I’ve made my thoughts on The Legend of Zelda Echoes Of Wisdom pretty clear (especially in my review!), and over the last few weeks, there have been plenty of insights by the creative team to showcase what truly went into making this unique (and best-selling) Zelda title. The game’s plot has been a big talking point of the title not only because of Princess Zelda’s starring role but also because of how the three Hyrulian goddesses factored into things via the “Prime Energy.” If you were wondering why they went that route instead of just “collecting the Tri-Force” like in other games…there was a reason for that.
In a chat with Famitsu, Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom producer Eiji Aonuma noted that he didn’t want there to be references to the Tri-Force at first. Why? Because it was a key part of the series lore that made things…complicated:
For a long time now the Triforce, and the relationship between Zelda, Link, and Ganon forms a base, without which nothing could form. So we discussed the fact that the story focused on acquiring the Triforce. However, if we went ahead and simply went with ‘the story of the Triforce’, since the image we have created up until now of what the Triforce is so strong, one would automatically imagine the story must have the same structure and flow.
So instead, we purposefully made the setting and time ambiguous. It wasn’t a situation where the king, royal family, and everyone already knew about the Triforce, and in fact even the word had been forgotten. Instead it was a setting where all that remains is a vague legend of something called the ‘Prime Energy’ that sleeps in the world, which allowed us to greatly expand the adventure.
Aonuma admits that, in the end, it’s “clear” that it’s the Tri-Force, but that was more for long-time fans than anything else.
