+- Tendo City (https://www.tendocity.net)
+-- Forum: Tendo City: Metropolitan District (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Tendo City (https://www.tendocity.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=42)
+--- Thread: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch (/showthread.php?tid=7315)
Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - Dark Jaguar - 16th March 2021
I've finally decided to do a full playthrough of the latest iteration of one of my favorite games of all time, even if LTTP has edged it out a bit in recent years. In order to do this, I went ahead and played through both the original GB version and the GBC "DX" enhanced edition in the past couple of weeks. I'm now tackling the Switch version and can give a few early opinions.
Firstly, while the gameplay mechanics are very similar to the Gameboy original, they are tweaked in numerous ways both small and large enough that you'll notice if you're familiar with that game. For one, it's actually 3D. This means that little tricks like standing north of pools of water with your sword out to impale fish as they jump "up" no longer works, since they ACTUALLY jump up now. It also means that you have to be aware of whether an enemy is airborn or not and adjust your attacks accordingly. In short, all of these little changes actually make combat harder than before, but in a fair way. One exception are the Peahat monsters. Since they actually are airborn, they aren't a threat at all to Link any more when they take flight. They just pass right over him. It trivializes the enemy to the point where I don't even consider their existance until they land. I think perhaps they shouldn't have made them go as high in the air so that they can still hit Link as they fly around. Some enemies have their attack patterns tweaked as a result of the model-based rather than tile-based hit detection. All the enemies holding shields can't just be defeated by holding out your sword and "lining up" with their head zone. So, they have a little technique to them now. Let them hit your shield, they'll recoil and be vulnerable and you can strike them then (or, just sneak up from behind before they noticed you're there, just like you could in the original). Speaking of, the shield mechanic is changed just so slightly to make it harder. Before, you could keep your shield and sword out at all times. You can still hold up your shield and charge your sword, but if you strike something with your sword you temporarily lower your shield for a split second. If you hold up your shield and just swing, you also briefly lower your shield. This prevents you from just being a turtle the entire game and encourages a little more strategy and careful watching of projectiles coming your way.
Another set of changes are bosses. I'm four bosses in and every last one has been tweaked in various ways. The first boss for example takes FAR fewer hits and fights on a somewhat larger platform, making it far easier. The second boss, the clown genie, is roughly the same as his DX incarnation in difficulty with the addition of an expanded hint that makes exactly what you need to do to break his bottle entirely obvious. Yes, even more so than the hint in the DX version. The third and forth bosses? The trend for them seems to be making them harder than the original. I like this, it's a clear difficulty curve that the boss fights were lacking in the original. The slime now has to be struck specifically in the eyes in order to be split down to that thread, not just anywhere will do. The fish boss takes far more hits to prevent just instantly finishing it off at the very start of the fight.
Now for those hints I mentioned. No, there aren't any extra owl statues but the rest of the game seems to overload the player with far too many hints about exactly where to go or what to do. They aren't as bad as Navi or Fi let's say, but they do come a bit more often than they ever needed to be. I'd have appreciated it if "Hero Mode" meant keeping the hints only the original GB game gave.
About that, I adore Hero Mode. It's unlocked at the very start, which is good in a remake. It prevents any hearts from dropping, or fairies, or the new apples to be found in some trees like in LTTP, and it also halves Link's base defense. For someone like me who's played this game as many times as I have, it's great for the game to actually feel like a challenge again. The game also adds autosaves. Note that I said it ADDS it. Manual saving still exists which is great when you're going for a no-death run. If you do want to heal in hero mode, find a fairy fountain or a piece of heart. You can also find bottles in the game now which let you catch fairies. Hero mode prevents them from appearing in the wild, but most fairy fountains also have a normal fairy floating around inside now.
Utilizing a variety of items without pausing, and mostly removing the "scrolling screen" mechanic, is a huge bonus that makes this game feel far smoother without constant interruptions. It's THE way to play the game honestly. No, it doesn't make the game super easy just because you can do this, especially on Hero mode. In fact I wish they'd gone further. The feather definitely should have had it's own dedicated button (such as RZ, which right now just does the same thing as R, shielding).
Every one of the mini-games has been overhauled, mostly for the better. The crane mini-game uses an entirely new layout which prevents the old "this is the sweet spot" trick from working. Mind you, there are now NEW sweet spots for you to memorize, but you have to memorize new ones for each item location now, which at least provides variety. I love that. Getting the claw to grip the item just right is also appreciated for just that extra bit of physics, BUT I hate one thing. A lot of items you can get like rupees and heart pieces are pretty flat, and even if you perfectly grasp them there is a random chance it may just slide right out the open sides of the claw the moment it starts moving. I found I had to intentionally get my grip a little "off" just to knock those flat items over at an angle so they wouldn't slide out like that. I can USUALLY get all 5 items accurately and clear the place out now, but that little bit of unpredictability can be annoying. The fishing pond has also been greatly expanded. The fishing itself has more elements to keep track of to make it more engaging, and there's a lot more new challenges and kinds of "fish" to catch. I love all that, but what I hate is how random it is when the rarer fish will even show up in the pond in the first place. There's no control over that. The river rapids game is a very similar only slightly tweaked layout. I have only just reached it, so I haven't really gotten the hang of it yet, but it looks like the changes are meant to optimize two new challenge modes: a "collect as many as you can" mode, and a "racing" mode.
Dampe's dungeon building fun is well.... I'll be frank. It's amusing the first time you mess with it, but the joy is in building the dungeons, not in actually completing one you just built and thus know all the ins and outs of. The biggest failing of this mode is that you can't actually try anyone else's dungeons (that and other small things like not being able to control how stairs link up or what's inside each chest). It kills it dead. Also, Dampe fits just fine as the character who runs the place, but it's a little disappointing they couldn't come up with a brand new character and just went with a recognizable one from other Zelda games. He sticks out because of how creative the rest of this old game's characters are, including the photo taking mouse in the DX version who's utterly missing now. SOME of the scenes that previously involved the photographer are still in the game, but minus the photograph collecting which was pretty fun all told. It's a shame to see content removed like that. Don't worry, the color dungeon is still in the game, with the added bonus that it lets you change your outfit back to green if you'd prefer not to have a powerup after all.
The seashell mansion has been greatly expanded. Not only are there a lot more seashells hidden across the island (as well as a lot more pieces of heart), there's also a lot more rewards like a "seashell tuner" you can turn on or off (I keep it off since I haven't found every new seashell yet) to find using them. Much like the compass, all the tuner does is tell you if there's a seashell on the screen you're on, not where it is.
There are a few sections that are more open (one of the plants you had to kill to enter the swamp dungeon is now a stone, so you can actually get back inside dungeon 2 if you feel like it far earlier which is appreciated), but a few that are more closed. You can no longer get to the signpost maze with just the dash boots, you need the hookshot for reasons I don't really understand. The item shop also hosts a rather odd restriction. You can no longer obtain bombs at all until after you've completed the second dungeon, at which point the item shop will start selling them. Considering the game otherwise has the exact same progression and puzzles as the original, I don't understand why they'd restrict you like this. In particular, there is a hidden room in the first dungeon you need bombs to get inside. It's optional, but it's nice to simply quickly purchase the shovel, then find a few bombs and get that hidden chest completed while you're in the dungeon the first time around instead of having to go back later.
That's it so far. I'll add more to this as I go along.
Edit: And I've 100% completed the game now. The trends mostly continue but I wanted to add a few things.
Minigames: I mostly love the expansions to the original. They make the mini-games more than just one and done affairs and motivate you to return. Unlike say The Completionist I actually really like fishing in Zelda games. What I don't like is waiting for a random fish I'm looking for to spawn and reloading a save over and over until it does. If there was a way to buy bait and toss certain kinds into the pond to attract specific ones to replace the ones you fish out, that would have been great. The river rapids game is far better, now that I understand why the map was altered a bit. It was to make use of the hookshot which is now utterly critical to navigating it especially in the new "time trial" mode. It makes the rapids far more engaging and gives the player a lot more agency. Working out that perfect path is also a dream, and not a bit of randomness to be had. The figurines you can decorate the town with? They're appreciated, but it would have been nice if the crane game layout actually changed to a new one with every new figurine they added. As it stands though, at least the realistic physics make gripping each figurine a somewhat unique experience. The pokey and piranha plant figurines in particular are especially challenging. I do miss a number of the story scenes cut out when they removed the camera mode and frankly having done EVERY single challenge in Dampe's tomb I can safely say the only actual puzzle is placing each room. Actually going through the dungeons you built after the fact is nothing but grunt work at that point. The dampe dungeon mode is clearly just an experiment, not a finished idea, and frankly I would recommend just not even bothering once you get the bottle reward.
Each of the bosses gets a retooling and as I went further I did enjoy that for the most part they're more challenging as a result. The best expansion has got to go to Facade (the Nick Jr. Face from the Face Shrine.... oooooh FACE!), who now actually seems to use strategic pattersn of hole dropping that gets faster and more elaborate as the boss takes damage. The face itself actually damages you if you step on it and it appears in different spots on the floor too. The final nightmare boss has comparitevly smaller changes to each of the forms. Tweaks really, but they're appreciated and a few require additional hits to beat compared to the original.
Music is amazing. The indoor theme sounds weird in handheld mode but through TV speakers or a plugged in headset you catch all the intended beats a lot better and it sounds much more charming. The ending credits theme is everything you could ask for, right down to tossing in a few "retro" beats off the Gameboy version. The end boss originally had a unique form right up until it's final form which just kicked in the standard boss music. Now it has a unique track for that final form. Further, when Marin is following you the overworld themes for the field, the forest, and the mountains all have a variation with new intstrumentation just for her. I love the creative ways they hid the new shells and heart pieces as well. By the way, yes the addition of new pieces of heart objectively makes the game easier. I recommend playing the game in hero mode for everyone here to counteract that. The "extra hints" in the game turned out to be few after the halfway point. Again, I'm not sure what the point of that was considering Ulrira gives you hints any time you want.
There's a bunch of tiny touches the original GB versions had that they seem to have missed in this version. That's a small complaint because they are tiny touches, but a bigger one since it's a lot of them. Things like how when you traded the dog food for bananas one of the bananas on Sale's shelf disappeared, which doesn't happen in this version. While I love how much more individualized the insides of most of the houses are, I'm not as big a fan of removing all doubt about that zora hiding in animal village or that someone's living in that cave on the shoreline long before you ever get the magnifying glass. The game already gives you clues something's up (in the DX version they added that Zora just so he could tell you someone like him is hiding on the beach), which I feel was enough.
Controls.... Let me just say right now they are a massive improvement, but it feels like they didn't go far enough. There are little things they could have done to make them even better. For one, the d-pad! It gets used in menus but you can't use it for movement on the field. When the game isn't "true" analog movement and is still locked into 8 way, a d-pad just works better. As I mentioned before, having more buttons free to assign to different items would have been appreciated.
Mechanically I can add a few things. Your bombs hurt you now, and falling into water before you can swim does too. They hurt worse in hero mode, and they ignore the bonus armor from your blue tunic. Careful!
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - -iLluSiON- - 19th March 2021
I've refused to play this simply based on the artwork and aesthetic alone. I'll most likely end up playing it because the original is one of my favorite games ever. I was just so very disappointed in the art direction.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - Dark Jaguar - 19th March 2021
I'm curious about that. What about the art direction turned you off the game? To me, it looks a lot like the art style in the DX version's photographs so it fit pretty well, but I'd like to hear more.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - Sacred Jellybean - 21st March 2021
I'm with -iLluSiON-. The art style is just a little too cutesy. They look like figurines, wandering around in a miniature world (which is emphasized by the camera's "miniature" focus). It doesn't quite look like it's translated from 2d to 3d to me. I can see what they were going for, but it just looks off-putting to me. I don't generally mind a cartoony style, seeing as how I think Wind Waker has held up well, so I don't think that's the issue.
I could probably get over it, but I don't have the motivation to try right now. At some point, I'll try this.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - A Black Falcon - 21st March 2021
(21st March 2021, 7:09 AM)Sacred Jellybean Wrote: They look like figurines, wandering around in a miniature world (which is emphasized by the camera's "miniature" focus).
That is the whole point.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - Sacred Jellybean - 21st March 2021
And it sucks.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - -iLluSiON- - 22nd March 2021
Exactly what is said above. To me, it doesn't encapsulate the feeling of the original release of the game. I was a huge fan of Link's Awakening when it came out and was drawn to the mystery of the storyline, the dungeons, music, and everything else. The art used in this remake is the opposite of how I was hoping a remake would look. I do enjoy a cutsey Zelda moment every now and then, but to be honest I think the franchise has been suffering from this notion of having too much of that stuff for over twenty years.
I really enjoyed the feeling of the first 5 games, which the original Link's Awakening was part of. My interest in Zelda has been dwindling as time went on so maybe I'm just a fool these days.
As I said, I will play it and formulate an opinion after that, but the art is just not my thing anymore.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - -iLluSiON- - 22nd March 2021
I should've said thank you for posting this thorough review.
I will revisit this thread for sure when I play it. I'm probably going to buy the game within the next couple of months.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - A Black Falcon - 22nd March 2021
Look, my favorite Zelda art is the "realistic" art. I think Twilight Princess has the best art design in the franchise, and when it comes to Link's Awakening, my favorite art style for any LA art is Katsuya Terada's incredible promo/guide/etc. work, which is in a pretty "realistic manga" style. A LA remake with that art style would be absolutely incredible and I've love to see it.
However, as DJ said, the plastic-toy look they went with is entirely consistent with the art of the photos from the DX version. The art style in those photos is, just like this, very cute and toylike. It's quite different from the more "realistic" art of the intro.
Of course though, that's entirely the point; it's all a hint at the actual story and setting of the game. It's a brilliantly done and perfectly fits the game's setting and story.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - Dark Jaguar - 23rd March 2021
In a very brief defense of the art style (and a spoiler for a game everyone here's already played), the whole of Koholint is a dream world. Everything looking unreal is the point, driven home by the opening and ending cinematics which are decidedly in an entirely different art style. In fact, they're hand drawn animations that look absolutely gorgeous, and sound it too. Since the opening and ending scenes are in the "waking world" it's fitting that they would be in a different style.
That's my defense, but again the style isn't for everyone and a good argument can be made that dreamlike doesn't necessarily mean the nightmare should look like toys but should probably look more frightful.
Let me expand on my review. I'll do so by editing my initial post so check it out.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - A Black Falcon - 23rd March 2021
Your review covers a lot of stuff that's very interesting, I bought the Switch remake of LA some time ago but never did play much of it, sadly. Honestly, my main "problem" with this game is that Link's Awakening, the original black and white version for Game Boy, is a game I loved a LOT back when it was new. I played that game endlessly, and probably beat the game four or five times that decade and it is, of course, my favorite handheld game ever. I've never beaten any other Zelda game more than once. So when I think of LA I think of the original, and in a lot of little ways the newer versions, first the DX version and now this... in some ways they're better but in others they never match up to the original. I know that my nostalgia for the original version is probably the issue here much more so than any actual differences between the versions so this is just me, though...
Responses to a few of the points you raise in your review.
Hero mode - I love the idea of a harder difficulty; LA was a pretty challenging game, but it's always nice to have a harder mode, particularly for those good at the game now. However, "no hearts drop at all", I know this is what they've done before in Hero mode, but that seems like too much. Can't you make it harder without having no hearts drop at all? I'm sure the normal difficulty would be easy, but no hearts dropping at all sounds just obnoxious and I don't know if I'd want to play that.
Too many hints - I get why they do it, LA has dramatically more hints than any Zelda game before it (and a much more linear quest as well!) but there are still things you need to figure out, and some people today don't want to deal with that at all. I remember LA taking me three months to finish as a kid... but seriously, the number of clues in the original was pretty much balanced perfectly. The only thing that even maybe could have used more hints about what to do for the trading game, but even there there aren't that many people to talk to so it worked. So yeah, the added hints should have been optional and not mandatory.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - Sacred Jellybean - 24th March 2021
Quote:I've never beaten any other Zelda game more than once.
Not even Ocarina of Time?
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - Dark Jaguar - 27th March 2021
The trading quest in particular had a few extra hints right from the start. The mother that wants a Yoshi doll for her collection? Well, now once you get that doll the kid right outside the mini-game immediately notices it and tells you to take it straight to her. It basically removes any sense of you figuring out who in town wants it by just exploring the small village on your own. As you go on the additional hints fade away, but that certainly felt like a move that Breath of the Wild would never have engaged in.
Hero Mode's removal of random heart drops by and large is mostly a challenge in the first couple of dungeons before you have many heart containers, bottles, or access to Crazy Tracy's. It keeps you on guard but isn't this devastating thing that makes the game a nightmare of a challenge or anything. This isn't Doom Eternal we're talking about here. What got me more was the other little changes to gameplay mechanics which got me killed a few times early on. A reset later and I was back at it though and once I had gotten through the first three or so dungeons I was familiar enough with most of the mechanical changes that I didn't die again. I'd say go ahead and give it a try ABF. Oh and don't worry. If you die, just quit and restart the game and your death counter's not affected at all. Oh, and just like the original crazy Tracy's potion (now drawn as a sort of beauty cream) being used also doesn't count as a death. Oh, and bottled fairies don't automatically save your life. You have to actively use them before death.
RE: Ongoing review of Link's Awakening for Switch - Dark Jaguar - 30th November 2022
It's been a while but I wanted to comment on one thing visually. I hate the "blur effect" along the top and bottom of the screen. It doesn't add anything to the game and just makes things more difficult to see than they should be. Further, the game does sadly have a pretty poor frame rate from time to time. Removing that blur filter would actually help to slightly alleviate that issue funnily enough. It's a shame that a remake of an old game like this couldn't be optimized a little better. I don't need ALL those particle and lighting effects after all. All told though, it's not so detrimental that it gets in the way of playing the game, and the "underworld" tends to have much less slowdown. And of course, it's worth mentioning that the original GB version had slowdown issues from time to time as well, though it feels like this version has more of it.