The original version of Link’s Awakening holds a special place in the Legend of Zelda series
for many reasons, and the story of its creation is almost as captivating as the tale the game tells itself.
It’s a unique installment that conjures up strong emotions and memories.
Remaking this beloved game for Switch isn’t something to take lightly, and the responsibility falls to Grezzo,
the team behind many of the more recent Legend of Zelda entries not called Breath of the Wild.
Fair or not, expectations come into play with a remake or remaster of any kind,
especially when it carries the Zelda name.
The updated visuals look great, breathing wonderful new life into Koholint Island and all its inhabitants.
This new aesthetic provides a new perspective of the geography that elicits pleasant reactions,
yet it all still feels familiar enough.
If anything, the game might feel a bit too familiar.
The visual facelift comes at the cost of persistent performance dips, though.
It’s not simply the seamless overworld sections that are to blame either,
as framerate drops occur both outdoors as well as indoors in caves, homes, and dungeons.
It’s not so horrible that it impacts gameplay, but it’s definitely noticeable.
The core blueprint of the original game remains largely unaltered
as the developers opted for a more faithful update.
Link’s Awakening is one of the more linear Zelda games, but
progress is heavily driven by the game’s wonderful narrative elements.
There’s still incentive to explore to find various hidden items like
pieces of heart, seashells, or other upgrades and enhancements, but sections of the island are gated off
until you’ve completed certain tasks, and the order in which you complete said tasks is mostly fixed.
It’s a drastically different approach than say Breath of the Wild, but that doesn’t make it inferior.
Rather, this old-school style of Zelda still holds up in spite of new advances in the series.
This is largely due to the fantastic story and wonderful cast of characters.
Link’s Awakening embraces the weird, the different, and the ridiculous.
It’s still a Zelda game, but it doesn’t feature many familiar elements
like Hyrule, the Triforce, or even saving Zelda.
In fact, the absence of these mainstays is one of Link’s Awakening’s most endearing qualities.
There’s an unforgettable tale at the heart of this adventure,
leading to one of the most emotionally satisfying conclusions in the series.
Though the overall structure sticks close to the original,
there are a ton of small revisions and alterations here and there.
Most of these are for the better and serve as nice quality of life improvements
that were sorely needed after 26 years.
Simply having more buttons available to use different items makes a big difference,
reducing the infamous amount of item toggling required before.
Meanwhile, including additional warp locations eases the amount of backtracking.
Perhaps the most significant addition is the Chamber Dungeon.
As you complete each dungeon over the course of the game, you can travel to a building
to talk to a character about your adventures.
This allows you to tackle a series of challenges
where you must use various individual dungeon rooms you’ve unlocked
in the form of puzzle pieces to satisfy the conditions of each challenge.
It’s less like Zelda Maker and more like rearranging dungeons using existing rooms,
but it serves up a decent puzzle element and a small taste of creating your own dungeons.
What’s more satisfying is completing dungeons from the harder categories,
especially ones that impose tough restrictions such as being limited to only 3 hearts,
removing your sword, or imposing stringent time limits.
It’s a welcome addition, but the lack of customization makes us yearn for something more robust.
Not to mention, you can’t share your creations with others online or even via local wireless.
Instead, it forces you to go through the cumbersome process of transferring data to an amiibo
and then physically passing that along to a friend.
As for the existing dungeons, they still hold up very well with clever puzzles and unique enemies.
The new visual touch-ups really sell the unique atmosphere of each, too.
The mini-bosses and the primary boss of each dungeon are toned down in terms of difficulty,
and in general, the game feels too easy.
However, Hero Mode, a harder difficulty setting where enemies do double damage
and there are no heart drops, is available right away for more advanced players.
The updated musical score includes some fantastic new takes,
like the excellent arrangement of Tal Tal Heights or the enchanting rendition of Ballad of the Wind Fish,
and additional new sound and voice effects help elevate the audio design above the the original effort.
There are one or two tracks that miss the mark, but
Link’s Awakening’s songs are still among the best in the series.
Link’s Awakening is as charming today as it was 26 years ago.
This remake addresses many of the original’s shortcomings, but at the same time,
the original still does a few things better.
The new visual style is gorgeous, but the frequency of the performance issues
leaves room for improvement.
Despite this setback, precious few Zelda games have the emotional payoff
or the narrative richness of Link’s Awakening.
This is still an unbelievable adventure and an absolute must-play.
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