The Most Powerful Item in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a Bed

Let’s get this out of the way real quick. Zelda’s first turn as a playable character in a major The Legend of Zelda game is an absolute triumph. It is the perfect bridge between the more traditional isometric Zelda games of yore and the anything goes open world exploration and experimentation of the modern Breath of the Wild incarnations. I could easily spend thousands of words talking about the sheer joy and brilliance of it all, but I don’t want to do that. Instead, I simply wish to talk about the greatest echo of the many echoes of wisdom – a bed.

Yes, you read that correctly. The best power that the Sage of Time has is to make a bed appear out of thin air using the central mechanic of crafting echoes based on enemies defeated or inanimate objects encountered with her powerful Tri Rod. Sure, it is impressive that you can create a shark that gobbles up the entire contents of the sea or any number of moblins to hack baddies to bits, but that offensive firepower will only get you so far. You see, the bed is one of the most effective ways to make a lengthy bridge, and if you choose to rest in it, you can regain health. That’s right, you will find yourself generating a bed in the middle of a gloomy dungeon to take a quick little cat nap and regenerate some hearts before continuing your quest to save the world, and you will find yourself doing this incredibly frequently.

After over 20 hours of my epic adventure through Hyrule, my most used echo ended up being the “Old Bed” thanks to its versatility and low cost of just a single point. Hell, 2 of my top 20 most used echoes were beds, as the far more comfy “Zelda’s Bed” was consistently deployed when I needed to heal larger amounts. And if that was not enough, there’s a third “Soft Bed” that you acquire early on but quickly becomes the odd bed out.

That in a nutshell is the heart of what I loved so much about Echoes of Wisdom. With unimaginable power at my hands, it was a tri-force of beds that truly helped save Hyrule from certain doom. In lesser hands than Nintendo and the studio Grezzo, this could have felt boring and been a wasted opportunity for Zelda to finally be a star, but this unique pairing was just the tempur-pedic fit needed to showcase the quirk, charm, and power of a princess who was tired of playing the damsel in distress.