This is one of the more fascinating Zelda titles. It was developed primarily during after hours by a small group of passionate nintendo employees and without Shigeru Miyamoto initial consent. Tezuka (the director of the game) had ideas for the Zelda series that were shot down by Miyamoto during the development of A Link to the Past. One of which included unequipping Link's sword and using a bow and bombs to fire explosive arrows like Rambo. It was heavily inspired by Twin Peaks (hence the title for the review) and they weren't restrained by the standard Zelda trappings since the game was being developed without anyone executives knowledge. They included numerous Easter eggs (pun intended) including side scrolling platforming, Goombas, Piranha plants, chain comp and even Kirby. They never asked permission to include these beloved characters.
The end result is a fever dream of a Zelda game with the best story (in my opinion) of any entry in the franchise. It's impressive how far they pushed the limited hardware of the gameboy. It had it's baggage. Only having two buttons to map moves to resulted in tediously having to pause and re-equip items. This was compounded by the usefulness of the Roc's feather and how well the game implemented light platforming and jumping. Thus, you almost always wanted the Roc feather equipped leaving you with only one flex slot to use. The switch remake does much to alleviate this problem. Now the power bracers stay equipped the whole time, much like they did in Ocarina of Time, there's a keybinding for the Pegasus boots (a most welcomed addition), sword and shield. Thus you can equip two different items while still having access to all the previously mentioned moves which is a real godsend and significantly reduced the amount of inventory management. I do wish they took this a step further and gave a dedicated button for jumping (as it stands there are two redundant trigger buttons that could have been used). Still, it's changes like these that make a remake worth pursuing.
The dungeon designs may not be the most complicated of any Zelda entry, but they are the most non-linear and encourage exploration like the rest of the game design does. There will be optional rooms and chests that reward the players with rupees, which are useful this time around, and sometimes heart pieces or shells. While I appreciate how little this game holds your hand and trusts your intelligence, it expects you to make a few big leaps to solve puzzles both within and outside dungeons. Some of these puzzles can be tedious to solve, such as killing enemies in a specific order to make a key drop or using blocks, that you need to control, to fill all the holes in a room. The later really stumped me for a time. I had no idea I could change the direction of the moving blocks. There isn't any indication other than the block moving until it hits a floor and stops. I just assumed it moved along a set path. Once I figured out (I cheated and looked it up) I could manipulate the movement of the block, I was able to push forward and complete the dungeon. A few of the puzzles around this mechanic were satisfying to solve. Still, the game is rather unconventional with both its dungeons and puzzles. Be sure to pay mind to the dungeon map and looking for light lines between rooms, it's an indicator for a destructible wall (some of which are hard to spot in game).
I thought the pre-dungeon quests were mostly fair with the exception of the Bird key. You need to navigate a maze, get a song, go back to the main town, uncover a secret catacomb, use the song to revive a blue rooster, then use the rooster to fly across an impassable chasm... the only hint you are given is "Go to the mountains," and that's not true until after you get the blue rooster... still, overall the game does a great job of giving you a vague sense of where to explore next and trusts you to figure it out.
This game also featured the first trade quest sequence, which would be revisited in Ocarina of Time. It is required to complete this quest to beat the game, but I found it enjoyable and feasible to figure out. It's progression is well designed and coincides with the main story progression. The boomerang is more than worth it. That shit is OP AF.
What did the remake get right? The art direction, the revamped music (this is a touchy subject, I'm sure plenty of fans of the original would have preferred to have access to the original sound track and I think there's merit to that), the quality of life changes to items/controls and making a near 1-to-1 remake of the original world and dungeons.
As I mentioned earlier, I wish they took this a bit further by adding a dedicated jump button, but the changes are still all welcomed from my end. The game has performance issues. The frame rate in the over world was constantly tanking which is weird given how highly stylized the graphics were. It's a shame it's not better optimized. It is cool re exploring this game with a constantly scrolling over world which adds a nice dimension and teases things to come in the peripherals. I personally liked the decision to stick with stagnant camera in the dungeon like on the gameboy. They also added a plethora of new collectibles including twice as many heart pieces and shells. This may appeal to some, but not me. I personally don't like tedious collect-a-thons and didn't bother collecting them all. I tried to be thorough with exploration but I didn't stress over it. Some of the new hidden items are also just stupid. For one new shell you need to play a song on the ocarina to get it to spawn... there's no indication that you need to do this to solve a puzzle so it comes off as just obtuse and unfair. I didn't bother with the dungeon creator because of how half-baked it felt. It's a shame they didn't give you more freedom with it and allow you to download community made dungeons. That could have been a blast and given the game longevity. There are other changes, such as tuning bosses to make them more challenging, and most of these were good. I did think the Ganon form was a tad unfair. I had no idea I was suppose to use a spin or charge attack. There aren't any indications that these attacks would work...
In conclusion, a lot of heart went into this remake and it succeeds at what it wanted to accomplish. I wish they took a bit further, but it's still a great product that is worth checking out.
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