The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (2019)

I've tried and failed to play through the very first Zelda game. Those were the days when playtime was extended by sheer brutality: punishments for failure would send you back, way back, and require you to repeat and practice until you were good and focused enough to not make mistakes. This, the fourth Zelda, is far more forgiving, offering many creature comforts, namely a flexible save and teleporters. The world, for all its child-like and cartoonish framing, is richer and more expansive. The result is an eminently playable game focused on exploration, environmental puzzles, and simple-but-OK combat.

This is indeed first and foremost a game, made long before Nintendo understood Zelda to be a serious world and changed the tone dramatically. The story here is silly, but the premise allows for it to be silly: it's all but a dream, a sidequest to the canon that Zelda would become. How silly? The titular Zelda isn't even here, there's a cameo by Mario (???), and dialog is the pinnacle of JRPG babytalk. You might have to blink twice to make sure you're not in a Pokémon game. Oh right, Zelda is the one where you're a green guy and he has a sword. Swish, swish. This Switch remake embraces all the above fully with its utterly delightful toy-like design and field-of-view. This is how the LEGO games should look.

The basics are easy enough, but puzzles and dungeons get increasingly tricky, especially in the late game. Don't be ashamed to look up clues online if you get stuck. Remember, these games were designed to stump people into buying "clue books" or read up on hints in magazines. The Switch remake is loyal to those essentials, though apparently it has added more content to meet contemporary expectations. There are a few minigames, for example, which are ... well, they're there. Thank you Zelda for letting me fish.

All in all, what a joyful little package this is.

Played on the Yuzu emulator with 60 FPS mod. Worked almost perfectly, with just a handful of crashes and a subtle fog bug that you would likely not notice unless pointed out to you.