Huh, I wasn't aware of a lot of these changes. Even after I played through the original a bit, things like there only being one stone tablet and being able to skip the dialogue didn't occur to me. Granted, I was using the screen wrap glitch just to get all the items for gamedev research. I'll have to genuinely play through the original at some point, thank you for bringing these points to my attention.
I had no idea about many of the differences between the original. I feel like you were a bit harsh on the changes that made the game easier. But I might have to give the original a try.
I would absolutely suggest doing so. I don’t think I said this in the video itself, but I actually played the DX first, many years ago, and only played the original for the first time about a year ago. I couldn’t understand why I liked the game so much more on that second run, and wrote my whole review still not understanding why I loved the game so much more than when I first played it… until I started recording the footage of the DX, and realized just how big a difference these changes make to the moment to moment gameplay. Seriously, not being able to skip dialogue really bogs the game down to a halt - why Tezuka thought it was a good idea to take away that option is beyond me.
@@octorokreviewsMeh, for me, the DX version is the definitive version. It might be easier, but the added Colors and scenes at the end are really touching.
I love this game! One of my best friends in high school had this, and I would watch him play it. I got the DX remake with a Game Boy Color in 1998, and only got to Key Cavern, and 10 years later, sold most of my games, including this. Repurchased the original years later to play on my not-sold Super Game Boy that I found in a box in my attic, and ended up beating it for the first time with my son in 2020. I bought him the Switch remake for his 10th birthday since he enjoyed the original.
That's a lovely story. I'm sure he loved the Switch remake, yes? Even I have to admit that its visuals are in many ways superior to the original 8-bit graphics.
@@octorokreviewsHe liked it, but he is far and away a Pokemon fanboy, and we regularly play Pokemon Scarlet/Violet online together. He plays Pokemon Go a ton, too, so Link's Awakening got shuffled down the backlog, but he said he enjoyed it. I just have to nudge him a little to complete it, haha!
I definitely don’t think they were taking a step back from the “mountain” of world lore, considering the only games that had been released up to that point was Zelda 1,2 and LttP.. I think it much more likely they literally couldn’t add more story because of the limitations of the gameboy and the fact that most of the games up to that point had almost no in game world story, kinda made it unnecessary..
Not from the gameboy printer itself, but collecting all the pictures was quite fun on its own. I liked coming back and looking at all the memorabilia gathered, once the book was completed.
I could not agree with you more on the owl statues. One you didn't mention was the room with the nightmare key chest in level 6. I remember tearing my hair out as an 11 year old not knowing why the chest wasn't opening, only for the owl in the DX version to basically tell you exactly what to do - not even a slightly cryptic clue, basically a literal instruction!
you do bring up several valid points however keep in mind that the DX version did improve the performance where frame rate issues are a lot more common in the original. a good fight to compare is the eagle's tower mini-boss. the original had more performance issues because of weaker hardware which is the DX version was able to handle better. also, while the color dungeon does make the game easier, it is still an optional dungeon so it is not really fair to knock the game for that. now one negative changed you did miss out on was that the item menu in the DX version is slower. i played the original last year and i was surprised how fast it was. also i was surprised i actually enjoyed the original a lot more than i realized especially after the remake which i was mixed on but does have better programming. i am curious what your thoughts are on the remake though because there are some changes that do help with the experience such as the fast travel, item mapping, and the horse heads redesigned as a well thought out puzzle instead of the accursed obligatory level 6 rng room that plagues all three gameboy entries.
Dang. I never realized these changes nurfed the title so much. I guess I was lucky to have to have split the cost for the OG game back in 1997. When I saw a 1998 screenshot of link cutting 3D grass I needed to save up and get an N64. Had a crappy flyer route in like march 1998 after saving up 300 CAD for an N64. Yeah the CAD dollar was getting killed at the time due to conversion rates (was great for our collage funds thought since mutual funds were in American funds). Also it was the only gameboy game the broke on use after 1 month of use. We didn't have the receipt at the time.. Be we both looked at each other and said we need to rebuy this game right away. We were addicted. I was near the walrus in Animal village after the 3rd dungeon when the game broke.
Wow. Thanks for this video. I only played DX as a kid and always thought the owls looked wise but said such useless stuff, not at all in line w the rest of my experience of Zelda. I wanted to get a copy of Link's Awakening and was planning on getting DX, but this video is making me reconsider. I'm sure the original can look cool on a GBC with a color palette change, right? I just hope it won't be too hard though, as I'm just getting back into gaming.
The only disadvantage to the original is the lack of full-color, but I am personally more than happy playing without that - particularly if it means I get a better gameplay experience on the whole. My favorite way to play the game is on the Super Nintendo with the Super GameBoy accessory, but you really can't go wrong with a GBC, either. Thanks for the kind words; I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
@@octorokreviews Well, I just finished playing Kirbys Dreamland on my GBC and it was the first gameboy game I played since I was a kid. 😅 The pastel color palette hack was perfect and I do care about quality of the overall experience, story telling etc. Thanks and Take care!
Recently I replayed Link's Awakening DX and I got stuck in a few dungeons because I was ignoring almost completely the Owl Statues as they were giving me only tips to do obvious puzzles. Specifically i had a lot of problems with the dungeon that you have to know the killing order to get the nightmare key, I couldn't understand why I hadn't encountered any difficulties in this dungeon when I played it multiple times as a child. Also this explains why I remember having some troubles with the 7th dungeon boss. I'll try to play the original one some day, I thought the only change was the addition of color and the color dungeon. PS: I recently discovered your channel and i love your content. Keep going!
great video! do you think you’ll ever make a video on the switch remake ?? as of yet that’s the only version of the game that i’ve played and i fell in love with it but would love to know how it compares to the original and even the dx remake. Keep up the great work!
Definitely. My plan is to review the remakes in release order (DX came out the month before Ocarina of Time, for example), but that could change. I do love many of the artistic and gameplay changes to the Switch Port, but like all of Grezzo's remakes it's over bloated with mediocre added content. I definitely want to talk about it one day because I think it's the Zelda remake I like the most.
I actually prefer the original color scheme, I'm a sucker for black & white. Plus, DX has this strange crayola quality to the color palate that kinda eeks me out.
I grew up with the original OG LA on OG Gameboy. And years later I played the colorized DX version. I truly believe that a lot of your negatives are truly negatives, but to me don’t really break the game or make it a failure in any way. It really just sounds like nitpicking. The not being able to skip text is annoying, but the text isn’t really all that long: unlike Skyward Sword on Wii, where it becomes infuriating due to the length of the text. I agree about the owl statues in the DX/Switch versions, about them being overly obvious and hand-holding the player. That being said, this game is very minimal in its original black & white game in terms of story and text - so some extra is ok in my book - especially for those who may be new to Zelda games in general. The color dungeon is strictly optional and can only be obtained (without using cheats/guides) after getting the Pegasus boots (after the 3rd dungeon to dash into the bookshelf in the library - like in ALttP). Technically can get after the 2nd dungeon to just push the tombstones if you do cheat. And I’d argue that majority of people would just forget about that strange book in the library and keep progressing through the story. OR because the library is essentially your tutorial, anyone who has played the OG version likely would have not even bothered going into the library until the end of the game to figure out the wind fishes location in the egg - thus missing out on the color dungeon completely until the end. Good educational video about the differences, however, I believe your assessment of DX being vastly inferior to the OG just comes down to your preferences.
i remember always being off put by the color palette in dx. this video is making me consider selling my copy of dx for an original one. i don't even have a gbc
8:13: I played the original version of the game (real cartridge and on the original Game Boy). Angler Fish does attack you. It starts swimming towards you to hit you. Other smaller fish also appear and, if they hit you, you will take damage. Some objects (maybe rocks?), start falling from above and they can hit you too. But such things only happen if you take some time to attack the Angler Fish. He's a very easy boss to kill, if you attack him immediately. Overall, very good review, and I agree with the majority of your points. The deluxe version really made the game easier (and unbalanced) in several ways and, besides this, I don't like the color palette. I think monochrome fits better (the game was made based on this limitation, after all).
I’m not a fan of changes being made to remakes. If a game is a candidate for a remake, chances are it has a pretty big fan base. A fan base who likes the game as it was made. This modern notion of “remakes need to surprise fans and add new content” is pretty dumb. If you want to do a bunch of new things, make a new game. Sure a bunch of new people will probably play a remake who haven’t played the original, so they won’t care or notice changes. But you risk alienating original fans, you know the people who helped make the game popular to begin with. I can’t think of a better example of this than Final Fantasy VII remake.
The mouse stuff in DX is cute by itself, added more unique quirky characters and sense of world, independent of you in your adventure. The real thing I totally agree with you is that boss fights in DX are a joke. Thanks to you I realized Eagle tower boss had a second ( and better) phase. On the other hand, I like Color dungeon as an optional dungeon with good reward, why? it added more mistery and discovery to the island. The bad part? Devs didn't do a good at balancing mentioned bosses. At the end, I still think DX has mid to mid-High difficulty level where I died A LOT, way better than WW-SS Era for sure. BUT I wont deny you are right, DX difficulty wise, is very watered down and not very well balanced
I've always been passionate about this subject but mostly because DX removed Marin from the waking world. The whole point of the game was that there was more to it than just a dream. The fact that the wind fish talks to you inside of his dream, hints that is not simply a dream. And at the end, if you haven't died, you also get to see Marin and the waking world, which is supposed to be a revelation that you didn't actually kill all of the inhabitants of koholint and that perhaps, somewhere out there, that world still lives.
I just finished Eagle's Tower dungeon on the original release, and results were the same as DX version. Just took me 6 charged hits with the Koholit sword in order to defeat the Evil Eagle.
Ah, then you must have picked up a piece of power shortly before heading up to the boss room; that's the only way to make that work in the original game. It's actually one of many reasons why I don't think the power-ups should have been in that game to begin with - aside from just how annoying their themes are.
@@octorokreviews Oops my bad, I made a typo. I meant 6 hits not 3. Still the Evil Eagle fight is relatively easy. I'm now going through Turtle Rock and so far I feel the game so much more balanced than the DX version
I dunno, the graphics seemed fine in the og. I mean, 56 colors on screen...especially in 2024...is not great. Most of game has weird color palettes. The gameplay seems pretty busted...especially when you look at the neutered genie and eagle fights
I would love to, but I don't think my channel is big enough to warrant their notice. To a large degree, it was their content that I was referring to when I said that many critics mistake the DX port for the original game. I think they're great TH-camrs and I'd love to talk to them someday, but they definitely make mistakes now and then, and their Link's Awakening reviews certainly have their fair share of mistakes.
Great video. I grew up with DX and didn’t play the original until I bought a GB Pocket in 2018. Thought the original was way better due to the more expert use and communication of detail and shading in the non colour graphics. But hadn’t realised how much easier DX was, which I didn’t revisit!
I swear, I just can't win sometimes. In my Zelda 2 video, people were calling me a scrub-lord who just needed to "git gud" at the game, but for this video, people are telling me that I'm a masochist who hates games that are too easy. Maybe, just maybe, it's possible that I don't base my reviews off of my own personal experiences, just like I say I don't?
The review wasn't just about that, and yes, easy/difficulty is a preference but I can also see how too much of one or the other can be a hindrance to enjoying a game. If you boil this whole video down to "you just like to play really hard games" then you are missing the entire point and all of the other details he mentioned. Not cool and an unnecessary comment to make. You could just say instead, "Well, I personally prefer it being a bit easier but I didn't know about the other changes. Thanks."
Huh, I wasn't aware of a lot of these changes. Even after I played through the original a bit, things like there only being one stone tablet and being able to skip the dialogue didn't occur to me. Granted, I was using the screen wrap glitch just to get all the items for gamedev research.
I'll have to genuinely play through the original at some point, thank you for bringing these points to my attention.
The OG is included with a zelda game and watch if you can find one for cheap.
I had no idea about many of the differences between the original. I feel like you were a bit harsh on the changes that made the game easier. But I might have to give the original a try.
I would absolutely suggest doing so. I don’t think I said this in the video itself, but I actually played the DX first, many years ago, and only played the original for the first time about a year ago. I couldn’t understand why I liked the game so much more on that second run, and wrote my whole review still not understanding why I loved the game so much more than when I first played it… until I started recording the footage of the DX, and realized just how big a difference these changes make to the moment to moment gameplay. Seriously, not being able to skip dialogue really bogs the game down to a halt - why Tezuka thought it was a good idea to take away that option is beyond me.
@@octorokreviewsMeh, for me, the DX version is the definitive version. It might be easier, but the added Colors and scenes at the end are really touching.
What was amazing about the game boy printer functionality was not the printer itself, but the photos that came with it.
I love this game! One of my best friends in high school had this, and I would watch him play it. I got the DX remake with a Game Boy Color in 1998, and only got to Key Cavern, and 10 years later, sold most of my games, including this. Repurchased the original years later to play on my not-sold Super Game Boy that I found in a box in my attic, and ended up beating it for the first time with my son in 2020. I bought him the Switch remake for his 10th birthday since he enjoyed the original.
That's a lovely story. I'm sure he loved the Switch remake, yes? Even I have to admit that its visuals are in many ways superior to the original 8-bit graphics.
@@octorokreviewsHe liked it, but he is far and away a Pokemon fanboy, and we regularly play Pokemon Scarlet/Violet online together. He plays Pokemon Go a ton, too, so Link's Awakening got shuffled down the backlog, but he said he enjoyed it. I just have to nudge him a little to complete it, haha!
I definitely don’t think they were taking a step back from the “mountain” of world lore, considering the only games that had been released up to that point was Zelda 1,2 and LttP..
I think it much more likely they literally couldn’t add more story because of the limitations of the gameboy and the fact that most of the games up to that point had almost no in game world story, kinda made it unnecessary..
YES! Someone finally speaks out about the dialogue skip being removed!
Not from the gameboy printer itself, but collecting all the pictures was quite fun on its own. I liked coming back and looking at all the memorabilia gathered, once the book was completed.
I could not agree with you more on the owl statues. One you didn't mention was the room with the nightmare key chest in level 6. I remember tearing my hair out as an 11 year old not knowing why the chest wasn't opening, only for the owl in the DX version to basically tell you exactly what to do - not even a slightly cryptic clue, basically a literal instruction!
you do bring up several valid points however keep in mind that the DX version did improve the performance where frame rate issues are a lot more common in the original. a good fight to compare is the eagle's tower mini-boss. the original had more performance issues because of weaker hardware which is the DX version was able to handle better. also, while the color dungeon does make the game easier, it is still an optional dungeon so it is not really fair to knock the game for that. now one negative changed you did miss out on was that the item menu in the DX version is slower. i played the original last year and i was surprised how fast it was. also i was surprised i actually enjoyed the original a lot more than i realized especially after the remake which i was mixed on but does have better programming. i am curious what your thoughts are on the remake though because there are some changes that do help with the experience such as the fast travel, item mapping, and the horse heads redesigned as a well thought out puzzle instead of the accursed obligatory level 6 rng room that plagues all three gameboy entries.
Always a pleasure watching these videos! Keep it up my man!
Your videos manage to be informal and entertaining at the same time, well done!
Thank you very much! I’m glad to see people like the content I put out. It makes the whole process worth it.
I’ve played this game so many times I don’t even need maps for the dungeons or the owl nose
Dang. I never realized these changes nurfed the title so much. I guess I was lucky to have to have split the cost for the OG game back in 1997. When I saw a 1998 screenshot of link cutting 3D grass I needed to save up and get an N64. Had a crappy flyer route in like march 1998 after saving up 300 CAD for an N64. Yeah the CAD dollar was getting killed at the time due to conversion rates (was great for our collage funds thought since mutual funds were in American funds). Also it was the only gameboy game the broke on use after 1 month of use. We didn't have the receipt at the time.. Be we both looked at each other and said we need to rebuy this game right away. We were addicted. I was near the walrus in Animal village after the 3rd dungeon when the game broke.
I’ve never played the original but now I have to. LADX was my first Zelda game. Please make a follow up about the Switch version.
Wow. Thanks for this video. I only played DX as a kid and always thought the owls looked wise but said such useless stuff, not at all in line w the rest of my experience of Zelda.
I wanted to get a copy of Link's Awakening and was planning on getting DX, but this video is making me reconsider. I'm sure the original can look cool on a GBC with a color palette change, right? I just hope it won't be too hard though, as I'm just getting back into gaming.
The only disadvantage to the original is the lack of full-color, but I am personally more than happy playing without that - particularly if it means I get a better gameplay experience on the whole. My favorite way to play the game is on the Super Nintendo with the Super GameBoy accessory, but you really can't go wrong with a GBC, either. Thanks for the kind words; I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
@@octorokreviews Well, I just finished playing Kirbys Dreamland on my GBC and it was the first gameboy game I played since I was a kid. 😅 The pastel color palette hack was perfect and I do care about quality of the overall experience, story telling etc.
Thanks and Take care!
Recently I replayed Link's Awakening DX and I got stuck in a few dungeons because I was ignoring almost completely the Owl Statues as they were giving me only tips to do obvious puzzles. Specifically i had a lot of problems with the dungeon that you have to know the killing order to get the nightmare key, I couldn't understand why I hadn't encountered any difficulties in this dungeon when I played it multiple times as a child. Also this explains why I remember having some troubles with the 7th dungeon boss.
I'll try to play the original one some day, I thought the only change was the addition of color and the color dungeon.
PS: I recently discovered your channel and i love your content. Keep going!
great video! do you think you’ll ever make a video on the switch remake ?? as of yet that’s the only version of the game that i’ve played and i fell in love with it but would love to know how it compares to the original and even the dx remake. Keep up the great work!
Definitely. My plan is to review the remakes in release order (DX came out the month before Ocarina of Time, for example), but that could change. I do love many of the artistic and gameplay changes to the Switch Port, but like all of Grezzo's remakes it's over bloated with mediocre added content. I definitely want to talk about it one day because I think it's the Zelda remake I like the most.
@@octorokreviews ok perfect I got you, very exited for that video now lol
Amazing video as always
In short, no :)
In short: yeah kinda but if you need to see color then you do you, chief.
I actually prefer the original color scheme, I'm a sucker for black & white. Plus, DX has this strange crayola quality to the color palate that kinda eeks me out.
I grew up with the original OG LA on OG Gameboy. And years later I played the colorized DX version. I truly believe that a lot of your negatives are truly negatives, but to me don’t really break the game or make it a failure in any way. It really just sounds like nitpicking. The not being able to skip text is annoying, but the text isn’t really all that long: unlike Skyward Sword on Wii, where it becomes infuriating due to the length of the text.
I agree about the owl statues in the DX/Switch versions, about them being overly obvious and hand-holding the player. That being said, this game is very minimal in its original black & white game in terms of story and text - so some extra is ok in my book - especially for those who may be new to Zelda games in general.
The color dungeon is strictly optional and can only be obtained (without using cheats/guides) after getting the Pegasus boots (after the 3rd dungeon to dash into the bookshelf in the library - like in ALttP). Technically can get after the 2nd dungeon to just push the tombstones if you do cheat. And I’d argue that majority of people would just forget about that strange book in the library and keep progressing through the story. OR because the library is essentially your tutorial, anyone who has played the OG version likely would have not even bothered going into the library until the end of the game to figure out the wind fishes location in the egg - thus missing out on the color dungeon completely until the end.
Good educational video about the differences, however, I believe your assessment of DX being vastly inferior to the OG just comes down to your preferences.
i remember always being off put by the color palette in dx. this video is making me consider selling my copy of dx for an original one. i don't even have a gbc
8:13: I played the original version of the game (real cartridge and on the original Game Boy).
Angler Fish does attack you. It starts swimming towards you to hit you.
Other smaller fish also appear and, if they hit you, you will take damage.
Some objects (maybe rocks?), start falling from above and they can hit you too.
But such things only happen if you take some time to attack the Angler Fish.
He's a very easy boss to kill, if you attack him immediately.
Overall, very good review, and I agree with the majority of your points.
The deluxe version really made the game easier (and unbalanced) in several ways and, besides this, I don't like the color palette. I think monochrome fits better (the game was made based on this limitation, after all).
I’m not a fan of changes being made to remakes. If a game is a candidate for a remake, chances are it has a pretty big fan base. A fan base who likes the game as it was made. This modern notion of “remakes need to surprise fans and add new content” is pretty dumb. If you want to do a bunch of new things, make a new game. Sure a bunch of new people will probably play a remake who haven’t played the original, so they won’t care or notice changes. But you risk alienating original fans, you know the people who helped make the game popular to begin with. I can’t think of a better example of this than Final Fantasy VII remake.
This a crazy video about old ass games! 😂😂 I watched and like tho! 😊
Just got the wand in my swordless Zelda 1 run on that thing. Will be a downhill battle from now on.
The mouse stuff in DX is cute by itself, added more unique quirky characters and sense of world, independent of you in your adventure. The real thing I totally agree with you is that boss fights in DX are a joke.
Thanks to you I realized Eagle tower boss had a second ( and better) phase. On the other hand, I like Color dungeon as an optional dungeon with good reward, why? it added more mistery and discovery to the island. The bad part? Devs didn't do a good at balancing mentioned bosses. At the end, I still think DX has mid to mid-High difficulty level where I died A LOT, way better than WW-SS Era for sure. BUT I wont deny you are right, DX difficulty wise, is very watered down and not very well balanced
I've always been passionate about this subject but mostly because DX removed Marin from the waking world. The whole point of the game was that there was more to it than just a dream. The fact that the wind fish talks to you inside of his dream, hints that is not simply a dream. And at the end, if you haven't died, you also get to see Marin and the waking world, which is supposed to be a revelation that you didn't actually kill all of the inhabitants of koholint and that perhaps, somewhere out there, that world still lives.
She still appears in the secret ending in the remake, except she turns into an actual seagull instead of just growing wings.
I just finished Eagle's Tower dungeon on the original release, and results were the same as DX version.
Just took me 6 charged hits with the Koholit sword in order to defeat the Evil Eagle.
Ah, then you must have picked up a piece of power shortly before heading up to the boss room; that's the only way to make that work in the original game. It's actually one of many reasons why I don't think the power-ups should have been in that game to begin with - aside from just how annoying their themes are.
@@octorokreviews Oops my bad, I made a typo. I meant 6 hits not 3. Still the Evil Eagle fight is relatively easy.
I'm now going through Turtle Rock and so far I feel the game so much more balanced than the DX version
Meh, all your points don’t really impact the game in a big way. The ex version is still superior.
I dunno, the graphics seemed fine in the og. I mean, 56 colors on screen...especially in 2024...is not great. Most of game has weird color palettes. The gameplay seems pretty busted...especially when you look at the neutered genie and eagle fights
You should have a talk with Liamtriforce and KingK who mistake the DX version as the original and put the pros of the gbc as the switch remakes cons.
I would love to, but I don't think my channel is big enough to warrant their notice. To a large degree, it was their content that I was referring to when I said that many critics mistake the DX port for the original game. I think they're great TH-camrs and I'd love to talk to them someday, but they definitely make mistakes now and then, and their Link's Awakening reviews certainly have their fair share of mistakes.
At least my zelda game and watch has the OG title.
Played the original, still don’t own DX
Great job.
You should review the Switch remake so you can go into it more.
Great video. I grew up with DX and didn’t play the original until I bought a GB Pocket in 2018. Thought the original was way better due to the more expert use and communication of detail and shading in the non colour graphics. But hadn’t realised how much easier DX was, which I didn’t revisit!
good video
Good review. Needs more atmosphere. Less Nerrel(It was cool though).
Finally someone who agrees!
It pisses me off that Nintendo ruined the color dungeon for the Switch remake.
Do you play rec room
this generation really is dumb. i never even read the statues. just skipped past them..... and i played this game when it first came out.
ｐｒｏｍｏｓｍ
I'll I see (I'm on part 3) are whiny complaints about things that players can either A ignore or B isn't game breaking. Sorry man, but this is cringe
sure complain about them making a game easy your the type who loves things dam near impossible
I swear, I just can't win sometimes. In my Zelda 2 video, people were calling me a scrub-lord who just needed to "git gud" at the game, but for this video, people are telling me that I'm a masochist who hates games that are too easy. Maybe, just maybe, it's possible that I don't base my reviews off of my own personal experiences, just like I say I don't?
The review wasn't just about that, and yes, easy/difficulty is a preference but I can also see how too much of one or the other can be a hindrance to enjoying a game. If you boil this whole video down to "you just like to play really hard games" then you are missing the entire point and all of the other details he mentioned. Not cool and an unnecessary comment to make. You could just say instead, "Well, I personally prefer it being a bit easier but I didn't know about the other changes. Thanks."
🤡