We have been taking part in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Knowledge fairly constantly over the previous week and it is secure to say we’re actually fairly keen on it. Positive, the body price might be improved (not that it bothers all people) and the lock-on generally is a little fiddly, however total it is a jolly good time and a nice return for top-down Zelda.
There’s, nonetheless, one problem that we have come up in opposition to time and time once more. A single thorn amongst the roses that makes each piece of adventuring really feel extra like a chore than it actually ought to. We’re speaking about that darn Echo choice menu.
You realize the one. Everytime you wish to choose an Echo different than the one you are at the moment holding (usually the mattress, we cannot lie), you need to maintain proper on the d-pad and scroll by the one line of choices till you discover what you are in search of.
Initially, it isn’t too dangerous. With solely a handful of Echoes underneath your belt, the choice is a breeze and you will have your Desk, Spear Moblin, or Pot chosen very quickly. However because the choices stack up (and boy do they stack up), so too does the ache of discovering what you are after.
There are a couple of filter choices — Final Used, Most Used, Final Realized, Price, and Kind — which assist to slender down your search, however even after deciding on the correct order, we nonetheless discover that it repeatedly takes far too lengthy to stumble throughout the Echo we have been after.
It is a hangover from Tears of the Kingdom, in fact, a recreation that employed a near-identical system when deciding on Fuse objects, but it surely all feels a contact extra of a nuisance in Echoes of Knowledge.
Whereas not perfect, it was very doable to go lengthy stretches in TOTK with out opening the choice menu, cracking on with the sport as regular. However no such possibility is offered in Echoes of Knowledge. Puzzles, fight, even navigation are constructed across the summoning system and whereas the ‘Most Used’ tab is useful sufficient when out and about, it is often solely a matter of time earlier than we’re frantically scrolling to search out that one monster we picked up 4 hours in the past and have not had an opportunity to make use of but.
What makes it extra irritating is that we will assume of some alternative ways the choice menu might be improved. The best strategy that springs to thoughts is one other couple of menu strains. That display screen is loads sufficiently big to squeeze a couple of extra choices on there and the power to bypass 10 ineffective objects with a easy downward flick would definitely make issues a little bit snappier.
What about an extra ‘Favourites’ tab, the place you can choose a handful of Echoes to look in a line all of their very own? We might even go crazier and bend that line right into a circle à la Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ instrument choice. Similar to that, you have got all of the instruments you want for a choose location (say, in a dungeon) and you do not have to scroll by strains of pots to get to them.
Possibly sure merchandise teams might be mapped to particular buttons, so you can change between your recents on the fly. Or a separate improve might allow us to choose default choices for fight, exploration and puzzles, much like TOTK’s Autobuild.We’re not saying that these concepts are strong gold; we’re merely mentioning {that a} single-line choice menu shortly feels inappropriate — notably as soon as these Echo choices begin spreading into the a whole lot.
However what do you assume? Would you repair Echoes of Knowledge’s menu downside with any of our options, or do you have got one in all your individual? Maybe it does not trouble you in any respect and we’re simply being choosy! You possibly can share your ideas with us within the following ballot.
Every other concepts? Remember to tell us within the feedback.