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Link's Awakening - Remake, Re-release or Direct Sequel campaign?
NWR_insanolord:
I haven't played any of the remake yet, but if it's anything like the original you shouldn't expect much in the way of story. It was pretty advanced for a Game Boy game, but it was still a Game Boy game.
broodwars:
I'm nearing the end of the game, myself. I put the game up tonight in the 8th dungeon.
So far, I'm quite enjoying the game, but I can't exactly say that I love it. I never made it further than the 2nd or so dungeon in the DX incarnation of Link's Awakening because I found the item-switching gameplay extremely tedious and the environments irritatingly labyrinthine.
Playing the Switch remake now, this is easily the most playable the game's ever been now that we have dedicated buttons for the sword, Pegasus Boots, and shield. I'm still finding the overworld annoyingly convoluted, but the dungeons extremely simplistic. I'm glad I finally played it properly, but I'm not really seeing where all the love for this game is coming from. Outside of the bizarre enemy cameos, the game's just not doing anything we haven't seen done better in both earlier (LTTP) and later Zelda titles.
I still have to do a sweep of the world for the seashells and heart pieces before I finish off the game, as I only have around 35 seashells right now and 17 full heart containers (soon to be 18 when I beat the 8th dungeon).
Adrock:
--- Quote from: broodwars on September 23, 2019, 12:25:31 AM ---I'm glad I finally played it properly, but I'm not really seeing where all the love for this game is coming from. Outside of the bizarre enemy cameos, the game's just not doing anything we haven't seen done better in both earlier (LTTP) and later Zelda titles.
--- End quote ---
You mentioned not getting further than the second dungeon or so, but did you play it in the 90s? I think that’s largely where that it comes from. As a big Link to the Past mark, I was thoroughly impressed by how much of that game Nintendo managed to squeeze into a Gameboy cartridge. It isn’t that close but still really good for a black and white handheld. Completely remaking Link’s Awakening takes some of that away. The first few dungeons are pretty simplistic; the last three are some of my favorites in the entire series, especially Eagle Tower. Also, Turtle Rock in Link’s Awakening > Turtle Rock in A Link to the Past. It isn’t even close. Turtle Rock in A Link to the Past sucks. So much.
Anyway, I completed the Switch version this weekend. 100% item collection (I cheated by googling the last six or seven Secret Seashells because the reward wasn’t worth randomly digging around Koholint Island). The only thing I didn’t do was the last set of Dampe’s chamber dungeons, and I doubt I’ll go back to it (see below). Fishing was infuriating at times. After a while, I did get good at it. Probably was not worth the two to three hours it took to get all the rewards. I got stuck trying to catch the Cheep Cheep. According to my 3DS, the last time I played Link’s Awakening was in September 2014. I was surprised by how much I didn’t remember considering this is probably my fifth or sixth play through. I know Grezzo added heart pieces and Secret Seashells. I’m specifically referring to parts of dungeons. I definitely wandered at times.
Link’s Awakening is still fun though it weirdly lost some of its luster by getting a new coat of paint. I love the graphics, just not of this game. I’m tired; I’ll regroup in the morning.
Besides the high definition graphics, the Chamber Dungeons are the biggest addition. I didn’t put hours upon hours into dungeon creation because I really just wanted in-game items. I created the requisite 12 dungeons. At best, it’s an okay starting point for a Zelda Maker. At worst, the limitations are so glaring, I’ll probably never spend time creating dungeons. Has anyone used Microsoft Visio? I use it at work to make flowcharts. Sometimes, I’ll try to move a box or maybe a few boxes then Visio has a stroke and fucks up all the arrows/connectors. Unless I’m having a stroke, that’s what adding rooms with a staircase in the Chamber Dungeons feels like. For one arrangement, Dampe wants you to make a dungeon with staircases and isolates a couple rooms so you’re forced to use staircases to reach those sections. The game automatically chooses which two staircases connect, and just kept choosing the wrong ones. On top of that, the last chest is always the Boss Key. It got to the point where I just cheesed my way through. I used as few rooms as possible and created intentional dead ends without chests just so I wouldn’t have to go there when I adventure through the dungeon for the Secret Seashell or whatever.
Ultimately, the Chamber Dungeon mode feels like a free trial version. It wasn’t very enjoyable to me. Sure, I’ll make some dungeons for the items, but without a bunch of wild customization options, I won’t go back to it now that I finished the main quest. I have no doubt Nintendo can absolutely make an fun and initiative dungeon creator. I got the sense the team was merely testing out the waters.
broodwars:
--- Quote from: Adrock on September 23, 2019, 01:51:59 AM ---
--- Quote from: broodwars on September 23, 2019, 12:25:31 AM ---I'm glad I finally played it properly, but I'm not really seeing where all the love for this game is coming from. Outside of the bizarre enemy cameos, the game's just not doing anything we haven't seen done better in both earlier (LTTP) and later Zelda titles.
--- End quote ---
You mentioned not getting further than the second dungeon or so, but did you play it in the 90s? I think that’s largely where that it comes from.
--- End quote ---
I did play Link's Awakening DX on my GBA back in the early 2000s, but I never got very far in it. I think I got stuck trying to find the 3rd dungeon, running around in circles in the overworld trying to find the damn castle with the 5 golden leaves. I eventually just gave up and went on to other games. This is the 1st time I'm playing the game all the way through. I'm not sure why Link's Awakening gave me so much trouble on the GBA. I got through the Oracle games just fine, and they're much better and more complex than Link's Awakening is.
It just feels like, for a full-priced remake, they could have done a lot more to flesh this game out and justify that price. I mentioned on Twitter that the storytelling is really barebones and not particularly engaging, and people come back at me with "well, it was a GameBoy Game. What did you expect?" To which I have to reply "This is a remake on a modern console. That excuse no longer applies." Grezzo could have done whatever they wanted to beef up aspects of the original game that were lacking. Time and advances in technology have wiped away what made Link's Awakening unique, so Grezzo could have done more (in the vein of the Resident Evil GameCube remake) to expand upon the original material to reinforce its uniqueness.
It's weird, but this feels like a $40 barebones remake sold for $60 because Nintendo.
And yes, the lazy coding with the staircase pairing in the Chamber Dungeons pissed me off, too. It just makes absolutely no sense how it will arbitrarily pair them to ruin a dungeon layout. I don't know why they didn't just let you manually pair them, except that would actually involve effort on the dev's part.
pokepal148:
--- Quote from: broodwars on September 23, 2019, 12:25:31 AM ---Outside of the bizarre enemy cameos, the game's just not doing anything we haven't seen done better in both earlier (LTTP) and later Zelda titles.
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Link's Awakening is actually secretly the most influential game in the series. The whole Zelda formula for dungeon design that went on until Skyward Sword was something that Link's Awakening started.
here's a link.
--- Quote ---I mentioned on Twitter that the storytelling is really barebones and not particularly engaging, and people come back at me with "well, it was a GameBoy Game. What did you expect?" To which I have to reply "This is a remake on a modern console. That excuse no longer applies." Grezzo could have done whatever they wanted to beef up aspects of the original game that were lacking. Time and advances in technology have wiped away what made Link's Awakening unique, so Grezzo could have done more (in the vein of the Resident Evil GameCube remake) to expand upon the original material to reinforce its uniqueness.
--- End quote ---
Actually, what really make's Link's Awakening unique is it's story. It's this kind of weird, morally ambiguous thing that you wouldn't expect from the Zelda series which generally goes for more classic good vs evil tropes.
If the Oracle Games get remastered than I will expect something more drastic in terms of storytelling. The Oracle games are just much more like traditional Zelda games in terms of story so they could benefit greatly from being on more modern hardware, but I feel that Link's Awakening's story works largely because it's presented in such a minimalist way. It's abstract, strange, and not for everybody but to call the way it's told lacking or outdated demonstrates a massive misunderstanding of what makes that game's story appealing to so many people.