2024 was the year The Legend of Zelda lived up to its name, and the result was a bit like mixing rock salt and floral nectar

Nintendo is the only publisher capable of pleasantly surprising me. I say this because it's one of the publishers I care most about, and one of the select few I ever hold any expectations for. So this year, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom had me pleasantly surprised – then it left me in bittersweet disappointment.

When the game was announced in June, I was extremely excited. After 38 years of being the damsel in distress, the princess waiting for her hero to come and save her, the bystander in a series which bears her own name, Zelda was at last the star of her own game. We've had glimpses of a playable Zelda before Echoes of Wisdom, but only ever in spin-offs including the Hyrule Warriors games, Cadence of Hyrule, and a couple of those cursed CD-i games. But for the first time in a mainline entry, Zelda receives a call to adventure and she sets out on her own hero's journey.

I have to praise Nintendo for the mechanics of Echoes of Wisdom. Zelda doesn't solve problems with raw bravery and rushing into battle with a sword. She's associated with the Triforce of Wisdom, after all, and Nintendo kept that in mind when designing this game. It's up to us to use our creativity with the different objects Zelda can summon. To truly embrace her time in the spotlight, I made it my mission to play Echoes of Wisdom solely as Zelda and to ignore her Swordfighter Form entirely.

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss

At first, it went well. I had a great time choosing violence. Drowning Bokoblins and (my personal favorite tactic) holding Buzz Blobs right in front of monsters' faces to stun lock them never gets old. But the game becomes a bore if you try to play like this all the time. This became clear once I got to boss fights. It's tough to fight them without making use of Zelda's transformation into pseudo-Link – almost as if Nintendo wants me to play as Link in these moments.

That really ticked me off. Why shouldn't Zelda be able to defeat the game's most formidable monsters without the need for Link? Why is a fight with Zelda's power alone borderline impossible? It made me feel like regardless of how strong Zelda became, she'd never be able to prove herself in the moments where it mattered the most.

The real gut punch was the final fight against Null. Zelda's role is to hold back Null while Link gets to go all out and face it head on. Zelda's adventure was to… save Link so he could take all the glory? My part in that fight felt less than equal to what Link's AI was doing and that didn't sit right with me. That was meant to be Zelda's time to shine, but ultimately her journey was to serve Link as the overall hero.

I want to see Zelda come into her own as a character and as a protagonist. There have been so many different versions of her throughout the series, each with their own backgrounds and struggles, but she's always reduced to either a damsel in distress or a sacrificial pawn for the sake of plot or Link's journey. Echoes of Wisdom is the epitome of this issue. For the first time, we get to play and see Zelda through an active perspective, all for it to culminate in her taking a step back. Zelda's heroic nature shouldn't need to depend on Link, nor should she have to step aside in her own story to make way for Link.

Sheik's all that

Part of me thinks that if you're going to make a game where Zelda and Link are given role reversals, it isn't enough substance to merely engage with the gender stereotypes the two have embodied throughout the series – but if you're going to go with it, you should at least commit to it until the end. The other part of me is jumping up and down in glee because Nintendo is finally delivering on what so many fans have wanted to see for years. Maybe it wasn't satisfying, and maybe it ended up undermining its own message, but it's a start!

Echoes of Wisdom does a great job at establishing Zelda as an independent character with her own strengths, at first. She's a beloved princess who fits perfectly into the image of a demure, mindful royal figure. But she's also ready to use her smarts, willing to throw herself into the unknown and jump into action for Hyrule. She can even reject that reserved image of royalty and do such rebellious things like smash vases and chuck rocks at people. But by the end of the game, she's no longer the focus as everything she goes through is just a journey to put Link as the center once again.

I want more of Zelda exploring Hyrule and helping the people she's been raised to serve. I want Sheik to return so we can see Zelda juggling her royal status with her alter ego. I want a Zelda who can defy the fate prescribed to her in every game - one which Nintendo refuses to part from. Nintendo has shown it's willing to finally let Zelda take the lead in her own story and I won't let it back down from this. Whether it's Zelda, Sheik, Tetra, or a new reincarnation of the character, show us that Zelda is capable of proving herself without needing Link. Nintendo, show some wisdom: use the potential you've planted within Zelda and let her live up to the weight of the series' name.

See where Echoes of Wisdom landed on our best games of 2024 roundup