- Joined
- Jun 14, 2011
So the Legend of Zelda Link’s Awakening remake came out today, anyone willing to guess how I feel about it? If the title is any indication, I’m actually impressed with this game. While I have played Link’s Awakening before, I don’t have too many fond memories of the Game Boy classic, in fact before this came out I thought it was an OK game. Not the best but certainly not the worst. But after playing a few hours of the remake, not only do I think it’s better than the original, but my perspective of the game has changed for the better, meaning I think it’s up there in the top 10 favourites, maybe even top 5. Heck, I've even managed to get hysterical laughs out at a couple of points, which I don't see happen too often in Zelda.
The Graphics are beautiful and I love the attention to detail. I'm still on the fence about the toy Esque art style, however, the technical side of it is superb. The music is whimsical, I absolutely love Marin's singing voice and, big shock, the gameplay is absolutely satisfying. straight forward combat and fun dungeon puzzle solving. No weapons breaking, no cheap deaths (no deaths by sliding down a small hill!) just good old traditional swordplay.
One thing is certain, I’m really enjoying this game a lot, unlike that mess of a train wreck of the last game. But how is that possible? Shouldn’t new entries in a franchise be far superior to a remake of a previous entry? Well in this case no. I think Link’s Awakening is much better than BotW. It’s a debate if the original is better, but this remake certainly is. What’s so better about a remake of Link’s Awakening compared to a completely new entry?
An obvious answer would be Nostalgia factor, but as I said earlier I didn’t really grow up with Link’s Awakening. I first played it when I was halfway through Secondary School, and even though I played through it to completion I don’t remember too much from it, other than the fact that it doesn’t take place in Hyrule and your objective was to awaken the Wind Fish. It just didn't leave that much of an impact on me unlike Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess etc.
I think the main reason I like this more than BotW is that it’s more traditionally balanced. I wasn’t sure what I meant at first, but as I kept playing Link’s Awakening, it suddenly occurred to me that this game strikes a good balance of linearity and exploration. The story is linear in that you have to do dungeons in a specific order and you are told where to go. But what this game cleverly does is that while it tells you "go here, go there", it doesn’t tell you HOW to get there and even when you do get there, it doesn’t tell you what to do next. That’s where the exploration comes into play, from how you explore the island to find ways of reaching your destination and when you get there figuring out what you must do in order to progress. It doesn’t hold your hand, but it’s not too cryptic that you can’t figure out.
As I was playing, It then hit me that the sort of exploration Link’s Awakening does, is the sort of exploration that Zelda has done in the past and it’s what it should have been doing all along. Have story-driven destinations but leave out the specifics of how to get there, but leave crumbs of information so that it’s not too obvious, but not too subtle.
I guess that’s why BotW pales in comparison because it just focuses on one core aspect of the Zelda series and either completely removes or vaguely keeps in the other ones that create Zelda’s unique identity. While Exploration is important, it's not the focus, which good Zelda titles understand. I’m not going to act like games like Skyward Sword are not guilty of focusing on one core element. Those games focused more on linearity and opted for dungeon Esque overworlds. But the reason I prefer playing those over BotW is that they did a better job in keeping the core essentials, (dungeons, items etc.) they just didn’t focus too much on some of them, like the exploration. It was still there but not in the grand scheme of things.
But even if I understand why I don’t like BotW, I still don’t get how this is the best selling Zelda game when it has very little in connection to its roots. I understand more than anyone that in order to keep a long-lasting series going, you need to try new things in order to make it fresh and unique. But if you’re going to do that, you should be keeping the heart of the series intact. There have been other releases in long-running franchises lately that have held up fine. The Zelda series seems to be the only franchise that ignored this and ended up making a game that polarized its fanbase.
An example of a good new entry in a series, take the Fire Emblem series. The latest entry, Fire Emblem: Three Houses was a huge hit. It might actually be the best selling Fire Emblem game in the series since Awakening. It does a lot of new things that have never been done in the series, and while those new aspects are the main focus of the game, Three Houses still maintained the core essence of the Fire Emblem series, which is its turn-based combat and other stuff like the familiar weapon classes, supports, story progression etc. But unlike with BotW, I actually agree with the positive reception of Three Houses. It's a well made Fire Emblem game. Now they could have ruined things by going down the Fire Emblem Warriors route and made the combat real-time with hack n slash combos and stuff. That could have been possible considering Koei Tecmo, the face of the hack n slash genre, were part of the development team for Three Houses. But while that would have been good in some respect, Intelligent systems knew that they had to keep the turn-based combat in there. If they took that out, Three Houses' success may have been bittersweet at the very least.
In the long run and in most cases, best-selling =/= best game ever. I know Link’s Awakening will definitely not sell as well as BotW since it’s a remake, but it’s a shame because it’s a much, much better Zelda game. I’d rather much have a game that sells respectfully well and does it right than to have a game that goes out of its way to give up its true identity just to make top bucks. If that’s the route the Zelda series is going to take, and judging by the looks of BotW2 it is, I think it will be a long while till we will see a proper, good, original Zelda Title. Until then we’ve got the likes of remakes to remind us of how a Zelda game should be.
The Graphics are beautiful and I love the attention to detail. I'm still on the fence about the toy Esque art style, however, the technical side of it is superb. The music is whimsical, I absolutely love Marin's singing voice and, big shock, the gameplay is absolutely satisfying. straight forward combat and fun dungeon puzzle solving. No weapons breaking, no cheap deaths (no deaths by sliding down a small hill!) just good old traditional swordplay.
One thing is certain, I’m really enjoying this game a lot, unlike that mess of a train wreck of the last game. But how is that possible? Shouldn’t new entries in a franchise be far superior to a remake of a previous entry? Well in this case no. I think Link’s Awakening is much better than BotW. It’s a debate if the original is better, but this remake certainly is. What’s so better about a remake of Link’s Awakening compared to a completely new entry?
An obvious answer would be Nostalgia factor, but as I said earlier I didn’t really grow up with Link’s Awakening. I first played it when I was halfway through Secondary School, and even though I played through it to completion I don’t remember too much from it, other than the fact that it doesn’t take place in Hyrule and your objective was to awaken the Wind Fish. It just didn't leave that much of an impact on me unlike Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess etc.
I think the main reason I like this more than BotW is that it’s more traditionally balanced. I wasn’t sure what I meant at first, but as I kept playing Link’s Awakening, it suddenly occurred to me that this game strikes a good balance of linearity and exploration. The story is linear in that you have to do dungeons in a specific order and you are told where to go. But what this game cleverly does is that while it tells you "go here, go there", it doesn’t tell you HOW to get there and even when you do get there, it doesn’t tell you what to do next. That’s where the exploration comes into play, from how you explore the island to find ways of reaching your destination and when you get there figuring out what you must do in order to progress. It doesn’t hold your hand, but it’s not too cryptic that you can’t figure out.
As I was playing, It then hit me that the sort of exploration Link’s Awakening does, is the sort of exploration that Zelda has done in the past and it’s what it should have been doing all along. Have story-driven destinations but leave out the specifics of how to get there, but leave crumbs of information so that it’s not too obvious, but not too subtle.
I guess that’s why BotW pales in comparison because it just focuses on one core aspect of the Zelda series and either completely removes or vaguely keeps in the other ones that create Zelda’s unique identity. While Exploration is important, it's not the focus, which good Zelda titles understand. I’m not going to act like games like Skyward Sword are not guilty of focusing on one core element. Those games focused more on linearity and opted for dungeon Esque overworlds. But the reason I prefer playing those over BotW is that they did a better job in keeping the core essentials, (dungeons, items etc.) they just didn’t focus too much on some of them, like the exploration. It was still there but not in the grand scheme of things.
But even if I understand why I don’t like BotW, I still don’t get how this is the best selling Zelda game when it has very little in connection to its roots. I understand more than anyone that in order to keep a long-lasting series going, you need to try new things in order to make it fresh and unique. But if you’re going to do that, you should be keeping the heart of the series intact. There have been other releases in long-running franchises lately that have held up fine. The Zelda series seems to be the only franchise that ignored this and ended up making a game that polarized its fanbase.
An example of a good new entry in a series, take the Fire Emblem series. The latest entry, Fire Emblem: Three Houses was a huge hit. It might actually be the best selling Fire Emblem game in the series since Awakening. It does a lot of new things that have never been done in the series, and while those new aspects are the main focus of the game, Three Houses still maintained the core essence of the Fire Emblem series, which is its turn-based combat and other stuff like the familiar weapon classes, supports, story progression etc. But unlike with BotW, I actually agree with the positive reception of Three Houses. It's a well made Fire Emblem game. Now they could have ruined things by going down the Fire Emblem Warriors route and made the combat real-time with hack n slash combos and stuff. That could have been possible considering Koei Tecmo, the face of the hack n slash genre, were part of the development team for Three Houses. But while that would have been good in some respect, Intelligent systems knew that they had to keep the turn-based combat in there. If they took that out, Three Houses' success may have been bittersweet at the very least.
In the long run and in most cases, best-selling =/= best game ever. I know Link’s Awakening will definitely not sell as well as BotW since it’s a remake, but it’s a shame because it’s a much, much better Zelda game. I’d rather much have a game that sells respectfully well and does it right than to have a game that goes out of its way to give up its true identity just to make top bucks. If that’s the route the Zelda series is going to take, and judging by the looks of BotW2 it is, I think it will be a long while till we will see a proper, good, original Zelda Title. Until then we’ve got the likes of remakes to remind us of how a Zelda game should be.