The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is another very unique game set in this storied franchise, not just because Princess Zelda is a protagonist, but also due to the art style and gameplay as a whole. It turns out, Nintendo had even crazier plans and ideas for this title, including that it once was a dungeon builder.
Speaking in a Nintendo Ask the Developer blog, co-director Satoshi Terada from developer Grezzo and long-time The Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma explained a little about how the dungeon builder idea came about and why it was left behind.
Terada said, “We were exploring a few different ways to play the game in parallel. In one approach, Link could copy and paste various objects, such as doors and candlesticks, to create original dungeons. During this exploration phase, this idea was called an “edit dungeon” because players could create their own The Legend of Zelda gameplay.”
Aonuma then added, “They showed it to me and told me to give it a try. As I played, I started thinking that while it’s fun to create your own dungeon and let other people play it, it’s also not so bad to place items that can be copied and pasted in the game field, and create gameplay where they can be used to fight enemies.
“That was the beginning of gameplay using “echoes”. The gameplay was shifted from creating dungeons up until then to using copied-and-pasted items as tools to further your own adventure.”
A little later, Aonuma explained, “Everyone else was developing the game with dungeon creation in mind, but I was right next to them thinking of something different. (Laughs) But there’s a reason it took a year to upend the tea table. After all, you can’t really see the potential for ideas to develop into solid gameplay until you can verify features and their feel, so I wanted them to try making it first.
“I felt that the “edit dungeon” feature they showed me had significant potential to be developed into a new way of playing The Legend of Zelda games if the gameplay was changed to use “echoes” instead. So I thought it would be good to expand in that direction and could be even more interesting that way.”
Do you think Nintendo should have explored the dungeon building element more, perhaps to ultimately make a The Legend of Zelda Maker-type title?