDropCop146 Seconded

Okay can we get a Hard mode for a TOTK please?

Options are good. We won’t play on “hard” but it’s good to see b/c it implies normal won’t be too difficult. I may stick to only playing games with difficulty options in the near future.

@Samalik I kinda agree, but it is very difficult to make a difficulty selection for puzzles, as it basically requires the designer to build the entire puzzles from scratch to make them harder. In a game like Echoes of Wisdom, where traversal seems to be a significant aspect of puzzle solving, this would imply changing significant sections of the game world. With combat it's much easier, you just make enemies stronger/faster and it is immediately harder.

Hope we get a decent challenge, because Link Between Worlds was super easy even on higher difficulty. I wish we can unlock more difficult settings after beating Hero Mode.

@chipia well important is how they change difficulty. They always go the cheap route- enemies more health and more damage, instead of making better AI- enemies with more behavioural patterns than on Easy settings, more sporadic and less predictable attacks, and enemy group behaviours. Make old time fans happy too than just watering the experiences down like with Mario Wonder.

Very good of them to offer a harder difficulty, and I really hope it becomes a thing with Nintendo. I already feel very encouraged... I adore Nintendo's art direction all the time but I find the general 'easy' difficulties very discouraging, with the only exception being Smash.

Said it once and I’ll say it again - feels like a 97 on Metacritic!

@cmbaum Too high. I say between 85 and 92.

If true, GOOD. Should always be the case. Hated that I had to wait for a hard mode in BotW (and that one never came in TotK).

TotK Hero Mode update when?
It's one of only a few BotW DLC features not in TotK, the others being permanent Master Sword upgrades and teleporting horses. (The extra carrots are covered from the other ancient horse armor is covered by horse upgrades).

@cmbaum I say between a 90-94 metacritic.

That’s great news. I’ll probably start on normal; looking forward to a more relaxing experience.
But if it feels too easy… 📈

Hero mode is so awesome in Zelda games. İf Tears of the kingdom had a Hero mode too but it have not. İ really want it but it have not.

Hero mode in Skyward Sword and in A Link between worlds was so incredible fun but loved the A Link between worlds Hero mode more.

İ hope Echoes of Wisdom have a Hero mode. Hard mode is always fun if it is a not to stressful game mode for you. İt must be fun to play.

I just ask that difficulty options be explicit with what exactly the differences are. Saying "easy, normal and hard" means nothing as what's hard for some is easy for others and obviously normal is less helpful even then that.

For example I like a challenge but I don't want simple pointless stat and hp inflation and would choose the default over that form of "difficulty" every time. However if the higher difficulty is more enemy types, with more aggressive AI and additional attacks then that's much more interesting a choice. And of course you need to know what the game was actually designed and balanced around. How did the people making the game intend for you to play it before making changes for difficulty levels.

That information should all be provided up front so that people know what it is they're choosing, regardless of the reasons they're choosing it.

I hate when you start a game are given a vague, or even completely contextless, choice of difficulty. The first choice you've made with the game comes built in with having to second guess whether you've ruined your experience with an unclear menu option. Great.

This one seems... ok? I'd like more description honestly. But what I read from that text box is that you're intended to play the game on Normal and that Hero is more explicitly a challenge mode. So it largely meets my criteria; it tells me what the intended version is and let's you know what some of the major changes are.

Hmm, even if it's a layer deeper it'd be nice if there was literally just a submenu you could open if you wanted that listed all the changes like they were patch notes. That goes for any game with difficulty options btw, not just Zelda.

Always love to see harder difficulty options in Nintendo games, wish all of them had it tbh. Plenty people share the sentiment that Nintendo games are for kids and harder difficulties could scare them off. Good, that's the whole point of a hard mode, to challenge players. That's kinda what games are for. By having options for all skill levels, then everyone's a winner. If you don't like the stress of the harder options, then just pick an easier one. Reminds me of something Schaffrillas said in his Pikmin 4 video, where he said that OG Pikmin fans got their fix with the Olimar's Shipwreck story. It was a more challenging mode that catered to people looking for a more tense experience. People who yearned for more deadline based gameplay like 1 & 3 could get it via that side story. That said, if you didn't like it or found it too tough, like plenty people were back in the day, it wasn't required by any means.

I might have to go Hard right away!

Please let us turn off the low heart warning bleeps, it's made hero mode unplayable for me before.

@DripDropCop146 The Princess Mode.

Breath of the Wild's hard mode was poopy

@mlt my God thanks for saying that. I was so surprised to see almost nobody ever talking about it.

That games would have been ground breaking if it wasn't an absolute joke. I played the entire game without ever getting any power up (collectibles aside) other than the base mushroom and it was still a joke.

I would replay it instantly if they added an harder mode. Such a wasted opportunity. It felt like I was playing on auto mode.

Glad for other people who like it, but I've never been a fan of Hero Modes in the Zelda franchise. Completely removing recovery hearts just doesn't sound like any fun at all to me.

This actually clears a lot of things up out because I know there was people thinking it was just going to be too easy. I love this!

Hmm. If Normal is on par with a typical 2D Zelda experience, I'll probably stick to that. I like a challenge in certain kinds of games, but to me Zelda is more about the puzzle solving and adventure aspects, and this one seems more puzzle-focused than most. But if the reviews tell me that Normal is easier than most past games, maybe I'll try the Hero mode.

@mlt Literally Ocarina 3D, Wind Waker HD, TP HD, Skyward Sword, Link Between Worlds, Breath of the Wild and Link’s Awakening remake have this. It’s not new.

@SuperBro64 Zelda games are so easy that it barely matters. I know a lot of people who comment on this blog aren’t very good at games though so I’m glad there’s options for them.

Seeing the headline, I immediately wished that Princess Peach game had a hard mode, as hearing it was more for youngins scared me off...

@Bonggon5

I'm talking Nintendo in general.
Nintendo games in general have a noticeable lack of any kind of options that's rather baffling in that day and age. And even just talking about Zelda, anything that's hidden behind going through the game once is not a difficulty setting, it's ng+ content. Not all of us have the time and luxury to go through the content of a game once before being able to play it the way they want. Plus in terms of experiencing the game for the first time, it's not ideal is it? Now indeed some of these games you mention have the feature from the get go, those are the remakes by the way so that seems to be a remake thing in Nintendo's mind. And that's great and all but it's more an exception than a rule unfortunately. To comment on some of those games specifically, WW was so easy that it really hurt the quality of the game. In fact the Hero mode in that game's remake ended up being a normal mode and yes I'd definitely recommend playing hero mode in WWHD even if that's your first playthrough ever. Same for SS. I love SS it's one of my favorites, but damn the Hero Mode that had to be unlocked made the game shine so much. All of a sudden the crafting system means something. The materials you collect actually become important and you actually start using these potions and start caring about always having one in your pocket. Now I would have loved to experience the game like that the first time I played it.

So Echoes of wisdom. Well, it's not a remake and it's released after a couple Nintendo games that were too easy for their own good and sorely lacked that option. So I'd say yeah the difficulty was a concern. I'd love to but I don't trust Nintendo when it comes to options in general and difficulty specifically. They're not very good at it because they worry too much about what the audience for said game is in their mind and tend to divide their audience in terms of demographics and gaming habits way too much and end up telling us "here that game is for you, not this one it's for your little brother" and bs like that, that come to think of it is very non-Nintendo thinking when it comes to how they say their brand is for everyone to enjoy. What they should be doing of course is giving us OPTIONS.

So yeah, I am very happy that they implemented this in Echoes of Wisdom, as an option, as in from the get go. And I hope it's a sign of them getting better at difficulty settings and doing this for most of their games, not just the Zelda ones. Because I mentioned Mario Wonder but there are several Nintendo games this gen that could use such an option.