By Peter W. Smorynski
The rumors had been rolling in like waves for months…and then, suddenly, the dream became a reality. On February 13, 2018, during their Nintendo Direct, Nintendo lifted the lid on a Nintendo Switch remake of 1993’s The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for the original Game Boy. As “The One More Thing” of their highly anticipated presentation, they introduced this remake in spectacular fashion with a gorgeously animated rendition of the previously pixel-animated opening sequence from Link’s first portable adventure.
This classic entry was the first in the Zelda franchise to not take place in Hyrule or involve Zelda and Ganon. It also reintroduced the manual jumping mechanics from Zelda II and debuted future staples such as fishing, diving, song-learning, and the game-long trading sequence. This will actually be the second remake of this beloved and influential entry. In 1998, the previously black-and-white game received a color-enhanced “DX” edition for the Game Boy Color featuring a new dungeon and a fresh side quest related to (though not requiring) the Game Boy Printer accessory. This time, the game is being rebuilt from the ground up, but that raises several questions…
First, what is the nature of this remake? The rumors that have been swirling and roiling around a Link’s Awakening remake for some time now originally suggested it was in development for the 3DS, presumably using 2013’s A Link Between Worlds’ engine. As the trailer showcased, this game is for the Nintendo Switch and is using a very different engine and visual style than Link’s portable 2013 adventure. While an opening cinematic presents the iconic animated style that defined Link’s 90s look prior to Ocarina of Time, the game itself looks far more simplified and abstract—caught in some far-off artistic land where Disney’s Tsum Tsums and miniature claymation figurines coexist in surreal ceramic dioramas. In some ways, it brings to mind an older and less-repeated rumor about a Paper Mario-style Zelda game that was being batted around at one point.
However, at the same time, these choices being made in the visual department are now defining more abstract elements of the original. Moving arrows in dungeons that could have been interpreted as shifting natural materials such as sand are now being solidified into simple tiles with moving arrow patterns on them, while enemies that referenced the Mario franchise’s Goomba foe now look exactly like Goomba models ripped straight from a modern Mario game. Whether these interpretations and tweaks are something universally agreed upon will be a matter of opinion for those who’ve played this entry before, and we’ll have to wait and see what the final reactions will be. Regardless, the default camera appears to be focused in more of a three-quarters view than an overhead one, further separating it from A Link Between Worlds.
The way I see it, there are three ways of looking at all this. One, this art direction enhances the game’s surreal themes and ideas. Two, the original game’s in-game art style was fairly minimalist in and of itself, including having a Link sprite with two dots for eyes. Or three, the remake’s opening art style, reflective of the booklet art and some of the cut scenes from the original game, is not being fully utilized, and therefore this new visual style is something of a missed opportunity. The only caveat there is that the original game still had a minimalist in-game look that also carried over into some of the cut scenes.
But on the flip side of that…would those sort of visual compromises have been made if better technology was available, given the look of characters in the opening and ending cut scenes and the booklet art? Given the rise of more simplistic and cutesy art styles in indie games–Microsoft-exclusive Tunic comes to mind–I imagine this new style will be just fine for most, but it’s sure to cause some divisiveness and “what-ifs.” The once signature design of “teen” Link from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, A Link to the Past, Link’s Awakening—and to some extent Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages—hasn’t really ever been fully captured in a game, and it certainly would have been interesting to see it rendered in HD here.
Moving beyond the visuals, though, what of the game itself? The 2017 and 2018 rumors surrounding a Link’s Awakening remake seemed to suggest it was supposed to be revealed earlier than this, but that the success of Breath of the Wild caused the game to be delayed and reexamined—specifically with regard to how progression should be handled. The original Link’s Awakening had Link tackling the dungeons in a specific order. The rumors floating around before stated a desire for the game to be opened up more in light of Link’s 2017 success on the Switch. While it may not be good for such a story-driven Zelda entry, it would make sense in this regard: Those who jumped on board the franchise with Breath of the Wild will not be used to the idea of “limitations.” And having the game be more “open” might soften the blow of the visual style, which will not necessarily be immediately palatable to gamers that started playing Zelda with the aforementioned Switch entry.
Who can say if these rumors have any merit or not, but the very fact that this game exists now raises the possibility that these “rumors” were more important than they may have seemed at the time. Either way, any structural and visual alterations are going to be gambles for different sets of players, and Nintendo will have to walk a fine line in handling such a famous entry. One way of solving larger structural alterations would be to have the rumored, more nonlinear version of the game be a value-added “second quest,” but again, that hinges of the accuracy of the initial rumors. The very fact that the Switch has more buttons than the original Game Boy or Game Boy Color means that the game will have a more convenient and efficient way of mapping out and using items. However, it may be a sign of bigger changes being made in that the rooster-themed weather vane in Mabe Village looks to have possibly taken on the articulated-wing style of the save-point weather vanes from A Link Between Worlds.
Previously in Link’s Awakening, you could save the game at any time; this may or may not be the case with this remake. Further, will this game still include the extra objectives from Link’s Awakening DX, and will some of the game’s mysteries and puzzles be more spelled out, or left as the mysteries and puzzles they were? Though this game had its own way of delivering hints, it was a pre-Navi game, after all. And moreover, will minor (but charming) translation issues like “Bucket Mouse” bring about a new character, or will it be left alone, or will it be corrected to “Bucket Mouth”? It’s a fascinating situation.
Something that also struck me was the presentation of the music. The original Link’s Awakening soundtrack is among the strongest in the series, with a mixture of wistfulness, eeriness, and downright danger in its compositions. The trailer hinted that there might be a more “playful” take on some of the soundtrack to match the more unambiguously stylized visuals, and I hope that doesn’t carry through the entire project, as it affects the overall nature and impression of this entry’s world and story. Youtuber Jeremiah Sun (The Second Narrator) had done an amazing job modernizing and updating these songs without losing their original intent, for example.
I suppose that leaves one final question to be addressed: Why remake Link’s Awakening? As good as it was and still is, Nintendo seems to be overly concerned in recent years with making its back catalog more accessible to new players rather than continually building on the lessons learned. The more you tweak and change an old game, however, the more you tip your hand on ideas that could have been fleshed out and revealed with bigger impact in a completely new experience. I mean, by this modern philosophy, Link’s Awakening would have never existed. It would have been explicitly a stripped-down port of the original The Legend of Zelda or A Link to the Past. Instead, it ended up being a combination of principles from those two in a whole new package. In other words, in a certain kind of way, it was the Majora’s Mask of its time.
So even if progression elements are remixed and controls are improved, we’re getting something of a “half measure” out of this otherwise extraordinary effort by Nintendo. Older fans will have their nostalgia buttons pushed but know too much about the game to enjoy it as something wholly fresh, whereas new gamers will be getting a remix of a classic instead of an all-new classic that tries to far surpass what was done in 1993 and 1998. Yes, there’s likely room for both in the long run, but if one was absolutely determined to remake a game like this, developing it with an engine and approach more akin to what Grezzo used on Ocarina of Time 3D and Majora’s Mask 3D would have potentially made it a more rewarding experience for players old and new. (An indie developer, Ty Anderson, had been working on a fan project along those lines that was rather intriguing.)
Depending on the nature of the final product, perhaps there is an intention with this remake to teach the developers (and/or newer users) about a more structured Zelda experience with key items. Series producer Eiji Aonuma has stated in the past that the 2D and 3D Zelda teams have separate development goals and philosophies, but the restructuring and consolidation that’s gone on inside Nintendo in recent times may mean that’s no longer entirely the case, especially if this remake began its life as a 3DS project. And given how many ideas and visual references from the portable 2D Zelda games have found their way into the 3D entries, I think there is much more preexisting influence and overlap than admitted or realized in such statements. More relevant at the moment, though, was that Mr. Aonuma was hinting even back then that the 2D 3DS team might find its efforts going to Switch in due time.
Still, whatever it may look like, and whatever changes are made, the base experience of Link’s Awakening remains, in this writer’s mind, one of the top three Zelda experiences to date. Putting this remake on the Nintendo Switch in the wake of Breath of the Wild suggests the 3DS has finally reached the end of its rope, and it also lends credence to a rumor stating Nintendo has a desire to release a Zelda game on Switch every year. Having a new engine like this to remake older Zelda entries would certainly help speed up that prospect. But at the end of the day, it is a curious marketing gamble to release Link’s Awakening as the follow-up to the acclaimed modern entry that was Breath of the Wild, and time will tell if it pays off with its classic pedigree.
Peter W. Smorynski is a creative conceptualizer, author, freelance writer, and lecturer with a passion for video game design. (Contact PWS |@AGO_Plus | AGO+ Podcast on Youtube| AGO+ Features by PWS | ARM X Novel Series on Youtube)
If you liked this AGO+ article, here is a recommendation for your next read: “Zelda II: The Adventure of Link – How a Black Sheep was a Link to the Future”
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