I picked a good time to play through this, huh? Echoes of Wisdom looks lovely.

And lovely Link's Awakening is. I wasn't sure how much I'd find myself attaching to Koholint Island and its inhabitants, since I was playing through this for the first time in adulthood (as opposed to much of the love I have for my favorite entries being rooted in part in nostalgia), but by the time I had to wake the Wind Fish, I didn't want to. The place within the dream was simple, but just too charming, how could I dare forsake it!

Still not my favorite 2D Zelda mechanically though. For a modern remake, it sure preserves the way the original game plays--warts and all, right down to moments where figuring something out took a liiittle too long, even by old Zelda standards. Expanding the field of view from Game Boy screen size makes Link feel slower, and exploration of the island opens up at a weirdly slow pace and with strange specificity to the chunks of access.

I did appreciate how classic it felt though. Anytime I'm reminded of Zelda 1 is a cheat code straight to my heart. Dungeon layouts being arranged in animal shapes sure ain't done anymore (except if you count Divine Beasts, I guess?)

All in all, this game might crack top 10 Zelda games for me, though I'm not sure about its exact placement. It's good though. Play it.

Visually very appealing. Gameplay-wise, confusing, frustrating, incoherent and many times tedious or boring. This game makes the most mundane and simple tasks too tedious or confusing to follow. Without a guide or tons of memorization, this game becomes a pain, specially when it comes tu the dungeons. Most quests were hard to follow and many times I didn't know how to continue playing. Boss attacks are many times quite confusing. For instance, at a certain point in the game, you unlock a fire rod, they teach you to use it to melt frozen things yet in the next boss arena you are forced to use it defeat a fire slime. Other than that, if you don't pay much attention to its flaws its a nice game.

I love the aesthetic and everything they did to make this game visually distinct but there should have been way way more focus on modernising some of the really old fashioned gameplay. It feels like I'm playing through Zelda 1 at times with how some of the enemies and dungeons are designed. Look no further than the secret seashells which sometimes are just hidden in the most random places which you would only be able to find thanks to the tracker item later in the game. The story and theme of the game is one I like alot and wish they would go for more when creating some of their games, it allows for much more creative freedom and are not tied down to any lore from other games (which they have been finding problems with recently with TOTK).
The powerscaling is maybe a bit too tweaked in the direction of making the player feel powerful because by the end of the game you're almost untouchable.
Overall I would say this game is fine, it has its occasional really fun dungeon or puzzle only for you to be met with some excruciatingly boring dungeons like the infamous Eagles Tower. Though the gameplay is not the strength of the game, the aesthetic and story is. Play it if you like 2d Zelda

(16 hearts)

Fun little game. This really has me wishing that we could get another modern 2D Zelda, but that seems far off, especially with Aonuma saying that this open world model is their likely path forward from this point. It was a little annoying traveling around sometimes especially before I had the fast travel song, and backtracking is something you need to do a lot. There were a few points where I was pretty lost as well and not sure what to do. Overall though, the combat feels much better than Link to the Past without all the bouncing and whatnot, and the bosses were good once I figured out the trick.

First 2D Zelda game, overall very enjoyable from start to finish. The puzzles are interesting, Zelda game so soundtracks goes hard, I'm glad that the writing is kinda basic and I didn't really connect with any character (except a lil bit for Marin and I fucking hate the Trendy Game shopkeeper) or else the ending would broke me, I really like the Metroid-ish type of progression here although sometime it can get confusing (the old man on the phone was so clutch for me). The bosses are definitely not too hard but finding a way to damage them is pretty tricky (especially the last one).
Really short too so wouldn't hurt giving it a go if you are looking for some simple feel good fun gameplay.

Although the art style, and combat was pretty great, there were too many flaws for me to keep playing. I made it about halfway through the game but eventually just felt like I was doing the same thing over and over. Go get the feather to get the ribbon to get the key etc. There wasn't much of a feeling of progression and the dungeons weren't super interesting. I didn't feel like I was saving the world or anything. The nail in the coffin was horrible performance on the switch. The game blurred the top and bottom of the screen and there was bad lag whenever entering a new area.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (2019)

Played on Nintendo Switch

My only history with Zelda ever was playing Wind Waker at a friends house on his gamecube for about 20 minutes maybe 15ish years ago. Other than that maybe an hour of Breath of the Wild, before I kinda just got distracted with other games at the time. So my connection with the franchise is pretty much slim to none lol. Been cleaning off the backlog and remembering that I got this from my brother a couple years ago, I figured if I was gonna give Zelda a shot, it would make sense to start with a “traditional” one.

The game has a really cute art style that is so wholesome feeling. The Toylike graphics compliment the little mini adventure that this game is, with all the quirky characters on the island. The gameplay is simple but so effective and fun, and immediately showed me why people love these games so much. The satisfaction you get after completing a dungeon or solving a puzzle is really great. Combined with the simple, but yet effective soundtrack, it only makes the experience better.

The game does have some flaws, as I ran through many frame drops in the overworld as well as some dungeons. Strange, because I never really see frame drops in first party Nintendo games. Some of the puzzles were kind of ridiculous with some of the solutions too, especially in the last 2 dungeons. I really have no idea how they expected people to figure out some of these.

Really Solid experience for my first real Zelda, and I definitely see the vision now. I think I want to try one of the older 3D ones first before BOTW, just don’t know with one yet. Really cool game and if you like short little games with puzzles, this is a dope buy.

Although I had fun playing this game, due to the fact of it being a remake, it still carries around much of the baggage of the original. Easily the most annoying parts for me were the very convoluted progression, especially regarding all the trading, and some dungeon puzzles. With a bit of external help from the internet / a bit of frustration tolerance it was more than possible.

The bosses range from neat to boring. Most of them are easy as hell and forgettable, while others are just annoying and don't feel rewarding in any way.

Now, I want to talk about the things I actually liked about this game. The remade graphics were cute as hell and the art style grew on me every minute I played this game. The story has a surprising amount of charm to it. Don't get me wrong, it's really simplistic, but the way it's told leaves just enough space for your imagination to go wild, which enhances the feeling of doing everything in this world by a tenfold. The Music also slaps, disregarding one or two of the dungeon tracks (The Face Dungeon Theme bangs while playing).

To summarize, Link's Awakening is a fun time and doesn't overstay it's welcome. If you're willing to accept some "Gameboy-Era-BS" you could easily fall in love with this tiny little adventure on Koholint Island.