A pretty solid fast paced action platformer. It has a good blend of speed, platforming and exploration, all helped by pretty solid controls. Each level has unique gimmicks to keep things fresh, and it goes at a pretty good pace. Bosses are all decently fun too, except a couple near the end that get annoying. Some endgame stages also drag a bit, with overly spammy enemy placement. But overall fun to play.

The story, on the other hand, is not great. It starts out pretty bad with a ton of new characters, places, and ideas being thrown at you too quickly. It gets a bit better as it goes along, but takes an odd tonal shift that feels out of place. The story probably would have benefitted from being smaller scale instead of covering a global power struggle with aliens and stuff. There is an option to turn story off, so not a huge deal.

Mostly fun, but can be somewhat hit or miss. Dungeons often feel a bit padded and overly large, but not to a horrendous degree. Several items are pretty fun to use, like the magnet glove and roc's cape, but some are kinda lame. The season switching is cool, but feels a bit limited in how it's used to solve puzzles. Using it within dungeons may have helped flesh out the mechanic. The game also suffers from being a gbc game, and opening the menu is a frequent annoyance. It's still mostly fun, with plenty of charm, fun puzzles, everything you'd want in a zelda game. It just feels a bit rough, especially compared to Link's Awakening.

A pretty solid remake of the very underwhelming original. It takes a lot of concepts from the original and fleshes them out in a really fun way. It controls and runs much better, and is overall a way smoother experience. My biggest issue with the game is that it didn't feel very original throughout most of it. The game was mostly reusing classic castlevania tropes and gimmicks which makes it feel a bit tired for someone like myself who's played a lot of the series. It's still fun throughout, with the exception of a couple small instances. Being able to pick how many continues you get is a nice quality of life change, although having no lives whatsoever would have also been a welcome inclusion. Overall, easy recommendation to platformer fans, but it lacks originality.

This game is pretty impressive. It looks and sounds almost as good as the arcade games, and plays just as well. Heck, it runs better than the arcade entries. The switch to a handheld works pretty well in it's favor as well, getting away from the series's usual spammy enemies and tanky bosses. However, the personality and absurdity is way toned down here. It feels like a better, more varied version of the first game in terms of theming. Compared to 2 or 3, it comes off as rather tame. Additionally, level design can be a bit annoying with instant death pits. But frequent check points and fast pacing prevent this from being a huge problem. I'd say it's better than 1/2/X, and about on par with 3. The level design is generally better than 3's, but it lacks a lot of the personality and variety 3 had.