Thursday, April 9, 2020

Eric Vs. 365 - Day 284 - Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening remake on Switch is amazing and I love it. It has a brilliantly gorgeous art style that is perfect and I hope that it gets used on other Zelda remakes (LttP when?). Link's Awakening is also quite different from other Zelda games, too, which I appreciate. It's just an all around excellent experience. Read more and watch gameplay here.

I played the original Game Boy release of Link's Awakening way back in the mid 90's when I was in middle school. A friend was obsessed with it so I eventually picked it up for myself and actually beat it before he did. That was back in the days when I could see a Game Boy screen (not anymore). I really enjoyed it back then, but only ever played through it that one time.

When the remake was announced I was excited. Not just because it was another chance to play through the game, but because that art style is goddamn amazing! I love the way it looks so much. It has so much charm and personality and is just wonderful. The remake also benefits greatly from the fact it has way more buttons than an old Game Boy, so playing the remake is much less awkward than it was on Game Boy. You can has multiple items ready to use and don't have to constantly go to the inventory menu makes this experience 1000% better than it was on Game Boy. 

Link's Awakening is interesting compared to other Zelda games because it is a much smaller overworld and much simpler in general than Link to the Past or the 3D games. It is really tight and compact. It is also much more puzzle based in order to work around the smaller scale of everything. You have to solve puzzles to get keys in order to even open dungeons this time around, which has you trekking all over the world in order to find the items / characters you need to make progress. In some ways this makes the game a lot more confusing - and some of the puzzles are totally arbitrary and hard to figure out - but it does make Link's Awakening stand out from the crowd. The dungeons are also more puzzle based than just constant combat as well. I like that it's different.


I love this game. It's easily my #2 favorite Zelda behind Link to the Past. I used to like the 3D games but now they just bore me (as most things do in this post Dark Souls world ...).