The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – Nintendo Switch Preview
Thanks to Nintendo of Canada, we have begun playing our way through The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening on the Nintendo Switch. As you would assume from a remaster, the new game is very much in line with the original and DX releases, with a few notable, quality of life changes. In our early time with the game, there are many things to marvel at, and a few that raise some questions. Let’s dive in!
It is no secret that Link’s Awakening looks absolutely gorgeous, and once we got away from the constraints of the 10 minute preview Nintendo gave us last month, it’s easy to marvel again and again on how much work went into bringing this retro title to the modern console. Characters are incredibly detailed and crisp, and the graphical style really suites the tone and location of the game.
By playing the Gameboy Color version of the game, and then hopping into the remaster on Nintendo Switch, the quality of life improvements are very evident, and may not be appreciated by the average player, whether they’ve played the original or not. Two main new features stand out. First, in the GBC version, you can only have two items available to you at any one time; to change them out, players would have to pause the game, access the inventory screen, and swap in the desired items.
In the remastered version, the Sword, Shield, and Pegasus Boots are all mapped to different buttons, and there is no need to keep swapping. We do wish, however, that there was a separation of the ZL and L / ZR and R buttons, as it seems like a waste of two buttons spaces that could have been used for inventory. Time will tell whether that becomes a big problem as we progress, or whether it’s just a minor annoyance early on.
The second quality of life improvement revolves around the map – ever since introducing The Legend of Zelda games to devices with touch screens, Nintendo has been great in allowing players to litter their game maps with icons to help them remember where certain locations / items / characters are. This makes tracking back to something you saw hours earlier much easier.
Ultimately, to the excitement of some and perhaps the disappointment of others, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is basically a square-by-square faithful recreation to the original, even down to the text being used. While there are more secret seashells and hidden heart containers to find in this version, if locations and areas feel familiar to you – if you previously played this title before – they should. It is a remaster after all.
Outside of the quality of life upgrades and the visual and audio changes, the biggest new addition to Link’s Awakening is Chamber Dungeons. Chamber Dungeons allows players to create their own dungeons for others to work their way through, and while it obviously doesn’t have the creative freedom of something like Mario Maker – we can hope, right Nintendo? – there are tons of different rooms to choose from, and effects to leverage in each room, such as falling bombs. The more you play Link’s Awakening and the more Chamber Dungeons you build and complete, the bigger and better your own personal dungeons can become.
Although we are not entirely sure how many dungeon rooms there will be to choose from once the game is complete, this mode could have some legs after the end game – the down side is that you’ll have experienced these rooms in the past, and if your memory is good, will have some idea of how to complete them, lessening the challenge just a little bit. Here’s hoping that the effects you can put on each room will ratchet up the difficult, and the overall experience!
By using The Legend of Zelda amiibo, you can even copy and transfer your created dungeons from your game to someone else game, which is a really great feature we know we will use often.
While Nintendo has appeared to create a fabulous experience here – at least as far as we’ve played – there are some frame rate issues that have been dogging this game since people first played the demo at E3 2019. While we fully expect this issue to be rectified by launch, it’s worth noting that it does exist at this time. Is it game breaking, or should it deter you from making this purchase? Absolutely not, but it is worth noting as you head into the games launch on September 20th.
A copy of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was provided by Nintendo of Canada for this preview. Our review will be available closer to launch, so stay tuned. You can find Abdallah Smash on YouTube, where he is producing family friendly Nintendo content for all to enjoy!
To look forward to the upcoming launch of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Abdallah is playing through the GBC version of the game! Check it out with episode 1 below!