The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Review

The Legend of Zelda: Link's awakening is a breathtakingly gorgeous and cute remake of the 1993 Gameboy release, featuring a glossy plastic art style that really invokes that nostalgic feeling of playing with toys as a kid. The whole world looks like one big plastic diorama and I couldn’t get enough of it. So much love has gone into this remake with so many quality of life features added. Is this the best 2D Zelda currently on the market?

Developer: Grezzo

Publisher: Nintendo

RRP: £39.99

Story

After becoming shipwrecked by a storm, Link finds himself washed ashore on Koholint Island, being greeted by a certain inhabitant, our best girl Marin. The Windfish calls to Link in hopes that he might help awaken him from his slumber, to do so Link will have to traverse the many Dungeons, overcome many trials and beat the embodiment of nightmares to collect all the Instruments of the Sirens. To avoid spoilers I can’t actually talk about why I love the story so much but if you play it I’m sure you’ll understand, it’s a lot more philosophical and meaningful than any other 2D Zelda title.

Gameplay

Love puzzles? This game is the embodiment of a classic 2D dungeon crawling, puzzle solving, adventure we have all grown up loving. It isn’t a very long game but I think that’s for the best, I enjoyed every second of my time with it never feeling like it had been padded with any extra content keeping you focused on your journey, as always there are plenty of collectibles to find if you’re a completionist your play time with be significantly higher than an average player.

The Dungeons themselves can be challenging but the puzzles never feel overwhelming; they're engaging enough to be entertaining but never leave me scratching my head in confusion. Although newcomers to the franchise might struggle more than veteran players. To top it all off the boss fights are incredibly enjoyable and if you play on the harder difficulty you might find yourself breaking out in a worried sweat from time to time. This game does feature many cross-over Easter eggs to find throughout the game and from time to time is even played like a classic 2D plat-former which I assume to be a homage to the Mario series.

Graphics

Nintendo really out did themselves by crafting a beautifully rendered plastic Art style that makes the game feel like one big diorama, everything feels so miniature with a glossy texture to finish it off, I couldn’t help but be amazed at every new area I entered.

There’s a blur effect that encompasses the edges of the screen that really helps compliment the aesthetic of the game and by the end it was such a wonderfully subtle feature I’d love to see more of.

The Amiibo that was released for this game is amazing too, I couldn’t believe how much it looked like the character model from the game. It really felt like the game was brought to life in front of my eyes, there isn’t too much use for Amiibos in this game though. The only real practical application for them is the newly added Dungeon creator which I’m not going to discuss because I didn’t really use it.

Sound Design

The Music and Sound Design is phenomenal, recreating and reimagining the original Soundtrack designed to be played on a Gameboy wouldn’t have been an easy feat. Not only does every song elicit such deep a emotional response from the listener but they compliment the setting perfectly, from happy upbeat melodies to triumphant scores. The Violins that play with a successive marching motion driving the player forward as accompanying flutes play cheerful yet melancholic and slightly sombre melodies will stay with me as one of my favourite Soundtracks to explore to. The sound effects are perfectly clear and well recorded, I have absolutely nothing negative to say. I could discuss this all day but to keep things brief I won’t, your welcome.

Performance

The game is layed out into tiles loading you into one at a time, very often the frame rate takes a massive dip which can feel a bit jarring considering how smooth the rest of the game runs. However, I never really felt like it detracted from my experience. It was more of a slight annoyance but one that’s worth noting.

Conclusion

I would love for Nintendo to keep making games in this style because it just felt right the entire way through, I couldn’t get enough of the charming world of Koholint Island. Hopefully we see more remakes like this, I think Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages is long overdue a similar remake.

3/3

Masterpiece

Pros:

Beautiful Art style

Short but Sweet

Amazing Soundtrack

Fun for all ages

Cons:

Slight Performance issues

Author: Gabriel Sewell