I was looking forward to this game, as I was yearning a new 2D Zelda for a while, but I wasn't expecting it to surprise me. That is, until I 100 percent the game in two days with 30 hours of play time. I fell in love, but I couldn't help to acknowledge the faults of this game. The frame rate issues have no excuse to exist as many other games that are much more technically demanding don't dip as often. Movement being locked in eight directions is fine, but not allowing use of the D-pad to move is astonishing. If you are going to force me to use the control stick, then at least provide more than eight directions. In the end however, I still enjoy this game, even after subsequent playthroughs.
5 Trons

Links Awakening holds a special place in my heart, as the first game I ever owned (along with Pokemon Yellow). I was excited when this remake got announced, as I had not played this game since I was young but in my mind I have the whole thing mapped out. I was interested to see how much I knew, and what my perception of this strange game that existed in memory actually existed and what was weird shit I just made up.

I turns out that I did have this game pretty much committed to some internal part of my brain, and that all the weird shit I thought I must have been misremembering does in fact exist. A surreal masterpiece, this game is emanates joy in its weird dungeon design and interesting setting. The "twist" was truly jarring to me as a kid, and it still hits years later.

Turns out that putting an extremely fresh coat of paint on a game from 1993 doesn't actually change the 1993 game design. In general the game is decently fun, although it doesn't feel as engaging as it ought to. All this on top of the game having a very weird story. It's definitely an interesting ending, but Link's actions don't feel justified. For what real reason must Link awaken? It's hard to determine what this strange metaphor is going for, so at the end of the game you've deleted a small community from existence seemingly just to stop a few monsters from existing.

Link's Awakening is a game I have really enjoyed in the past, so when I found out that there was going to be a remake of the game coming to the Switch, I was excited to find out what it would be like. Turns out, it's not exactly the game I remember, especially with an upres and an art style change, it made this game feel much more cheap. The gameplay is overall fine but as the game goes on, it becomes incredibly cryptic as to what you are supposed to do. I found myself painstakingly going through puzzles or desperately searching for another item because I HAD to in order to do the things I actually wanted to do, and not because I wanted to actually do the tasks. This game just feels like fetch quest after fetch quest to solve puzzles that would be fun if they weren't designed by a master locksmith. Not to mention, compared to the puzzles, the actual action is a breeze. Most bosses are easy to defeat and take no real time at all to understand. This is not inheritley a bad thing but I would love for the bosses to be more challenging, so the puzzles would not feel like the bulk of this game. Not to mention, the way this game feigns an open world. Most of the world is open to you from the beginning of the game, but it is very limited on what you can do until you actually complete the dungeons in linear order. The art style is my last gripe with this game has while it has some original quality to it, the toy art style always feels like when Nintendo does not really care. They did it with Super Mario 3D World, they did it here and it just feels gross. Obviously, there are some good parts to the game, the story is good, characters are okay for the most part, Link's movement and attacks feel natural and it's a fun game to run around in. This game should have really been changed in a lot of ways because the game feels outdated in many ways, which is a great appeal for some, but I would personally call it bad game design.

I'm a huge Zelda fan, but never experienced this game until playing the Switch remake.

Overall a great way to get your classic LoZ fix. Tricky bosses, cryptic but satisfying dungeon puzzles, and a charming story/world are all there. The dungeon design can be downright baffling, and there's a sense of emptiness to the game with limited items to spend all your rupees on and only one (two?) real towns.

If you can borrow a copy or get one cheap, this will be a nice little 15-hour diversion from between bigger, meatier games.

As someone with no connection to the original, I can't tell you if it's a good remake. HOWEVER I can say that as a game, It's pretty good. I would recommend this to first timers of the Zelda series, I feel this game perfectly represents what a Zelda game is while making things simple for newcomers. It has lots of charm and I really like the art style. The game has a few technical issues though, frame rate is inconsistent, found a few glitches and sometimes there a blur effect which is odd? But still this is a solid game to get for your Switch.

It's Link's Awakening. My second favorite Zelda game so I obviously enjoyed it but I was hoping for this to be a bit more special as a remake. (For reference I gave the original a 4.)

I had a bit of a rough go with the art style (it did grow on me) but the big issue was the blur effect. I acknowledge that it was an aesthetic choice and I know why they did it but it was awful for me. Add in the choppy framerate when transitioning between "areas" and this was the closest I've come to experiencing motion sickness in a game. I'm sure this all fares a bit better docked/on a tv but Link's Awakening is a handheld game through and through for me.

Ocarina of Time 3D stays the best example of a remake in the series. At least this one didn't mangle whole gameplay elements like Majora's Mask 3D did.

The frame drops are so weird it kept me from enjoying it completely.
It's a good game and a nice retrospective on the GB classic. The shovel made me dig up the trauma (haha) I got when playing the original, trying to dig up everything everywhere.
However, some dungeons were too confusing in the original and still are. Finding the one staircase I always missed, it's a bit frustrating.

All in all, it's a solid classic Zelda, but not a full price game and I am happy the series evolved.

Pretty fun and cute game, but DEEPLY flawed. Last shrines and key-puzzles were way too cryptic, boss battles were way too easy, the "adventure creator" mode blows (and you are forced to play it for hours if you want the 20 hearts mark) and not having clear signs of where stairs will take you on dungeons is a major fuck-up.

I know it's a remake for an oldschool japanese hardcore game, but not tweaking any of it almost 30 years later makes no sense. Lots of cheap "time consuming" tropes that were used in the original only because they needed the game to feel "longer" (without forcing the weak Game Boy hardware) are left untouched.

It will probably look better in some years, when people forget that this was sold to kids for freakin' $60 USD. Seriously, it's a pretty fun game, but selling this for all that money is just criminal, Nintendo execs should be thrown in jail.