Link's Awakening Review - A Link to the Past, But Worse
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2024
- You know a series is good when my least favorite entry is a great game.
Kinda weird that they decided to go with the Ocarina of Time Hylian shield design for the remake. That to me is very associated with Aonuma's games. And this was before his time with Zelda. Seems outta place. Oh, well. Whatever.
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Regarding the difficulty, I think another important aspect to keep in mind is the target audience. I died plenty of times playing Link's Awakening and the other Game Boy Zeldas as a kid, and they took me months to beat, but I replayed Oracle of Seasons for the first time last year and breezed through it in a few days. I was surprised by how easy it was; sections that I dreaded as a kid were trivial now. The only part that still gave me any trouble was the final boss and his ridiculous attack pattern. But these games weren't made with 30 year olds in mind, so I don't see their relative lack of challenge as an issue. It's sort of like rewaching old episodes of Arthur and complaining that the plots aren't complex enough.
Very good point. And something I was going to mention... but completely forgot lol. Guess I'll talk about it in the OoT video.
Still, Zelda 1 and LttP are for kids too. They weren't afraid to let those be challenging. It's that so many Zeldas go far beyond being easy in a kid-friendly way. With 20 heart containers, double defense, and multiple bottles with full health refills, it becomes nearly impossible to die for anyone who has any grasp of how to play the game. How young is the audience we're aiming for? These are kids' games, but they're not Pajama Sam level kids' games, are they? (Shout outs to Pajama Sam btw. Got me into adventure games.)
Your Arthur analogy is very apt. But if aiming for just a teensy bit older audience, someone of any age can watch the early episodes of Spongebob and enjoy them just as much as a kid. Sometimes even more so. It's one of the things I love about Sonic. I enjoy those games more now than I ever did when I was a kid. The games get better over time. Not worse. It'd be nice if Zelda had that same strength.
@@Pariah6950 Kids back then weren't overwhelmed by choice. They've got a game for birthday and whatever gift-giving holidays they had in their culture. They couldn't just get another F2P game, they couldn't pirate, they couldn't just get another game for $5. NES/GB games were short, couldn't get updates and had to last for a long time. Difficulty was the solution to length. They were more afraid of making a game that will last an our than it being too hard to finish. Once the choice increased and prices of games went down, the games didn't have to be difficult by necessity, but only by design aimed for more experienced audience. Many people enjoy easier games, especially kids. I remember when I was a kid I played FPS games with cheats for god mode and infinite ammo and I had a lot of fun.
My point is, easy modes are good these days, weren't then even in exactly the same games.
In terms of combat, could some of it also be a factor of giving players an active shield and less need to properly place themselves to hit like in A Link to the Past?
Like, I’ll admit my first LoZ experience that I played fully through was Ocarina of Time….I think on the GameCube collector disk? And I know for me, trying The Legend of Zelda and A Link to the Past is a major struggle solely on how the shield is used (something I struggled less with in Link’s Awakening and A Link Between Worlds). I’m looking forward to finally being able to try the Oracle games once they hit NSO (haven’t touched my 3DS in some time and forgot to buy them there)
You know what they say. You can't please everyone all the time. If they had gone with a reimagining, people would have gotten mad that it wasn't a faithful remake. But also top-down style Zelda fans like me had been wanting a game like this for a while. Like since A Link Between Worlds.
Why just not make a sequel than? Just make a nrw zelda with this engine!
“Who would want to watch a Zelda review at 3 in the morning?”
Me: “OH BOY 3:00 AM”
this
Another aspect of the art design in Link's Awakening is that the original game also had this distinction made between Link's look in the real and dream world. In the DX version, a photo mode was included that had someone come in and take photos of Link at various points in the game that could then be printed on the Gameboy Printer addon. The photos had a similar chibi art style to them compared to the more grounded Link we see at the beginning and end cutscenes, so the developers always intended for the game to be in a more cutesy art style beyond what the spites showcased, with the remake showcasing that entirely throughout the whole game.
would be interesting to see how they would have implemented it had they tried (maybe a QR code that would lead to an anime link picture on the nintendo website that could be printed?)
Very cool detail! I hadn't thought of it
I think the idea with making the Ganon phase of the final boss only weak to spin attacks is because in link to the past, you could only hit him with spin attacks unless you had the golden sword.
A Link to the Past never really clicked with me for whatever reason, but I like this one a lot. I'm not sure why, honestly. But yeah, they did make the remake easier. The original game had no bottles and a max of 16 hearts, but it was still pretty easy so I don't think this changes much.
Having played LADX first, while the Switch version is great it's practically a different game despite having the same world layout and story. LA is really designed around the gameboy screen, so it's a very different experience when playing on OG hardware. Switch NSO is a great way to try it out!
5:46 I heard that apparently link's awakening was originally intended to be a port of a link to the past. Though I don't have a source just the wiki and some videos I remember mention it so take this with a grain of salt.
i just love it when i get home from a hard day, feeling a bit low, looking through my subscription feed and seeing one of your videos there ❤
as always, top notch game re views , and thank you for this video about link awakening , man this game is underrated , even for zelda team of game developers , it's one the games they enjoyed making back in 90s , and it's so good
I prefer this game over ALttP for three reasons, pacing, items and dungeon design.
In ALttP there's absolutely nothing to do in the overworld at around the last third of the game, while in the early game you're overloaded with stuff to do both in the overworld and dungeons and the early game is probably the best part of that game. Link's Awakening makes it so there's always something to do in between dungeons. Admittedly it does rely too much on scripted events in my opinion, but because of how items are used there's a really nice sense of progression to filling out the map and exploring the world feels more engaging. This also brings me to my next point.
The items. Compared to ALttP I think less is more. In ALttP there's a lot of items you only use once or even not at all, there's even literally an item that only serves the purpose of getting a similar item. Admittedly not all the items in LA are great, but I think they do a better job balancing out their uses. Like I mentioned earlier, the items give this game a good sense of progression and getting a new item always feels like a treat as opposed to something you mark down on a checklist. I also really like combining items, having items that are not only good items on their but can also improve previous items is such a genius idea.
As for dungeon design, there's honestly nothing wrong with ALttP's dungeons, I just like the one's in LA a little bit more. There's so much variety in each dungeon, not just in terms of visuals, but also switches up the dungeon objectives and how you progress. For example, you have the Key Cavern, which is more of a Zelda 1 style dungeon with multiple paths and needing to collect as many keys as possible. Then you have Eagle's Tower which is a big interconnected dungeon similar to the Tower of Hera from ALttP, only instead the goal is to destroy four pillars in order to get to the top. I also think this game's dungeons don't overstay their welcome, which is a problem I have with Oracle's dungeons.
That said, I honestly don't care for the Switch version that much, mainly because I think the changes to the physics make it less fun. I personally prefer the original/DX version, which is my opinion is a really underrated speedrun game. The game feels so smooth and responsive for a gameboy game and can do some fun combat stuff with the sword and roc's feather, since your sword will always hit grounded enemies even while jumping. The glitches in the game are also really fun to mess around and if you know what you're doing the game can be just as open as the previous Zeldas.
I think most people expected something like LBW’e art style. That game even handled the house proportions issue you mentioned
This is my favorite game right here. I'm actually of the opinion that this is a directly superior version of ALTTP. More tightly designed world and dungeons (Eagle's Tower and Catfish's Maw being among my favorite 2D dungeons), more charm, better music and story, roc's feather, etc.
The thing about the game feeling a lot like ALTTP is that the game was actually originally going to be a port of that game onto the Gameboy, but it quickly became a passion project that they had a lot more freedom with because Nintendo and Miyamoto were a lot more hands-off this time around.
I'm looking forward to the story video, because this might be my favorite story in all of fiction. There are probably better, more complex stories, but in terms of sheer emotional impact, this game is at the peak. Looking forward to elaborating next time.
Greatly enjoy your content btw 👍
how is link's awakening a "version" of ALttP at all!? lol
@@tsvtsvtsv Excellent question my friend! Development of LA started as a demake of ALttP on the Gameboy, which is why the map layout, mechanics, and structure are very similar. LA does most of the things ALttP does but much better in my opinion, which is why I call it a "better version". I'm going to trust that your question was in good faith and not a reaction to an opinion you disagree with. Hope this helps!
Why is he so against fishing minigames?
If it were up to me there'd be fishing in every Zelda game 🫡
I'm not. I'm against games wasting development resources on things that add nothing to the core experience of what the game is. You know when a platformer suddenly has a turret level for no reason? Or a shooter has a crappy vehicle level? Yeah, those suck too. Other examples would be the card minigames in Shovel Knight's King of Cards campaign and Bug Fables. I really, really did not want to do those.
@Pariah6950 Developers aren't machines. Most things like this in early games were done for fun during dev free time. The game wouldn't become better if they didn't make these things, because they wouldn't be working on the core game anyway.
The music in this remake is phenomenal.
It's Zelda of course it is.
Link's Awakening is my favorite 2D Zelda, and that's almost entirely due to the game's setting. I'm not typically a "story over gameplay" guy, but Koholint Island is equal parts charming and tragic. It presents itself as being this idyllic little village, and its inhabitants are equal parts likeable and ridiculous, but once the layers are pulled back and you learn more about the nature of the island, it becomes more somber, almost sinister. Every inhabitant of the island is doomed -- either to live in a state of false existence with no way off the island for all eternity, or to cease to exist should the Wind Fish ever wake up. And since waking the Wind Fish is the only way for Link to escape the island, there's a bittersweet nature to your goals, wherein accomplishing them means essentially killing everyone and everything on the island that you may have grown attached to.
It's brilliant, and such a departure from the typical Zelda fare without feeling out of place. It's the only story I can think of, in all of fiction, that does the "it was all a dream" twist without leaving the audience feeling cheated. It *was* a dream in that it was literally a manifestation of the Wind Fish's slumber, but Koholint Island was still very real to Link and the player.
Even though I'm not too crazy about Zelda I'm actually very excited for this series
The best part of this remake is the raft section, the water looks too good
this doesn't excuse the whole problem, but the thing about arbitary boss weaknesses I would consider to be completely fair on one count; the part of the final boss shaped like Ganon being vulnerable only to spin attacks is in my opinion, not bullshit or arbitrary. This was the case in a Link to the Past also UNLESS you have an upgraded sword. If you do then you can swipe him with normal attacks but if you only have the base level master sword then only spin attacks can hurt him. So this one actually makes sense, if you've played a link to the past and didn't upgrade your sword and so have that prior knowledge. I think that's pretty fair I mean I didn't know how to upgrade the sword when I was a kid (which is how I know this) so I always knew you can only hit him with a spin attack unless you have a good enough sword
Links Awakening is my favorite 2d Zelda. Majoras Mask is my fav zelda game and i find this to be MM in 2d form. Its not as dark but in terms of how weird and surreal it is. The map design is fantastic its the perfect size for a game of this scope. All the dungeons are fantastic and the island itself I just love almost every area.
I watched a video recently that actually described that both DX and this port both made the game easier each time. The colour dungeon obviously breaks the game a lot due to the game not being changed to account for them, DX also made it so certain bosses, e.g. the Genie, easier for no reason.
man , YOU'RE MAKING zelda awakening game re view , i've wait a long time to see you tackle this series as i thought from seeing many of your videos that it would be interesting to see your takes on it as a fan of this series , and this game is one of my favourites of it
also while this is completely un related to this video , but i think you should take a loo on major link "legend of zelda hero's purpose " fan mad animation series which takes place between majora's mask and twilight princess , it's such a wonderful series of fan made blender animation that just get the characterisation of the characters so right , there is already 4 episodes released , the fifth one releases tomorrow at 18:00 , please , take a look on it
Hype can ruin a first experience for me. I've told this story to death, but it's one I feel is worth sharing. I was a N64 kid, so when I got my PS2 I started buying PS1 games retroactively. Everyone I knew who had PS1 hyped up Final Fantasy 7 to the Nth degree. I do think FF7 is good, but it couldn't meet the explanations other people gave me for it. In contrast, I never heard anything about Final Fantasy 9 and went into that game blind. FF9 ended up becoming my favorite in the series, and none of the FF games I've played since then ever surpassed it for me. I think many of the older games were good, but the newer ones got worse. FF13 was the breaking point, and FF15's setting and characters did nothing for me. It's basically a dead franchise in my books.
You make a decent argument in regards to the minigames, but to play devil's advocate, I think they can and do have a place in some games like the Zelda series. If done correctly, they do add a bit more variety to open games giving the player something else to do in order to obtain something in exchange, and if designed correctly, can be fun in their own right. But if you can't make a minigame fun or at least not annoying to play, then developers should definitely cut their loses and not let it detract them from the main experience.
💣 + 🏹 = the only thing that matters.
There is a hardmode romhack for the gameboy version, wonder if thats any good
Ngl I thought you were gonna play og since from what I heard people like og more than the remake. I can't say it tho since I never played it tho I'm thinking of playing og.
Sometimes its nice to have minigames with some variety , even to an extreme. There are games that have totally different games included to them, which also serve as taking a break in a different way without stopping to play the game. It can also make the game feel more lively with stuff to do apart from the coregameplay. As an example: the cardgames in the final Fantasy games and witcher 3 are so much fun! I love them to death, its so addictive. And since its an implemented minigame, that also the NPCs play in the gameworld, it makes the world and NPCs more living. I wouldnt buy a seperate cardgame like that. It fits better to include them into those RPGs as sidecontent and also serves the purpose as a collectible quest, trying to get all the cards in the game. But yes, a cranegame is NOT a substitute for that. And the fishing game in this game here can be a pain in the ass ^^
WW and TP are so easy, I can't think of any other way to play those games BUT Hero Mode, despite what you said about it. Also I'm curious when you get to the N64 games what you'll consider to be the definitive versions.
$20 its the PC fan ports, its happened already with the og sonic games + adventure games
I'd honestly play this game over A Link to the Past any day because of 3 reasons: the setting, the dungeons, and the feather
For some reason, I really dig the Zelda games that *don't* take place in Hyrule. Koholint Island and Termina are my jam. Like, I don't hate Hyrule or anything, it's just a coincidence that my two favorite Zeldas take place outside of it.
I think this game's lower difficulty was balanced around the fact that you won't always have your sword and shield equipped in the Game Boy version. Repeatedly pausing the game to de-equip and re-equip items gets pretty annoying, so the longer you can last without a sword or shield, the better.
All three GBC games make my top 5 Zelda games, honestly, though LADX probably the most consistent fifth, sometimes falls beneath lttp and albw depending on how I’m feeling when I mentally rank them. Main things it has going for it are its scenario and atmosphere. They’re some of the ‘purest’ Zelda gameplay in a replayable, bite sized package, while still having their own cool ideas and bringing unique things to the table while not having a ton of bs that bogs down the pace of gameplay like some of the more ambitious games can do - nothing like triforce hunting in WW or how goddamn long it takes to be allowed to start actually playing the game in TP… Both games I adore.
Never played the new LA remake (nor the original… DX does genuinely completely obsolete it in a way I wouldn’t say is true of most other Zelda remakes, because it’s just 1:1 plus color and the color dungeon; I’d call LADX more a definitive port of the game if anything), but I do know Zelda has a bit of a history of full on remakes being… Hit and miss. Especially since it’s easier than ever to play LADX now I definitely second the idea of checking it out to see for yourself. Does the Switch version even have the bit where the boomerang oneshots the final form of the final boss?
Still, it takes a certain skill to make even “more of the same” appealing. Mega Man succeeds and fails at this constantly while never really changing what you’ve been doing since MM1, we all loved New Super Mario Bros until we didn’t, Sonic Mania is widely considered a phenomenal followup of the S3K style that would’ve lived up to its potential even more if it took its philosophy to more or even exclusively original stages, and personally while I enjoyed completing Breath of the Wild when I first got it nothing about this sequel coming up has me overcoming the feeling I’ve had since finishing it of “alright I’m not sure I particularly feel like doing even more of this” that’s filled me since then. Anyway, Link to the Past is so blatantly the blueprint for the rest of the series, it’s super obvious for any top-down game especially (I’d say that for 3D titles Ocarina’s influence is also undeniable, but even then the ancestry is there and clear), and of the games that most faithfully follow its formula, I think LA and the Oracle games manage it easily the most gracefully, capturing its strengths and still managing to stand with their own identities.
Interestingly, no, LADX is not a pure direct upgrade from the original. The original has skippable dialogue and a faster menu, which are two huge weaknesses for DX in my opinion. I understand preferring DX but there are tradeoffs
@@grimey3480 Huh, today I learned. Slower menu seems like not a big deal given what it's for, but no skipping dialogue seems downright bizarre. Wonder why.
@@jacobkakyoin6882 Valid. The menu isn't THAT much slower but the item switching already annoys me so that's a change that matters to me personally. And yeah, no clue why they thought to remove the skippable dialogue in DX. Thank goodness for the remake if you ask me lol
Regarding the graphics thing, i don't have a problem with the diorama style, more with the material if you want to call it, the plastic look, i would prefer a more cartoony/cartoon style to this plastic look. But i don't have a problem with the rest of the choices.
The problem of minigames is an interesting discussion to me because I really like minigames, but I entirely agree with the argument against them. Part of the reason I play video games is to role play in the fantasy rpg world, and stuff like fishing minigames really add to the immersion. The problem is that they also take away from anyone who is playing exclusively for the gameplay because they often lock items and collectibles behind something that isn't the game they are here to play. This is made worse by the fact that the people who are just trying to play the video game would probably be more likely to care about 100%. Link's awakening is a bad example in the argument for minigames though because the crane game makes no sense relative to the setting and is more likely to break immersion then anything.
Lowkey starving for Sonic videos ngl
I’m glad I’m not the only one who was stuck on cutting down that bush. Fuck that bush.
I definitely agree with you about minigames in general, either minigames are so simple that they're boring, or they're so different from the original game that, if you're not good at what's basically a completely different genre, then you get a random roadblock that doesn't feel satisfying to beat because it wasn't intended as one.
I think the way to do minigames correctly would be to make them fully optional and use them as gateways to other genres, by not having them braindead easy but also not having them be as difficult as full games that expect you to know a bit about the genre.
That waynthe game can have more things to do, "diversity" and actually have these things contribute to the experience in a way ("I played this mid visual novel, I didn't really like it but the DDR minigame felt very fun to master and made me want to play more of what would become my favourite genre, so I'm thankful for it" is what I guess would be said after having played a gale that follow this philosophy).
Also having a reward in the sense of an emotional dialogue or interesting information(lore related or not) in order to not feel like a waste but not giving out a collectible, weapon upgrade or completion percentage as a way to not force completionists to do it.
now that I think about it, I guess a other way to create a "good" minigame would be to just make it multiplayer(of course that doesn't work for the braindead minigame kind), anything is fun when you do it with a friend, of course adding multiplayer in the main game or in a side mode would be better, but I guess if you can't then that's the next best thing
I'm going to have to disagree with what you've said the most in this... Link's Awakening is not Link to the Past again at all. Besides the top view, having items, puzzles, & an overworld, which are all just staples of the series in 2D, they're almost nothing alike.
Link to the Past is very non-linear. You don't have to do the dungeons in order. In Link's Awakening, you do.
There's some overlap in items, but some unique items in each.
Link's Awakening has the trading sequence, while Link to the Past does not.
Link to the Past had two worlds, while Link's Awakening does not.
Link's Awakening has side view segments that connect distant points in the dungeons. Link to the Past does not.
Link's Awakening has several references to Mario & Kirby... Link to the Past doesn't.
In the original, the items you could put on the A and B buttons also included the sword, shield, bracelets (to pick things up), and the Pegasus Boots. Having access to all these things at all times does reduce the difficulty of the game. There were also no bottles. Having these mapped to specific buttons instead now makes it feel closer to Link to the Past... But it's still very different. The Roc's Feather alone makes the gameplay feel completely different.
I greatly enjoy both Link to the Past and Link's Awakening... But the gameboy Zeldas (Link's Awakening & the Oracles) just feel very different from Link to the Past. Link Between Worlds plays pretty close to Link to the Past, but it's pretty obvious why. Minish Cap feels somewhere between these two groups...
Link's Awakening was originally a passion project by some of the people at Nintendo that was presented to the higher ups at Nintendo pretty close to its completion.
The crane game isn't optional, because you need the Yoshi Doll to start the item trading sequence, which is required to access certain areas to make progress. The original didn't have the models you can put in the houses though.
Half of your beef with this game wouldn't exist if you played the original.
10:09 tbh my main reason why I don’t play link awakening that often, at certain points in the game where I don’t know where to go next and that part is a bit annoying. It’s still a fun game but I kind of wish the remake changed stuff like this 10:37
There is only 1 thing about the artstyle of this game which annoys me...and it doesn't even have anything to do with this game itself. It's more of a ,,community" thing.
Personally, I think the remake looks fantastic. It wouldn't be the style I would choose to remake Links Awakening, but that's probably why I'm not working as an art director. xD
No, the thing which annoys me is when people compare this games artstyle to the Pokemon Generation 4 remakes in an attempt to defend the hideous graphics of the Gen 4 remakes.
The Links Awakening Remake looks fantastic in terms of the technical fidelity.
The Pokemon Generation 4 Remakes have a similar artstyle, but look horrendous in terms of the technical fidelity.
To anyone who keeps comparing these 2 games in order to defend the Gen 4 remakes lazy graphics...please...just stop insulting Links Awakening like that.
Man, I think Link's Awakening DX was the first Zelda I actually owned rather than playing at a friend's house.
I think you've more or less convinced me on the minigame point. I can't bring myself to fully knock the classic video game tradition of including a fishing minigame just for the hell of it, mostly out of nostalgia for the trope. But I do have to concede that unless you're making a party game or like a Kirby game the resources spent on minigames are better used for feeding into the core gameplay.
If I want to take a break from a game I'm playing I'm probably not going to turn to a side-mode, I'm probably just gonna do something else with my time. I think this mentality came from the era where consumers were only likely to buy a very small number of games so devs had to make them last, usually through arbitrary difficulty, so the rise of side-content was inevitable and probably a welcome change of pace for consumers who kept getting their ass kicked by other classic games. But overall I think it's a model that should be fazed out.
I'm speaking strictly from a "Games as Play" perspective though, there is some definite artistic merit in having breaks from the standard gameplay. This is to say nothing of how the "Games as Commerce" sector would rather nickel and dime players for the same kind of side material today but HUGE digression aside...
Link's Awakening is great and I agree with pm all your critiques. Great video!
Glad to see I'm doing a better job of communicating what I mean there. Instead of wasting development resources on a minigame, make a new enemy type or something. That will do so much more for making the game better.
RE4 to me is one of the gold standards of a focused game. That game doesn't fuck around with dumb crap. A few set pieces here and there, but mostly all still baked into the core gameplay. And it rocks for like 15 hours with no breaks. Such an awesome game.
Nah mate, fishing existed in the original
The artstyle argument that matters is that in the original you had no way of telling it was a dream, it just looked like zelda pixels of the time, so when you found out it was a dream it was a big wow moment. The remake making everything toylike plasticy and odd makes it much more obvious that it leans towards a dream-world.
It's a beautiful looking game I just don't like how they did it, I'd much prefer it looked like the concept art. In fact, I personally wish they'd have totally remade it into that 3rd Grezzo game you were talking about before, something that drastic.
Pariah: "oh boy it's almost 3:00am."
Me: another Zelda game with a dumb North American title. The Legend of Zelda Dreaming Island is a much better name. Why change it?
Especially since it's not Link who awakens.
Dreaming Island is not a better name lol
@@Gnidel Exactly.
@@grimey3480 The game takes place on a island where everyone is stuck at because of a sleeping fish. So yes it is better. Link doesn't awaken the wind fish does.
@@spartanq7781 I prefer Link's Awakening because it fits the pattern of the other NA titles with "Link" in the name, and I also like the twist being hidden in plain sight in that title. Very good foreshadowing. And Link does awakening at the end of the game, you literally see him do it? The dream is shared between the Wind Fish and Link, he was also dreaming.
I appreciated your point about mini-games. While part of me really respects the experimental, maximalist, "throw everything at the wall" game design of the mid-to-late 90s, in practicality it almost never resulted in a better product. People seem to absolutely adore Final Fantasy VII, but so much of that game is spent doing some pseudo-QTE bullshit and almost *none of it is optional.*
Was the final boss meant to be easy or something? Did you want the game to hold your hand the entire time? The point of the final boss is to challenge the player, and to force you to think critically about using all your items to defeat the boss. All i hear is you complaining about the game being a little bit challenging, and being a baby about it.
We've reached the point where I don't care as much what games you talk about. I just love hearing your thoughts about video games.