I might be the only one thinking this but in my opinion seeing more than a single screen at once doesn't really suit Link's Awakening. The entire gameplay is built up around restricted scrolling: the screens are designed as puzzles to tackle individually. With free scrolling, the map looks very squairy. I think it might work if the map is redesigned and reimagined, and I'd definitely be interested in seeing that done, but I imagine that would be too much for the purists. I do like the subtle soft shadows behind the character sprites though!
This was, I thought, the most interesting choice Nintendo made in the recent Switch remaster of Links Awakening. The Dungeons are still room-based but the overworld free-scrolls in a similar fashion to this experiment, and that leads to awkward things like seeing hidden/inaccessible parts of the overworld earlier than you would in the original even though you couldn't zoom out like you can here. I think it was interesting but not necessarily good...
Yeah it's a failure to understand the constraints of the medium & the artists' accommodations to them as itself part of the art. "We sharpened Monet's paintings into full detail" type of thing.
You can certainly do it, it might be better in some sense, it's not wrong or inappropriate or bad. But it is a new thing that didn't exist before, not simply a new way to see the old thing.
> a failure to understand the constraints of the medium & the artists' accommodations to them as itself part of the art. "We sharpened Monet's paintings into full detail" type of thing
re-doing a prior work using newer technology is itself a kind of art :)
I myself am on a 2 year long journey (so far) to convert a ~20 year old Zelda game engine (see profile) to support free scrolling (we call it z3 scrolling, for Link Of The Past being the third Zelda game and first to implement free scrolling). It will hopefully allow for way more flexibility in game design with the engine, sparking a new round of fresh Zelda fangames.
I wonder how well applying free scrolling to a game not designed for it works. Guess I'll find out when I play this port. iirc the switch remake does it, but still limits the viewport so slightly different approach
I was very sad when I bought the Switch Link's Awakening game, because it looks beautiful and plays well but the music went in a direction I really don't like. They took gritty and energizing chip tune music and replaced it with breathy, gentle wind instruments. It fits the aesthetics of the game but it's so boring.
>They took gritty and energizing chip tune music and replaced it with breathy, gentle wind instruments. It fits the aesthetics of the game but it's so boring.
I felt the same but I didn't really know what was wrong with it until I read your comment. It is beautiful, but it's just... lacking something for me.
I'd previously described it as a "soul-less remake" but I think perhaps it's just taken in a direction that didn't sit true to the original. Whereas, if you look at the recent Super Mario RPG remake, it's got the same vibe and soul as the original game.
I think that’s largely attributable to the very wise decision to not mess at all with the game’s character animations. Very keen understanding of one of the most charming aspects of the original game.
> I was very sad when I bought the Switch Link's Awakening game, because it looks beautiful and plays well but the music went in a direction I really don't like. They took gritty and energizing chip tune music and replaced it with breathy, gentle wind instruments. It fits the aesthetics of the game but it's so boring.
Same with Super Mario RPG's music. Yoko Shimomura didn't quite capture the same feeling with a lot of the tracks, such as Forest Maze [1, 2]. It's cool that they rehired her and it's cool that they let you switch the music between the two versions in the remake.
I wasn't a fan of either art style reimagining, either. The mood of both games was changed entirely.
The whole aesthetic of Switch Link's Awakening, even the janky movement, reminded me of old Ivor Wood stop-motion animations, and I was so there for it. Especially as a nice contrast to the grand epic scope of BotW and TotK.
I didn't notice this but thinking back, you are right. Still an amazing remake though. 100% faithful yet has great graphical upgrades and adds a bit (but not too much) extra content to play through.
Itch has flagged the download for review due to potential suspicious behavior from the page owner. I'll wait for that to clear before downloading (and hopefully before Nintendo catches wind of it)
> If you see a zip file that is “password protected” DO NOT DOWNLOAD. Scammers encrypt their zip files with passwords so file hosts can’t run malware scans on the contents.
It is a .zip file but I can't see anywhere on the page that says whether or not it's password protected. Would that show up on the page? I guess that might be moot if itch.io doesn't scan zip files without a password.
I just played this on the switch the original gameboy version.. a lot of the gameplay involved moving onto the next screen to avoid critters. This looks like there's nowhere to hide! What you've done looks fun but changes the gameplay mechanics somewhat.
I played it on 3DS via emulator. The "redux" romhack vastly improves the experience (e.g. remove the intolerably frequent help messages). Not sure if the official Nintendo offerings have ever tweaked old games this way.
This looks awesome. It'll almost certainly be taken down but it seems they opted to wait until it was done and just release it, at which point the file will never really go away. Link's Awakening already has a modern remake with it's own take on trying to add a more flexible camera though so I wish it had been A Link to the Past or similar. I'll take what I can get for free though!
They definitely took notes from previous attempts to take down fan projects by releasing it anonymously when it was completely finished. In fact, it's kinda surprising just how well the creators kept it under the radar too; neither the modding scene for Link's Awakening/the Zelda series as a whole nor the folks disassembling the original game knew a thing about the project until its release.
It just came completely out of nowhere, and took us all by surprise.
I am an authorized representative of Nintendo of America Inc., owner of the following copyrighted material:
PA0002212311 (The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening) and PA0000772666 (Legend of Zelda : Link's awakening (Game Boy version).
It has come to our attention that the following game, https://linksawakeningdxhd.itch.io/links-awakening-dx-hd, offered on Itch.io infringes and makes unauthorized use of Nintendo’s copyrights in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening video game.
For additional information visit Nintendo’s website at the following URLs:
Please act expeditiously to remove the download and information page for the infringing game.
I have a good faith belief that the material is not authorized by the intellectual property owner, its agent, or the law. The information provided in the notice is accurate, and I swear under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to make the complaint on behalf of the intellectual property owner.
It is, as any page hosting a binary is, but this also includes the source code so you can get as comfortable as you want by going down that route instead.
There's a map editor included if you add "editor" to the command line arguments. With the source and the editor, it seems feasible that a version of this could be created that doesn't get zapped by Nintendo. Curious to see what happens!