VIDEO GAME: Link’s Awakening (2019)

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening Year: 2019 Rating: E Time Played: ~10 hours I'm not a huge fan of HD remakes of older games. After all, it's basically putting a new skin on the same game and asking modern prices for the privilege to play it. When I eventually picked up the Switch version of this classic Game Boy game, I was only partly justified in my skepticism. Sure, I didn't pay full price for these—albeit absolutely gorgeous—updated visuals, so I feel I still got my money's worth out of the game (which I still don't consider to be worth $60). Having only recently completed the DX version of this game for the first time, I found navigating through Link's Awakening (2019) was a lot easier the second time around. This was partly due to my memory of the game and my ability to easily complete some of the game's plot points that weren't as intuitive in my first playthrough. That being said, there...
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VIDEO GAME: Link’s Awakening DX (1998)

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX Year: 1998 Rating: E Time Played: ~16 hours With the recently-released Switch remake of this game, I realized I never actually managed to play through the original Link’s Awakening. Perhaps one of the first Zelda games my family-owned, I decided to pull out my copy of Link’s Awakening DX and play through it (and thus, save me the $60 on a “new” game). While I played for a bit on the Super Game Boy to get that “big screen” feel, the colors I experienced on the Game Boy Advanced made playing in a handheld mode that much more enjoyable, if not more intimate. After running through the first few dungeons, it became evident to me that I never made it very far in this game when I was 20 years younger. I was content just exploring what I could at the time. However, this also highlights how there were some moments where the next step in completing the...
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