it's really good! probably not my favorite zelda or even my favorite 2d zelda but i still liked it a lot. succeeds as a remake in that i don't feel like i've "lost" any part of the experience by playing it in this format.
very faithful to the original in ways i could not have predicted. presentation is 100% on point, which shows Grezzo has learned a thing or two since their washed-out N64 remasters.
judging the game on its own, i think it represents a pretty big stepping stone: the NPCs have finally come into their own! thanks to some unexpected inspiration from Twin Peaks(?!?!) and its small-town charm, we get some joyfully fun characters on Koholint, many cleverly repurposed from extant Nintendo titles, and with them comes the first trading sequence in Zelda; possibly my favorite of the series' hallmark features and one i wish would return some day :(
the dungeons are a big step up from Link to the Past's, despite the smaller scale and shrunken item set; the tedium still reaches frustrating heights toward the end (the 7th dungeon of 8 particularly felt dull and overlong) but overall the design is far more intuitive than any of the Dark World Dungeons, and still a bit more clever, at that!
my greatest complaint is that, in spite of the numerous QoL changes and streamlines, the Roc's Feather, an item that serves as a de-facto jump button in a game with sidescrolling sequences, remains an item that needs to be equipped. whose idea was this???