I like that the art style isn’t just a 3D imitation of the 2D graphics, it went for a pretty bold and unique style and there was a lot of effort put into the art direction. It’s charming and I like how everything has sorta a tactile nature to it, I feel like I could touch these little models and I know what they’d feel like.
@@bbbbbbb51 God, there are a lot of people named Brandon, some might even say, too much, like me, I say there's too many Brandons. Edit: this is bad joke, not a bad take
Clearly a Twerking Tingle is worth an extra .13 more than the average point, he clearly rounded up the 8.47 points worth of Twerking Tingles and rounded up to 8.5 for the audience's convenience. Why .13 you ask? well, I think you can figure it out if you just think about it *long* enough.
Jokes on you, there are clearly 10 tingles! Don't you see it? Just because they're monochrome doesn't mean they don't exist, stop bullying monochrome tingles! They also have a life!
The sad thing is that from a purely computational perspective, the Switch has enough power to run this game at 60fps as it did with Mario Odyssey, it's just that this game in particular has a memory leak issue which causes it to run really badly when assets are loaded in. Memory leak because, even when you enter, say, a small room where the GPU and CPU should have no problem keeping up, the framerate still drops because it still has unnecessary assets loaded in, getting worse each time you enter and exit a house repeatedly. Being a memory issue, it also noticably improves performance to have the game run off of internal storage as it is the fastest medium for Switch.
6 months in, looks like they don't plan to fix it. I'm fine with 30fps, but I can't enjoy a game with such inconsistent framerate, ruins the flow for me :(
@@chrisnguyen2316 I returned this game after seeing reviews of the framerate. I could have lived with a 30fps cap. 60 is better but consistent is most important, and 60 constantly dropping down to 30 because of triple buffer v-sync is completely unacceptable.
I read that the game actually plays better, when you extract all the assets on a hacked Switch. That makes me believe, that decrypting content from the cart or nand is too slow.
I love the art style but man the opening and ending cut scenes are so unbelievably beautiful that I wish they would do a Classic Zelda game in that hand drawn art style
It's like Shigeru Miyamoto said Nerrel, even bad mathmatics can be made up for with great editing and a good direction of humor. This is why you go the direction you do :D
Honestly, that was what I thought when I first saw this game, that toy-house look does seem like it would fit into the Earthbound series, especially 3 Because the GBA did not do the game justice visually imo
0:53 to 1:16 is the exact reason so many pokemon fans are upset with the Diamond and Pearl remakes. From the material we've seen so far, the visuals absolutely look phoned in. The character sprites are the biggest issue of contention, and a lot of people defend them by saying "the originals were chibi too, so you should like them because they're being faithful." The original models were pixel art representations of a much larger sprite that the game shows you from the beginning, as a sort of contention that it isn't possible on this hardware to have the more detailed full anime looking sprite on screen, so we will substitute it with this abstracted chibi sprite. Many players looked at the original chibi sprite and imagined a more fully realized model, because the game basically tells you to. Not to mention the strange lighting choices and scattered art direction, I think make the remakes visual style fail on every level to compete with the players interpretation of the original pixel art. At least with Link's Awakening, you can tell that there was more time, money, and effort put in to making a highly detailed and beautifully rendered world. Even if it "isn't to your taste", it's a much higher quality execution than the Diamond and Pearl remakes.
Bingo. Neither this nor Wind Waker were to my aesthetic tastes, but they're really good at what they do. I don't want more of it when I'm not playing it, but when I am, it's impossible not to enjoy it. BDSP, on the other hand, just feels like a missed opportunity with every second.
The game's actually already packed fairly tightly as-is, and the photographer's house really only served as a gimmick for the Game Boy Printer (though I wish they kept the photographs somehow, such as credit images or something). It's easier to replace that than potentially muss up design elsewhere.
@@SwordfighterRed Only a gimmick? I think it's one of the most charming parts of the original. So very memorable, and I would've loved to see the photos in reimagined HD. I don't see why it wouldn't have worked. It's a simple game. This is not Breath of the wild. It's a remade Gameboy game. All they had to do was prevent some of the photos being missable. Which would've been easy.
@@SwordfighterRed I never even knew anyone who owned a gameboy printer, but we still loved to collect the photos. Didn't matter that we couldn't print them out.
@@ShyGuyXXL Dude, I had a Game Boy Printer! It was a fun little thing. I guess I more meant that the Camera Shop was just _REALLY_ for that specific purpose so there's nothing that was lost that couldn't have been kept in the credits sequence via images or something. Sorry. I, too, liked the photos, especially the artstyle.
@@SwordfighterRed I mean... technically they could've shown up during the credits, but then they'd still need to include the cutscenes you get them from. Which was the most memorable part. The weird thing is, ONE of the cutscenes is actually in the game, the one with Marin at the cliff. So why didn't they just include them all? That's what bothers me so much about this. It wouldn't have been that much more work to have them. Everything else about the remake is great, so it's just SO CLOSE to perfect.
The horse puzzle moves exactly as a Knight piece does in chess, and the direction it will leap in is always the way it is facing, that would be a good puzzle but it assumes outside knowledge that is never told to the player in game.
I really, REALLY love the art style they went with for this game. It’s such a playful, tongue in cheek game already, and it looking like it does is a fantastic compliment.
@@TheGustave03 Same. I remember when I had no idea how they moved but after throwing them a million times I slowly started to figure out the BAM I noticed they were both black and white and it all clicked. felt really good and is that room is one of the reasons why the sixth dungeon is my favorite.
You should look up the concept art by katsuya terada for Link's awakening. That's how I saw the game in my head as a kid and always hoped a remake would look like.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to see the game in your head as it was depicted in the artwork that actually came with the game? At the very least, it would make no sense whatsoever for nintendo to remake the game based on concept art that most people have never seen.
I always thought it would be cool if the remake gave you free range to equip whatever you wanted to the face buttons and L and R, so that way you wouldn't really have issues with how the button layout is.
My only complaint is that I can't justify the purchase of a shot for shot remake of a Gameboy Game for $60. If the game was $40 then I'd be down to get it but until I get it for a good price I'm sticking with the GB original. Now if it was an Oracle game double pack or all three Gameboy Zelda's together I'd be more than happy to buy it for $60.
Same. I love the original and still own my DX copy. I don't feel good about spending $60 for a game that was $40 to start with. Most of everything in this remake is great, but I don't think adding new graphics and minor tweaks to an almost 30 year old game is enough to justify raising the price to a full $60. Usually companies are doing that same amount of work just to keep their games in the $20-40 range, because otherwise those games would be nearly worthless on the market or have very little value below $5 per copy.
Love your reviews. Playing games arent really part of my life anymore, but you and SNESDrunk really give me the feeling that I've experienced what a game has to offer. Sometimes you even tempt me to play again... :)
03:46 - mentions "wastes of time" while casually showing the room where I got stuck for over 6 months as a kid (back then no internet, no friends had the game, just me and my gameboy). I think it took me over a year of just giving up and coming back later to get through that one. English isn't my first language, so as a kid that puzzle was hard to understand because I didnt' relate the owl's tip to that room. the frustration xD but still, it was part of the charm. I miss that in breath of the wild. most puzzles are so easy, it takes away that feeling of "I discovered a secret!"
I really miss that one really high note in the overworld theme and also wish they'd just done a simple piano cover of the house theme instead of some creepy weirdo xylophone shit. Considering that retro games leave most of their look and feel to interpretation though, I feel like this game was still really successful. A pleasant surprise was when the overworld theme became more whimsical when beach waifu joined your party.
He's absolutely right about the Mysterious Forest soundtrack though. Completely lacking its smooth, "shit's going down"-vibe with the sweet-ass 8-bit drums. It's good, but there are a couple of tunes that didn't really need any tinkering.
I would absolutely recommend "The Second Narrator" channel. He did a reorchestrated version of _every single_ track, as well as tracks from some other games, and they all sound gorgeous, I SERIOUSLY can't recommend him enough.
0:15 Actually, Link’s Awakening created a lot of those traditional Zelda rules believe it or not. The dungeon sequence of “get main item which opens up the dungeon, get the boss key, then use dungeon item to kill the boss” started in Link’s Awakening. Link to the Past had a different formula.
I never played the original but didn't feel like any puzzles warranted a google search, the only time i did so was to find who needed the pineapple because i didn't make the link to the guy's wording of vitamins. As for the sounds, link drowning is my favorite.
4:00 the way those Knight statues bounce... When I played through as a kid every single time I'd just throw it till it worked. Then when I replayed now I did that too but I found it WAY harder to get it to hit the right place than in the original... then my roommate was like "I don't get it, why aren't you just throwing it there? It's like a Knight chess piece right?" and my mind was fucking blown that I had somehow never realized that lmao
Hello Nerrel. Have you seen the new Zelda trailer that has revealed a new Zelda game with a similar art style to this remake of Link's Awakening? One thing I noticed in the trailer is full analog directional movement of the player character versus the 8 direction movement in this game. I just think you should know!
I really don't understand how a game that looks like this can stress the Switch hardware so much. Feels like they needed more technical support from Nintendo or just more time to work out the bugs
Yep 2:21 mysterious forest far better and deeper in original and that's sad. I also prefer OG font too. That Textbox feels like a text message and so out of place.
imo its a mixed bag, sword search and overworld are better on original, but beach with marin and face shrine are better arranged (which is impressive, face shrine was very good already)
This was a very well done review and I agree with most of what you say. It’s just that the puzzles were pretty easy, and if you couldn’t figure it out the statues give very nice hints along with the phone booths that allowed for this to be the first legend of Zelda that I was able to 100% without a guide. I also didn’t experience any glitches or preference issues, but I may not have been looking for any. Really enjoyed the video
0:45 I disagree, the biggest improvements (although not the most difficult to implement) was the massive quality of life improvements, try going back to the original and you'll find 50% of your gameplay time is accidentally triggering the same unbelievably slow dialogue if you so much as brush up against a rock, also inventory management and UI had a massive overhaul.
I kind of liked the digital movement. I find that much modern animation runs the risk of trying to flow too smoothly or organically that it feels slow and unlike any artistic style it's trying to improve on. The sudden shifts that came with only 8 directions resembled a lot of what I imagined a digital game modernized would look: kind of like the way the fix-it-Felix-jr people were animated in Wreck-it-Ralph.
Having never played the original links Awakening, I really enjoyed this version, it gave me that nostalgic NES and SNES feeling I hadn't had in years, I loved the field depth and motion blur the art style was different yet gave it this awesome unique in the series feel to it, having played almost all the console Zelda's I really enjoyed playing this and rate it very highly, the creative elements is a definite welcome and is quite noticeable when comparing it to the standard Nintendo Zelda offerings, I was amazed how real the world felt with its art style and sound effects, this was one overhaul that I truly appreciated, the experience certainly delivered, I think the narrator in this video is a little over dramatic in his harsh criticism, there were a few things that I agreed with, yet I did enjoy this game from start to finish unlike Breath of the Wild which after the first 2 thirds felt very repetitive, I take my hat off to the team that remade this game, you did a good job at rebuilding this despite the 8 angle short coming
Unfortunately haven't gotten the game yet so I don't even know if this is a thing, but what would have been a cool Easter egg bonus to unlock in the game would be if they would allow you to change the overall color palette to that of a green screen like the original Gameboy or the Gameboy color palette, while keeping the same 3D visuals
Coming back to this video my brain is a little broken realizing that this thing came out all the way back in 2019. Why does it feel like this came out two years ago.
Coming back to this review after Echoes of Wisdom reveal, I'm starting to get pretty mixed feelings about the visual style. I did like it in a vacuum, but I really hope that it's not the visual style for all 2D Zeldas moving forward. Like you mentioned in the video, the less advanced and detailed the visuals of a game are, more your own mind will fill in the gaps about what everything actually looks like. And yes, when playing Link's Awakening on GBC, I didn't imagine a panorama with figurines. But this was a weird game, so unusual visual style was somewhat appropriate. ...But the style is just too cute for me to take seriously. Maybe I'm a downer and an edgelord, but I don't want all Zelda games to be cutesy adventures. Link to the Past in this visual style would very hard for me to get into, and so would the Oracle games. I don't want 2D Zelda games to turn into some kind of handcraft adventures like what Nintendo has been doing with Yoshi. The devs did probably put lots of work into the engine, so it would also be unreasonable for them to throw it away after one game. Hopefully they are just going to use it for one more game.
I thought this game looked too cartoony but after watching you talk about it and seeing some gameplay it brought a smile to my face. I think I’ll be getting this game now
I'm not sure about the "pixel art lets you fill it in yourself". Maybe in the Atari/Arcade era and many NES games only, but certainly SNES games and Link's Awakening. Is there some sort of study on this?
The reason they did it is because it'd would've made it too easy to sequence break it, and they were too lazy to actually redesign the map, so they kept it to 8 direction digital movement.
Grezzo was like: "Let's make the game mimick Gameboy movement but not allow the players to use the control method used in the gameboy even though it's right there on the controller"
I really appreciate the pins and maps in the newer Zelda games it really helped me out while playing this remake, I wished I used the pins in between worlds when I was younger lol
The original game was severely limited by the Gameboy having so few buttons. Just putting it on a system with more buttons made a world of difference. I never had any difficulty with the puzzles personally. The game is pretty good at staying within a given area of the map with what it requires you to do. The frame rate and lack of analog stick movement really sucks. It would’ve been really cool to allow free analog movement with the stick, and 8-way movement with the d-pad. Mapping the feather to the other triggers would’ve been a nice touch as well. Even in spite of those three issues, the frame rate is the only one that truly bothers me. I do think if those three things were fixed, the game would be pretty close to perfect.
I loved the chess puzzle in the face shrine. Its a night, so it only moves in an L, and the floor is a chess board. I figures it out all by myself and made my brain mega happy
Why a dual remake? The original plan for the Oracle games was three games, only for one of them to get cut. So, personally, I hope that an Oracle games remake includes the cut third game.
im really hoping we get remasters of the oracle games as well, preferably with a different art style that more closely matches the cutscenes in those games
I felt that they had to restrict the players movement in this game in order to keep some of the puzzles in tact. If I'm remembering correctly there were a few puzzles that could be abused if 360 control was added. Just letting people use the hookshot at the new angles allowed for a little bit of jank in and of itself.
Just checked and you're right. A handful of items are restricted to eight directions. I hadn't thought about that when I had first written that post. I'm still fine with the control method we have. It reminds me of the original and in no way hinders the gameplay experience.
Late to comment but... something I learned from watching a Caddicarus video was that, the Switch can overload its RAM which hurts performance. Which it can be remedied by turning the Switch off manually (not by putting it into sleep mode) for a little bit of time to properly recover. Great video regardless.
my biggest bummer with the remake is that the art style kills the mysterious atmosphere for me. its adorable, & im not saying that the original was ~super serious~ but i felt there was a somewhat darker tone, especially on the GB
In general I liked the presentation of this game. THE main issue I had with it was the D pad didn't do anything. Why! It was originally a D pad game. Using the stick actually made it harder to precisely control.
I really loved playing this game, I went in expecting an okay experience, but I really sunk in to it. Edit: I basically didn't have to use a guide, even fot the chess part xD. Hint: the pieces move like chess pieces move :O.
I honestly didn’t mind the digital movement. I thought I would hate it, but I adapted to it rather quickly. I'll agree that it was a weird decision to not include analog controls, but the game doesn’t really need it in my opinion. Also, say what you will about the dungeon maker, but I absolutely loved it. My only complaint is that it is far too limiting; I want to see it expanded upon in a full on Zelda maker.
I like that the art style isn’t just a 3D imitation of the 2D graphics, it went for a pretty bold and unique style and there was a lot of effort put into the art direction. It’s charming and I like how everything has sorta a tactile nature to it, I feel like I could touch these little models and I know what they’d feel like.
Honestly, it makes me want to vomit. The plastic look combined with too much depth of field just looks really bad to me.
@@bbbbbbb51 God, there are a lot of people named Brandon, some might even say, too much, like me, I say there's too many Brandons.
Edit: this is bad joke, not a bad take
Huge missed opportunity for a Link's Awakening toy/model line
@@matthewwylie2735Holy shit, this. I've never been interested in their amiibos but a Link's Awakening toy line would've eaten my wallet whole
Im glad it was not those weird 2,5 HD style
"8.5 out of 10"
Shows 7.5 Twerking Tingles
My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.
Clearly a Twerking Tingle is worth an extra .13 more than the average point, he clearly rounded up the 8.47 points worth of Twerking Tingles and rounded up to 8.5 for the audience's convenience.
Why .13 you ask? well, I think you can figure it out if you just think about it *long* enough.
The other twerking Tingle is behind you.
@@Name_cannot_be_blank He didn't fix it. It's still 7.5 Tingles. Are YOU blind?
Jokes on you, there are clearly 10 tingles! Don't you see it? Just because they're monochrome doesn't mean they don't exist, stop bullying monochrome tingles! They also have a life!
"I'll never get to experience the haptic feedback of a chicken's wing flapping now."
You sounded so hurt when you said that. It made me laugh.
The sad thing is that from a purely computational perspective, the Switch has enough power to run this game at 60fps as it did with Mario Odyssey, it's just that this game in particular has a memory leak issue which causes it to run really badly when assets are loaded in. Memory leak because, even when you enter, say, a small room where the GPU and CPU should have no problem keeping up, the framerate still drops because it still has unnecessary assets loaded in, getting worse each time you enter and exit a house repeatedly. Being a memory issue, it also noticably improves performance to have the game run off of internal storage as it is the fastest medium for Switch.
Well let's hope it's patch-able, it gets pretty glaring everytime the setting changes
6 months in, looks like they don't plan to fix it. I'm fine with 30fps, but I can't enjoy a game with such inconsistent framerate, ruins the flow for me :(
@@chrisnguyen2316 The sad thing is at least most of the 30fps Switch games I've played can't hold the framerate.
@@chrisnguyen2316 I returned this game after seeing reviews of the framerate. I could have lived with a 30fps cap. 60 is better but consistent is most important, and 60 constantly dropping down to 30 because of triple buffer v-sync is completely unacceptable.
I read that the game actually plays better, when you extract all the assets on a hacked Switch. That makes me believe, that decrypting content from the cart or nand is too slow.
I love the art style but man the opening and ending cut scenes are so unbelievably beautiful that I wish they would do a Classic Zelda game in that hand drawn art style
I've been dying for a Zelda 1 remake in the style from the box and manual art
That is the most satisfying sound effect I've ever heard
I know right?
Woah big league MDB? I’ve heard of you before!
["clups" in agreement]
Mine is jumping into a fresh pile of shit and swimming around
@@HonsHon cool
7:20 That's 7.5/10, but take that down anyway
Every damn time one thing slips through...
I was about to write the same. ;)
It's like Shigeru Miyamoto said Nerrel, even bad mathmatics can be made up for with great editing and a good direction of humor. This is why you go the direction you do :D
Well now we know why he isn’t in the business of giving scores
@@TapDat52K Actually, he said "a delayed video is eventually good, but a rushed video is wrong forever".
If they make an Earthbound remake on this style it would be such a hit
Waiting!!!
Honestly, that was what I thought when I first saw this game, that toy-house look does seem like it would fit into the Earthbound series, especially 3
Because the GBA did not do the game justice visually imo
I don't know, I didn't like that game. Most people don't. That's why it sold so poorly.
I Know! I liked that Game, Most people do! That's why it's so revered
@@ThootenTootinTabootin Earthbound is a beloved classic Fym
A new video, finally. Such an underrated channel!
I agree!
0:53 to 1:16 is the exact reason so many pokemon fans are upset with the Diamond and Pearl remakes. From the material we've seen so far, the visuals absolutely look phoned in. The character sprites are the biggest issue of contention, and a lot of people defend them by saying "the originals were chibi too, so you should like them because they're being faithful." The original models were pixel art representations of a much larger sprite that the game shows you from the beginning, as a sort of contention that it isn't possible on this hardware to have the more detailed full anime looking sprite on screen, so we will substitute it with this abstracted chibi sprite. Many players looked at the original chibi sprite and imagined a more fully realized model, because the game basically tells you to. Not to mention the strange lighting choices and scattered art direction, I think make the remakes visual style fail on every level to compete with the players interpretation of the original pixel art. At least with Link's Awakening, you can tell that there was more time, money, and effort put in to making a highly detailed and beautifully rendered world. Even if it "isn't to your taste", it's a much higher quality execution than the Diamond and Pearl remakes.
Bingo.
Neither this nor Wind Waker were to my aesthetic tastes, but they're really good at what they do. I don't want more of it when I'm not playing it, but when I am, it's impossible not to enjoy it.
BDSP, on the other hand, just feels like a missed opportunity with every second.
I'll never understand why they replaced the photographer's house instead of just adding Dampé's shack somewhere else.
The game's actually already packed fairly tightly as-is, and the photographer's house really only served as a gimmick for the Game Boy Printer (though I wish they kept the photographs somehow, such as credit images or something). It's easier to replace that than potentially muss up design elsewhere.
@@SwordfighterRed Only a gimmick? I think it's one of the most charming parts of the original. So very memorable, and I would've loved to see the photos in reimagined HD.
I don't see why it wouldn't have worked. It's a simple game. This is not Breath of the wild. It's a remade Gameboy game.
All they had to do was prevent some of the photos being missable. Which would've been easy.
@@SwordfighterRed I never even knew anyone who owned a gameboy printer, but we still loved to collect the photos. Didn't matter that we couldn't print them out.
@@ShyGuyXXL Dude, I had a Game Boy Printer! It was a fun little thing.
I guess I more meant that the Camera Shop was just _REALLY_ for that specific purpose so there's nothing that was lost that couldn't have been kept in the credits sequence via images or something. Sorry. I, too, liked the photos, especially the artstyle.
@@SwordfighterRed I mean... technically they could've shown up during the credits, but then they'd still need to include the cutscenes you get them from. Which was the most memorable part.
The weird thing is, ONE of the cutscenes is actually in the game, the one with Marin at the cliff. So why didn't they just include them all?
That's what bothers me so much about this. It wouldn't have been that much more work to have them. Everything else about the remake is great, so it's just SO CLOSE to perfect.
"The sound design is great"
*stock pot smashing sounds in the distance*
The puzzle with the chess pieces is actually really good: they always make an L-turn, just like the knight piece in a regular match of chess.
They didn't for me though. They were 3:1 rather than 2:1. That is L shaped but not a knights move.
@@heyyo3725 that's true. At the very least it is very similar and the pattern is consistent.
In any case, it's a major improvement over the luck-based "throw them until they both land upright" puzzle of the GB version.
@K19 that doesn't matter actually: once you recognize the pattern (whatever pattern that may be), you can solve any puzzle with those chess pieces.
@@heyyo3725 exactly. I guess it wasn't including links position or something, even though you're suppossed to in real chess
Nerrel I love ya but not being able to solve the chess horse puzzle is on you buddy
I'm not a horse expert
@Naanos why unsub ?
@Naanos better he say he isnt thn him saying he can try to be an horse guy
Dont u think ?
@@eightiesguy494 I'm a horse expert
@@eightiesguy494 pssst he was making a joke
The horse puzzle moves exactly as a Knight piece does in chess, and the direction it will leap in is always the way it is facing, that would be a good puzzle but it assumes outside knowledge that is never told to the player in game.
4:00 the things are knights from chess so that’s why they bounce that way. I never thought how that part might be cryptic.
I really, REALLY love the art style they went with for this game. It’s such a playful, tongue in cheek game already, and it looking like it does is a fantastic compliment.
Wait is this a Nerrel video without a segment with good old Trash Truck-kun? umbeliavable!
Great video!
Is this someone i recognize in a random recommended video :)
Your content has became one of my favorites to watch, thanks for another great video Nerrel.
I would have loved to see full 360° movement like in A Link between Worlds. This is such a missed opportunity
That chess piece puzzle was clever. I loved it.
Likewise. I remembered it being tedious RNG in the original and once I realized there was more to it in the remake, I felt really clever.
@@TheGustave03 Same. I remember when I had no idea how they moved but after throwing them a million times I slowly started to figure out the BAM I noticed they were both black and white and it all clicked. felt really good and is that room is one of the reasons why the sixth dungeon is my favorite.
Genuinely excited for our video, genuinely displeased with the rest of today
I want to regularly see hands slapping objects off-screen in your videos. Make that a motif.
ChaseFace agreed.
You should look up the concept art by katsuya terada for Link's awakening. That's how I saw the game in my head as a kid and always hoped a remake would look like.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to see the game in your head as it was depicted in the artwork that actually came with the game? At the very least, it would make no sense whatsoever for nintendo to remake the game based on concept art that most people have never seen.
That art is really beautiful, I've never seen it before. Thanks for mentioning it.
I always thought it would be cool if the remake gave you free range to equip whatever you wanted to the face buttons and L and R, so that way you wouldn't really have issues with how the button layout is.
As someone who always mapped the Roc's feather to A and the Sword to B on the Gameboy, I feel ya.
I thought I was a weirdass for liking the sound effect of hitting beetle enemies with the sword. Glad to see I'm not alone
My only complaint is that I can't justify the purchase of a shot for shot remake of a Gameboy Game for $60. If the game was $40 then I'd be down to get it but until I get it for a good price I'm sticking with the GB original. Now if it was an Oracle game double pack or all three Gameboy Zelda's together I'd be more than happy to buy it for $60.
EXACTLY! I always have a very strong urge to play the remake whenever I see footage, but that price is a wall I will never get past.
@@Nate-ll4do Probably literally, considering how rare it is for Nintendo to mark games down in price.
Not to mention the game is a fair bit shorter than others. The second they announced this game that was my immediate concern.
Same. I love the original and still own my DX copy. I don't feel good about spending $60 for a game that was $40 to start with.
Most of everything in this remake is great, but I don't think adding new graphics and minor tweaks to an almost 30 year old game is enough to justify raising the price to a full $60.
Usually companies are doing that same amount of work just to keep their games in the $20-40 range, because otherwise those games would be nearly worthless on the market or have very little value below $5 per copy.
The game is about 14 hours, how is that unjustified? I'd take this at 79.99 (Canada yay) than skyrim at 19.99 any day.
Love your reviews. Playing games arent really part of my life anymore, but you and SNESDrunk really give me the feeling that I've experienced what a game has to offer. Sometimes you even tempt me to play again... :)
I just got up, so this is a good way to start my day with a new nerrel video
The performance issues are kind of tragic
hopefully the new switch pro will fix that
@@raymondm.3748 We gotta stop making this excuse for any game, especially a gameboy remake lol
@@raymondm.3748 it won't. Unless Nintendo fixes the memory leak in-game, ANY improved hardware will only delay the onset of performance issues.
They are hardly noticiable.
@@raymondm.3748 “new switch pro” lmao what a joke.
03:46 - mentions "wastes of time" while casually showing the room where I got stuck for over 6 months as a kid (back then no internet, no friends had the game, just me and my gameboy). I think it took me over a year of just giving up and coming back later to get through that one. English isn't my first language, so as a kid that puzzle was hard to understand because I didnt' relate the owl's tip to that room. the frustration xD
but still, it was part of the charm. I miss that in breath of the wild. most puzzles are so easy, it takes away that feeling of "I discovered a secret!"
5:21 I totally lost it when you were talking about the spinning glitch "which I considered to be a great time" XD
7:19 That shit is hilarious. You actually only display 7.5 points on screen.
5:22 may be my favorite video clip I've ever seen. Something about it is just so genuinely hilarious 😂 thanks for the laughs man!
5:21 SPEEEN
I really miss that one really high note in the overworld theme and also wish they'd just done a simple piano cover of the house theme instead of some creepy weirdo xylophone shit. Considering that retro games leave most of their look and feel to interpretation though, I feel like this game was still really successful. A pleasant surprise was when the overworld theme became more whimsical when beach waifu joined your party.
Marin is the best zelda waifu
He's absolutely right about the Mysterious Forest soundtrack though. Completely lacking its smooth, "shit's going down"-vibe with the sweet-ass 8-bit drums. It's good, but there are a couple of tunes that didn't really need any tinkering.
Also, have you all heard this? It's brilliant. th-cam.com/video/z483RyU2neg/w-d-xo.html
Omg someone else also noticed the missing high note! I miss it too!
I would absolutely recommend "The Second Narrator" channel. He did a reorchestrated version of _every single_ track, as well as tracks from some other games, and they all sound gorgeous, I SERIOUSLY can't recommend him enough.
0:15 Actually, Link’s Awakening created a lot of those traditional Zelda rules believe it or not. The dungeon sequence of “get main item which opens up the dungeon, get the boss key, then use dungeon item to kill the boss” started in Link’s Awakening. Link to the Past had a different formula.
I never played the original but didn't feel like any puzzles warranted a google search, the only time i did so was to find who needed the pineapple because i didn't make the link to the guy's wording of vitamins. As for the sounds, link drowning is my favorite.
I played the DX version _ages_ ago, but I still had to look up one or two things because I couldn't remember.
I enjoy so much your content Nerrel. The style of your videos is very entertaining.
Always worth the wait for another one of your vids, even if it’s a shorter one. The channel will only keep on growing
I need to see a echos of wisdom review i'm fiendin for it
another neat thing is that you can play through it with a gamecube controller, it makes moving much more natural thanks to the notches.
4:00 the way those Knight statues bounce...
When I played through as a kid every single time I'd just throw it till it worked. Then when I replayed now I did that too but I found it WAY harder to get it to hit the right place than in the original... then my roommate was like "I don't get it, why aren't you just throwing it there? It's like a Knight chess piece right?" and my mind was fucking blown that I had somehow never realized that lmao
Best review. You touched on everything I wanted other reviewers to talk about
I'm subscribed to over 200 channels. and I gotta admit that you are in the top 10 best youtubers I watch. Keep up the good work
Hello Nerrel. Have you seen the new Zelda trailer that has revealed a new Zelda game with a similar art style to this remake of Link's Awakening? One thing I noticed in the trailer is full analog directional movement of the player character versus the 8 direction movement in this game. I just think you should know!
I really like these kinds of videos from you. You do a great job with them!
I'm still watching.
I really don't understand how a game that looks like this can stress the Switch hardware so much. Feels like they needed more technical support from Nintendo or just more time to work out the bugs
Oh yeah
That's why I subscribed to this channel.
But still- original > arranged
Yep 2:21 mysterious forest far better and deeper in original and that's sad. I also prefer OG font too. That Textbox feels like a text message and so out of place.
imo its a mixed bag, sword search and overworld are better on original, but beach with marin and face shrine are better arranged (which is impressive, face shrine was very good already)
Your sheer alpha male manliness drew me in. I’m going to watch more of your content.
This is maybe the most normal nerrel thumbnail
This was a very well done review and I agree with most of what you say. It’s just that the puzzles were pretty easy, and if you couldn’t figure it out the statues give very nice hints along with the phone booths that allowed for this to be the first legend of Zelda that I was able to 100% without a guide. I also didn’t experience any glitches or preference issues, but I may not have been looking for any. Really enjoyed the video
Beautiful as always, Nerrel
Always love seeing new Nerrel videos, this channel rocks.
It's unreasonable to say that the knight piece puzzle is unintuitive, it's pretty clever if you ask me
I kind of want to see Grezzo make their own Zelda game, what would that look like?
Triforce heroes sadly
@@turtleanton6539 hey, triforce heroes wasn’t that bad.
0:45 I disagree, the biggest improvements (although not the most difficult to implement) was the massive quality of life improvements, try going back to the original and you'll find 50% of your gameplay time is accidentally triggering the same unbelievably slow dialogue if you so much as brush up against a rock, also inventory management and UI had a massive overhaul.
Thanks Siiva, very cool
I kind of liked the digital movement. I find that much modern animation runs the risk of trying to flow too smoothly or organically that it feels slow and unlike any artistic style it's trying to improve on. The sudden shifts that came with only 8 directions resembled a lot of what I imagined a digital game modernized would look: kind of like the way the fix-it-Felix-jr people were animated in Wreck-it-Ralph.
Having never played the original links Awakening, I really enjoyed this version, it gave me that nostalgic NES and SNES feeling I hadn't had in years, I loved the field depth and motion blur the art style was different yet gave it this awesome unique in the series feel to it, having played almost all the console Zelda's I really enjoyed playing this and rate it very highly, the creative elements is a definite welcome and is quite noticeable when comparing it to the standard Nintendo Zelda offerings, I was amazed how real the world felt with its art style and sound effects, this was one overhaul that I truly appreciated, the experience certainly delivered, I think the narrator in this video is a little over dramatic in his harsh criticism, there were a few things that I agreed with, yet I did enjoy this game from start to finish unlike Breath of the Wild which after the first 2 thirds felt very repetitive, I take my hat off to the team that remade this game, you did a good job at rebuilding this despite the 8 angle short coming
Unfortunately haven't gotten the game yet so I don't even know if this is a thing, but what would have been a cool Easter egg bonus to unlock in the game would be if they would allow you to change the overall color palette to that of a green screen like the original Gameboy or the Gameboy color palette, while keeping the same 3D visuals
Coming back to this video my brain is a little broken realizing that this thing came out all the way back in 2019. Why does it feel like this came out two years ago.
Man, I can't believe I'm this early for a Nerrel video, I am glad however because I been looking forward for this inevitable review of the game.
Coming back to this review after Echoes of Wisdom reveal, I'm starting to get pretty mixed feelings about the visual style.
I did like it in a vacuum, but I really hope that it's not the visual style for all 2D Zeldas moving forward. Like you mentioned in the video, the less advanced and detailed the visuals of a game are, more your own mind will fill in the gaps about what everything actually looks like. And yes, when playing Link's Awakening on GBC, I didn't imagine a panorama with figurines. But this was a weird game, so unusual visual style was somewhat appropriate.
...But the style is just too cute for me to take seriously. Maybe I'm a downer and an edgelord, but I don't want all Zelda games to be cutesy adventures. Link to the Past in this visual style would very hard for me to get into, and so would the Oracle games. I don't want 2D Zelda games to turn into some kind of handcraft adventures like what Nintendo has been doing with Yoshi.
The devs did probably put lots of work into the engine, so it would also be unreasonable for them to throw it away after one game. Hopefully they are just going to use it for one more game.
3:57 I was stuck at that puzzle just yesterday and only noticed the checkboard pattern on the ground at the second time haha
Your game reviews should be sent straight up to Nintendo HQ to be considered as official, unbiased feedback. Really the best I've seen!
You are quickly becoming my favorite video game talking person. Every video of yours is a treat.
whats the background music at 1:25?
anyone?
I literally just finished rewatching all of your other videos a couple hours ago and this comes out.
I thought this game looked too cartoony but after watching you talk about it and seeing some gameplay it brought a smile to my face. I think I’ll be getting this game now
Man, I love your videos. Your sense of humor so understated and subtle
I kinda want a oracle remake. I never got to play that game and id love it on the switch with this same engine
This game heat I remember playing DX on my 3ds when I was younger. The style fits perfectly with the dream storyline IMO.
thegoat24 yeah I had it on my 3DS too I just never beat it I only got up to the second or third dungeon lol
03:59 that's actually a clever puzzle, the horse pawns move just like in chess! Maybe that was "too clever" for most people. I loved it lol
This was really well written, thoughtful, and helpful. Thanks.
Yay, new video! Great work as always!
The horse head tossing puzzle I had a eureka moment when I realized that they bounce like the Knight's chess piece moves.
I'm not sure about the "pixel art lets you fill it in yourself". Maybe in the Atari/Arcade era and many NES games only, but certainly SNES games and Link's Awakening. Is there some sort of study on this?
i love your reviews, please never stop
Once again a very information dense and entertaining video. Keep up the good work and I will keep watching :)
the fact they decided to downgrade from 360 analog to 8 directions on digital makes no sense to me
The reason they did it is because it'd would've made it too easy to sequence break it, and they were too lazy to actually redesign the map, so they kept it to 8 direction digital movement.
@@steveburnside5395 only if you can use the dpad, which the game doesn't let you
Grezzo was like: "Let's make the game mimick Gameboy movement but not allow the players to use the control method used in the gameboy even though it's right there on the controller"
@@Nukle0n Sequence breaking is already easy in the game, if they're not gonna fix that, I don't see why they should prevent it.
I don't think it's a downgrade at all. It feels snappy and more precise
Your reviews are always the best
I really appreciate the pins and maps in the newer Zelda games it really helped me out while playing this remake, I wished I used the pins in between worlds when I was younger lol
Love your channel man ❤️
The original game was severely limited by the Gameboy having so few buttons. Just putting it on a system with more buttons made a world of difference.
I never had any difficulty with the puzzles personally. The game is pretty good at staying within a given area of the map with what it requires you to do.
The frame rate and lack of analog stick movement really sucks. It would’ve been really cool to allow free analog movement with the stick, and 8-way movement with the d-pad. Mapping the feather to the other triggers would’ve been a nice touch as well.
Even in spite of those three issues, the frame rate is the only one that truly bothers me. I do think if those three things were fixed, the game would be pretty close to perfect.
I loved the chess puzzle in the face shrine. Its a night, so it only moves in an L, and the floor is a chess board. I figures it out all by myself and made my brain mega happy
I hope they build on this remakes to do a dual remake of the Oracle games
Pretty sure they're gonna do it, but knowing Nintendo they'll sell each game individually for $60.
I hope so but they are capcom games
Why a dual remake? The original plan for the Oracle games was three games, only for one of them to get cut. So, personally, I hope that an Oracle games remake includes the cut third game.
im really hoping we get remasters of the oracle games as well, preferably with a different art style that more closely matches the cutscenes in those games
I felt that they had to restrict the players movement in this game in order to keep some of the puzzles in tact. If I'm remembering correctly there were a few puzzles that could be abused if 360 control was added. Just letting people use the hookshot at the new angles allowed for a little bit of jank in and of itself.
They could've just made the game again instead of recycling the game block by block but i guess that'd be too expensive for a 60 dollar game.
@@Nukle0n They wanted to make it close to the original. I don't see it as an issue at all.
ALBW has 360 movement but the items are restricted to 8 directions, i find it hard to believe that adding 360 movement would break the game.
Just checked and you're right. A handful of items are restricted to eight directions. I hadn't thought about that when I had first written that post. I'm still fine with the control method we have. It reminds me of the original and in no way hinders the gameplay experience.
Donkey Kong Frozen Ape $50. Wow incredible.
I like your score rejection :)
Late to comment but... something I learned from watching a Caddicarus video was that, the Switch can overload its RAM which hurts performance. Which it can be remedied by turning the Switch off manually (not by putting it into sleep mode) for a little bit of time to properly recover. Great video regardless.
Hearing those original links awakening tracks gave me a rush of euphoria
my biggest bummer with the remake is that the art style kills the mysterious atmosphere for me. its adorable, & im not saying that the original was ~super serious~ but i felt there was a somewhat darker tone, especially on the GB
In general I liked the presentation of this game. THE main issue I had with it was the D pad didn't do anything. Why! It was originally a D pad game. Using the stick actually made it harder to precisely control.
5:16 How apparent was the stiffness?
your humor is the best humor ever humored. "but im not take that down"
You know looking at the bouncing puzzle where they bounce a certain way, it seems kinda obvious that those are knights from chess. On a chessboard.
I really loved playing this game, I went in expecting an okay experience, but I really sunk in to it. Edit: I basically didn't have to use a guide, even fot the chess part xD. Hint: the pieces move like chess pieces move :O.
I honestly didn’t mind the digital movement. I thought I would hate it, but I adapted to it rather quickly. I'll agree that it was a weird decision to not include analog controls, but the game doesn’t really need it in my opinion. Also, say what you will about the dungeon maker, but I absolutely loved it. My only complaint is that it is far too limiting; I want to see it expanded upon in a full on Zelda maker.