Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom devs comments on framerate and menu complaints
Nintendo hears your complaints
While Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom has been extremely well received and fans are enjoying the title immensely, it has been hit with some complaints as well. By far, the two biggest issues fans have with the game is its framerate and menu system, and now the dev team has commented on both.
In an interview with BBC, various team members involved with Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom have offered a response to fans complaints. On the topic of the game’s less-than-steady framerate, the team said they went with a variable frame rate as they felt this was the “best option” available.
As far as menus go, this is actually a complaint that has carried over from Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom as well. All three games give you a bunch of options for weapons and abilities, but you have to scroll through extremely long menus to find what you want. While players think there are better ways to handle this, the devs took this route on purpose.
According to the team, the menu design was chosen in order to foster experimentation. In particular, the dev team says they wanted players to scroll through the various echoes in Echoes of Wisdom and catch glimpses of ones they might not have otherwise used. In other words, they think players might go into a menu with something in mind, but seeing other echoes pop up may cause a new idea or experiment to form in their heads.
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marl0
22d agoUnstable frame rate was the best option available? Are they mad?

riftsilver
22d agoIt's the double buffer v-sync that's the rough part. Dropping from 60fps to 30fps when you drop a single frame below 60fps and then switching back and forth between the two often is really jarring.
I think a variable framerate would be better in the sense of 30fps in the overworld and 60fps inside caves/dungeons/etc. would have felt better if they wanted to go that route. Consistency is way more important if you're not supporting adaptive sync (VRR).

conangiga
22d agoIt felt great hitting that 60fps. Both times it happened.

hawk
22d agoThe frame rate issues didn't bother me much. But the Echoes menu sure did!
I wonder if they could sustain a more smooth frame rate if they got rid of the tilt-shift camera blur at the top and bottom of the screen. I don't particularly like the blur.
tendonin
21d ago30 FPS is fine for Zelda, actually.
kingbroly
21d agoThe menus need changing. They're fine when you have low numbers, but far too much when you have big numbers of things to scroll through.
hyawatta
20d agoPerhaps it was important to use a variable frame rate so that it can take advantage of the extra power available when running on the Switch successor.
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