The visual style is similar to that of the 2019 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, which Grezzo also developed, to which it is a stand-alone sequel.

The player controls Princess Zelda, who can use the power of the magical Tri Rod to create "echoes", which are imitations of objects and monsters that can be used freely.

[6] Many of the people of Hyrule appear throughout the game, including the Gerudo, river and ocean Zoras, Gorons, Deku Scrubs, and Yetis.

After Hyrule was founded, Null attempted to break its seal by creating rifts in order to destroy it and return existence to the void.

Null attempts to take the Prime Energy for itself by creating an echo of Zelda, whom the Goddesses deemed worthy of possessing part of its power along with Link.

However, as Null has an unbalanced heart, it only obtained the Triforce of Power, with Wisdom going to Zelda, and Courage creating a rift leading to Link.

[8] Terada struggled to come up with ideas for echoes because the development team was worried about the problems it could cause, such as being too weak or too strong and having to function in both top-down and side-on views.

Aonuma wanted to bring a new creativity and innovation to the series, feeling that Link's Awakening offered a new approach to combining gameplay from these perspectives.

The main criticisms focused on the game's performance, as the frame rate on the Switch is variable, and on the menu system used to select echoes during gameplay.