Tag: Zelda

VIDEO GAME REVIEW: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Switch)

written by David Steffen

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for the Nintendo Switch is a 2019 polished and expanded version of the 1993 Game Boy game of the same title. It is part of the Legend of Zelda series of games that came out shortly after The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and has a very similar look and game engine and many of the same items, but has its own feel and story and additional items and enemies all its own.

The story begins at an indeterminate time in Link’s life, and not even clear which Link it is (as the characters named Link in the series as a whole are actually generations of heroes with the same name, rather than a single character), but I think it’s most likely given the timing of the game that this is the Link from A Link to the Past some short time after that game (because he mentions Zelda. The game begins with a ship that Link is sailing on running into a fierce storm that causes a shipwreck, and he wakes up on mysterious Koholint Island to the face of someone who looks very much like Zelda.

This game is, to this day, a major departure from the series in that it is missing many of the major elements that define the Zelda formula. Most of the games are defined by the magical Triforce and the three people that seem to be tied irrevocably to each of its aspects: Zelda for wisdom, Link for courage, Ganon/Ganondorf for power. But this is not a game about Zelda, or about Ganon (a little funny that a Legend of Zelda game barely mentions the titular princess).

The game is almost entirely the same as the original Game Boy version. The mechanics, enemies, dungeons are generally the same. The most noticeable change is the graphics, which are all 3-d rendered and look very pretty and glossy, and it’s fun to see the update. Other graphics related changes such as the overworld is split up into clear “screens” that scroll from one to another, they instead flow smoothly. A big change is that the Switch takes advantage of having more buttons by assigning dedicated buttons to the most vital items like the sword and the shield–in the original game boy game there were two item buttons that you can assign to anything including the sword and the shield, so if you wanted to use two other items, you couldn’t use the sword and shield at all. There is also a new side game where you can build your own dungeons out of preset room blocks, and a new optional dungeon which you will have to find yourself that’s not part of the main quest.

Whether you played the game when it originally came out or you’re new to it, this is a fun game to get hold of. It’s a good introduction to the series as well, because it is a little more forgiving in some ways than the others in the series.

Visuals
The main update from the original are the visuals and they look very nice! Kindof a cute and glossy overhaul, making the character and enemy designs much more detailed than the original Game Boy version was capable of.

Audio
Catchy as ever, The Legend of Zelda series has always had excellent earworms.

Challenge
Overall this is probably one of the Zelda games with an easier learning curve. The top-down view is easier to navigate for beginner players than the modern full-depth worlds. The phone huts throughout the world give you hints on what you’re supposed to be working on next. If you die in the overworld you can choose to continue on the exact same screen without penalty (this is extremely handy for younger players) and if you die in a dungeon although you have to restart from the beginning you at least get to keep any progress you made (i.e. keys collected, doors unlocked) before you died. It’s a good choice if you want to introduce a kid new to video games to the world of Zelda.

Story
The story is pretty light and not particularly sensible. Link spends the game risking his life to wake the godlike entity whose very dreaming defines the island and everything on it. It seems like a really bad plan, and never at any point in the game seems like a good idea, but it’s the only way to move forward with the plot.

Session Time
Since you can save anywhere and continue back from that same screen on the overworld this makes it very easy to pick up and down. Although dungeons would require a little bit of re-playthrough you can at least keep progress made. And of course the Switch still has the major advantage of being able to sleep and unsleep very quickly.

Playability
Controls are easy to pick up, of course it takes some skill and practice to get get at attacking and dodging effectively.

Replayability
There is some replay value in trying to collect all of the secret shells that are scattered throughout the land, to try to earn the rewards, and also to tackle the secret dungeon that’s been added in this version, find all the pieces of heart, and etc.

Originality
Of course this incarnation is a remake of an earlier game, so you can’t judge this incarnation fairly on its originality. The original game itself used the format of another game of its time very closely: the SNES game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, including many of the same items. But even at that time it did add a significant number of new things and had its own feel.

Playtime
Legend of Zelda experts will probably breeze through most of it, as it is one of the easier games in the series, but there are still quite a few dungeons to discover and defeat as well as plenty of things to discover in the overworld.

Overall
The original incarnation of this game is still one of my favorite Game Boy games, an excellent entry in the Legend of Zelda series, and although it borrowed heavy from its SNES predecessor it is still an entertaining and fun game in its own right. This remake of it makes it easy to find for a new generation, as well as updating the graphics and adding some new content, and it was a great deal of fun to revisit it. You can buy it for the Switch for $60 anywhere Nintendo Switch games are sold.

GAME REVIEW: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

written by David Steffen

I thought it was fun to discover the circumstances of the world and Link’s situation in-game with no foreknowledge, so I don’t want to talk too much about the plot so you can discover it for yourself.  Unsurprisingly it does fit into the series’ long-term trend of using incarnations of the same three characters and building new stories around them.

As you can tell from even that brief introduction, this game does verge more into the science fictional than past entries in the series.  Ancient Sheikah devices might be powered by magic but they are more like what we would call technology, and have a fun anachronistic design that mixes the feel of old temple relics with advanced tech.

You discover the main plot of the game as you finish the first several objectives, to save a world that’s already been devastated from a continuing threat.  There are a handful of major objectives you need to do to be able to do that, which are marked on your map early on.  If you wanted to just power through the game you could aim specifically for those right away, but there’s also a wide world out there for you to explore, varied landscapes from frozen tundra to burning hot volcano.  Exploring will help you find equipment and other enhancements that will make it easier to survive your various challenges, by increasing your hearts, or finding better weapons, or better protective clothing that has special effects such as being fireproof for exploring volcanic regions.

One of the main frustrations I had early on was that the weapons are very impermanent.  I’m used to Link finding a sword and then using it forever.  But the weapons you find in this game are not very durable–odds are if you get in a fight with a few enemies you’ll probably break at least one weapon in the middle of the fight.  Early on I always thought I was going to run out of weapons in the middle of a fight, but I managed to get just enough from scavenging fallen enemies to keep going.

Much of the challenge of the game happens early on between fragile weapons and extreme temperatures that Link doesn’t have the equipment to handle.  One piece of goods news is that you get the ability early on to teleport to travel points that you have visited, so if you do get in trouble you can poof to somewhere safe instead of being stuck to meet your doom.

One of the major ongoing tasks with the biggest payoff is to find Sheikah shrines.  Foremost because each one comes with one of these waypoints for teleporting and they are scattered all over the map.  To find each one you actually have to travel on foot, but once you find them you can then teleport to that specific location at will.  So you get a major payoff for each one you find, because your practical travel time to any given point on the map shrinks because every shrine is zero travel time from anywhere else you go.  Finding all of the shrines is also one of the major extra things you can do–you don’t have to find more than a few to finish the game, but the game would be a lot harder and take a lot longer if you didn’t have them.

Many of the interesting sidequests involve collecting resources, herbs or stones or small animals, for the use in crafting equipment or elixirs.  This encourages you to explore different regions more thoroughly where you may find these, and you can just keep an eye out for them while you’re looking for more major quest things too.

The exploration and sidequests are the best part of the game.  If I had any complaints at all it would be that the main quest is kind of disappointing in comparison.  I finished it and I was like “oh, that’s it?” but then I happily went back to find more sidequests.

I haven’t found everything there is in the game yet and I plan to go back and play more.  I also plan to pick up the downloadable content with some extra quests and equipment.

Visuals
Lovely, especially large scale scenery shots which this game does extroardinarily well, giving a sense of huge scale even though in-game you can traverse it much faster than in real life.  It’s a lot of fun to explore Hyrule on a larger scale than ever.

Audio
Great music in a series known for it.

Challenge
Highly variable depending on exactly what you’re trying to do and how quickly you want to make it through the main quest.  I found the first part of the game the most challenging because I had only a few hearts to work with and subpar weapons and armor didn’t have the materials or know-how to properly make food or potions to compensate for my handicaps and was still figuring out how to survive cold temperatures and that sort of thing.  The rest of the gameplay was challenging enough to be fun, but that very early part was where it was the hardest, probably because I hadn’t caught up to the learning curve yet.

Story
Plenty of story, much of it told in the form of legends about yourself.  As with most/all of Zelda games it works on a repeating cycle of incarnations of Zelda and Link and Ganon facing off against each other, always interesting to see how the timeline works, particularly since Ocarina of Time branched it.

Session Time
The nicest thing about the Nintendo Switch is that all games have a short session time, because you can put the console to sleep or wake it at any point, even during cut scenes.  So blissfully short because of excellent console design.

Playability
Reasonably simple controls, much of them similar to the control scheme that’s been used since Ocarina of Time, with the Z button used to focus on enemies so you can pivot around them easily.  There are probably less things to keep track of because Link doesn’t have the big inventory of usable tools he unlocks as in other games, though there are plenty of functionality between various weaponry and especially in being able to climb almost anything and to paraglide.  There are multiple ways to reach many goals, which makes it fun to find one that fits your playing style.

Replayability
Plenty of replayability, whether you just want to explore, or if you’re a completionist who wants to find all of the shrines.  Many of them you’ll just stumble across, but to find every single one is quite a challenge (which I haven’t managed yet, I’ve still got about 15 of 120 to go).  There are also some unique armor sets that you need to complete specific missions to find to get their special powers.

There is also downloadable content to expand the game with extra quests, extra items, for another $20.  I have enjoyed the main game so much I am definitely going to download that at some point.

Originality
Of course it’s part of a long and beloved series of games, so in a lot of ways it’s familiar, but this does mark a very new direction for a Zelda game in the wide-open gameplay.  It keeps a lot of the same feel with the different fantastical races and familiar regions, but with much more emphasis on wide open exploration.  The addition of the ability to climb almost anything and to paraglide make exploring particularly fun because those open up new ways of thinking about moving around a huge map.

Playtime
I finished the main quest of the game in over 100 hours (mostly in 15 minute increments).  If I had been determined to finish the main quest as fast as possible, I could certainly have done so in less time, probably half of that at most, and if someone has an idea where they’re going could probably finish it in significantly less than even that.  But the biggest strength of the game is wide world exploration, so if you’re rushing to finish it I think you’ll be disappointed.

Overall
Excellent new addition to a new longstanding popular game series that has already set a high bar.  This game is very familiar to fans of the series, but also very new in that it’s much more like an “Elder Scrolls, but in Hyrule” game (albeit without the complicated character leveling system etc).  If you’re looking for a game that will take a lot of time to fully explore for your buck, this is a great choice.  Lots of action, lots of side quests and crafting stuff, and just the fun of setting out across a completely unknown landscape to find whatever you can find.

Highly recommended, my favorite game in years. $60 for digital download from Nintendo or physical cartridge from various retailers.