{"id":22612,"date":"2019-10-02T11:00:42","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T01:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=22612"},"modified":"2019-10-02T11:01:36","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T01:01:36","slug":"the-legend-of-zelda-links-awakening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=22612","title":{"rendered":"The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"linksawakening\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Developer:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Grezzo
\nPublisher:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Nintendo
\nPlatform:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Nintendo Switch<\/p>\n

I<\/span>t’s a funny thing, two years after the release of\u00a0The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild<\/em> which famously upended the traditional Zelda template – doing away with traditional dungeons and rigid linearity – here we are getting excited about\u00a0The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening<\/em>, a remake of a video game from 1993, that squarely takes us back to the format that Nintendo fans had been playing for three decades.<\/p>\n

But for the most part, it’s a welcome return.\u00a0 Unless you had been going out of your way to revisit the Zelda back catalogue, the last time anyone had an opportunity to play a traditional top down Zelda game in this style was 2013’s excellent\u00a0A Link Between Worlds<\/em>.\u00a0 Absence makes the heart grow fonder and six years is an eternity in video games.\u00a0 And for all the good that\u00a0Breath of the Wild<\/em> did, I think in retrospect, everyone can agree the absence of traditional dungeons is a knock against the game.\u00a0 In\u00a0Link’s Awakening<\/em>, you get eight glorious dungeons waiting for you to jump in and explore.<\/p>\n

The storyline, for what its worth, is very short and sweet.\u00a0 Link is sailing out at sea, gets caught in a storm and is washed up on the mysterious Koholint Island.\u00a0 He is rescued by villagers Tarin and Marin who explain to Link that in order to leave the island, he must gather eight Instrument of the Sirens and play them to the giant egg perched atop\u00a0Mt. Tamaranch.\u00a0 This awakens the Wind Fish, guardian of the Island and the only one able to free Link.<\/p>\n

\"linksawakeningdungeon\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening<\/em> is a remake of the 1993 Gameboy Zelda title, a top-down 2D Zelda that plays in a similar vein to\u00a0A Link To The Past\u00a0<\/em>on the Super Nintendo.\u00a0 The game has received a substantial graphical overhaul but beyond that,\u00a0Link’s Awakening<\/em> is actually more or less faithful to the design of the original.<\/p>\n

To that end, it’s an enormous feat of game design by Nintendo’s developers from the early Nineties that this game still holds up as well as it does.\u00a0 It’s not merely ‘playable’, its unreservedly fun and the balance of accessibility and difficulty doesn’t feel out of place when compared to modern action RPG standards.\u00a0 I don’t believe playing the original game or even any traditional top-down Zelda game is a prerequisite to enjoying\u00a0Link’s Awakening<\/em>.\u00a0 If anything, there are a couple of minor Quality of Life improvements that Nintendo have snuck in – fast travel portals and map markers – that really smooth out the edges.\u00a0 There were maybe a couple of points in the game where I think they could have better communicated what to do next but these are very minor quibbles when you look at the overall package.<\/p>\n

Ever since\u00a0Wind Waker<\/em>, Nintendo have not been afraid to tinker with the art style of the Zelda franchise and\u00a0Link’s Awakening<\/em> is no different.\u00a0 Developers Grezzo have given the game world a diorama look and feel thanks to the use of a tilt-shift effect on the camera lens which exaggerates the depth of field.\u00a0 The character models are then stylized to look like animated plasticine figures.\u00a0 I can’t think of any game before this that has utilized this look and although it may be somewhat divisive (I wasn’t sure myself when I saw the original trailer), it only took me an hour or so playing the game to really warm to it.\u00a0 Not only do I like the look of\u00a0Link’s Awakening<\/em> aesthetically, I think it even ties in quite nicely with the game thematically, which has a dream-like otherworldly quality to its story.<\/p>\n

\"linksawakeningoverworld\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As for the game itself, I’m delighted that Grezzo got the green light to make this game.\u00a0 I’ve had a couple of attempts to play Link’s Awakening when it was available on Virtual Console for the Wii and 3DS but both times I bounced off it because the Game Boy graphics were too rudimentary for me to engage properly with the game.\u00a0 Playing the Switch version offers a tantalising mix of contemporary graphics and classic, nostalgia-inducing gameplay.\u00a0 As someone who holds up\u00a0A Link To The Past<\/em> as one of their favourite games, nothing beats the satisfaction of playing through a traditional top-down 2D Zelda dungeon and having that ‘aha!’ moment when you solve a puzzle or find the key that lets you explore a previously inaccessible area.<\/p>\n

Link’s Awakening<\/em> on the Gameboy was actually a rather quirky, oddball iteration of Zelda.\u00a0 Firstly, there’s no Princess Zelda.\u00a0 Secondly, the game is littered with cameos from other titles including some fairly straightforward ones (Bob-ombs and Princess Peach from Mario) and some downright obscure ones (Will Wright’s likeness from the Super Nintendo version of\u00a0Sim City<\/em>).\u00a0 But it suits the tone that the game is going for and I’m glad Nintendo kept these cameos when modernizing the game for the Switch.<\/p>\n

So where to next for\u00a0Legend of Zelda\u00a0<\/em>remakes?\u00a0 In recent years we’ve had direct updates to\u00a0Ocarina of Time<\/em> and\u00a0Majora’s Mask<\/em>.\u00a0 A re-imagining of\u00a0A Link To The Past\u00a0<\/em>with\u00a0A Link Between Worlds<\/em>.\u00a0 And this latest update for\u00a0Link’s Awakening<\/em>.\u00a0 There’s a handful of obvious choices Nintendo could look at:\u00a0\u00a0Oracle of Seasons\/Ages<\/em> or possibly\u00a0Minish Cap<\/em>.\u00a0 None of those three games are particularly easy to access or play in 2019 so any of them would be welcome choices.<\/p>\n

This year I’ve played lots of remakes of old classics.\u00a0 The Crash Bandicoot<\/em> trilogy, the Spyro<\/em> trilogy,\u00a0Crash Team Racing<\/em> and Resident Evil 2<\/em>.\u00a0 I’ve had fantastic experiences with all of these games and it shows that they still have plenty to offer for modern audiences, as long as the developers are smart about recognizing what can be left alone and what needs a tweak.\u00a0 Some classic games are perfect just as they are (Super Mario World<\/em> etc).\u00a0 Others could stand to benefit from updated graphics (Crash<\/em>).\u00a0 Others might need small Quality of Life touches to make them more accessible.\u00a0 Others benefit from wholesale changes like\u00a0Resident Evil 2<\/em>.\u00a0 But whatever the case, its clear that developers in the last two years have been getting it right, more times than not.\u00a0 I’ve never had a better year playing remakes of classic games than in 2019 and\u00a0Link’s Awakening<\/em> is right up there with the best of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After his ship is caught up in a storm, Link washes ashore the mysterious Koholint Island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[441,2618,468],"class_list":["post-22612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-nintendo","tag-nintendo-switch","tag-the-legend-of-zelda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22612"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22623,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22612\/revisions\/22623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}