Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda (Review)

 

Happy 35th Anniversary, The Legend of Zelda! To celebrate you got re-released together with your younger NES sibling for the seventh (or so) time, but this time on its very own video game system: Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda. Let's give this thing a look.

 

Hardware

The new Game & Watch system is quite small, where with 11cm x 6.5cm it almost rivals the GameBoy Micro (10cm x 5 cm). It's also very light and the buttons feel a bit mushy, so it overall has a low quality feel to it. The LCD screen is pretty good, however, with sharp visuals and vibrant colors.

On the left side you can find a USB-C port, but the system won't come with an AC adapter, only a short cable. If you own a Nintendo Switch (Pro Controller) or a modern Android phone, however, then chances are that you will have everything needed for charging ready anyway. But keep this in mind when purchasing.

On the other end rests the speaker and there doesn't seem to be a way of using headphones with the device, which is a shame, because the speaker also isn't the best. For the most part its fine, but some sound effects don't seem to be well balanced, where it can make some annoying louder noises here and then during the gameplay. Some things also just don't sound the same with these speakers, like for example moving rocks and blocks in Link's Awakening, which just doesn't have the same heavy tone to it.

As a nice detail, there is a Triforce on the backside of the device, which gets lit when the system is turned on. However, you won't really notice this while playing or while keeping it in the stand that comes with it. This stand is just made out of cardboard, so nothing special either. With the exception of the display it's all as cheap as it can get.

 

Software

There was already a Game & Watch: Zelda released back in 1989, but it's sadly not part of this system, which comes with a modified version of Vermin instead, where you play whack-a-mole with Link. But this is certainly not the main attraction of the new Game & Watch, which comes with a variety of five different games that you can select:

• The Legend of Zelda (English and Japanese)
• Zelda II - The Adventure of Link (English and Japanese)
• Link's Awakening (English, French, German and Japanese)
• Vermin
• Timer
  

Believe it or not, the Timer is probably one of the most interesting things here, because it's like a mini-game where you battle foes from The Adventure of Link within the set time limit. It saves a separate high score for every time limit that you can chose, which ranges from one to ten minutes.

These battles can even even have Dark Link in them, which is pretty badass. He falls in three hits, however, because otherwise this would be too brutal. And the corner trick doesn't work here, since the screen borders function like in Pac-Man, where you will appear at the right if you leave the screen to the left and vice versa. Should you camp in a corner, Dark Link will simply go to the other end and literally stab you in the back. This must be so satisfying for him after being cheesed for over 30 years.

This seems to be based on the Japanese version, however, so the sounds are slightly different from what you might been used to. And the combat isn't entirely the same either, where the Iron Knuckles seem to be a lot harder to hit. Luckily, the blue ones don't throw sword beams at you, but you don't get to throw any either.

Anyway, it's very interesting that you can play the games in the different language versions, where in case of The Adventure of Link there is actually a good number of changes in both visuals and sounds between the Japanese and English versions. Some enemies can be different as well. The original The Legend of Zelda mainly has differently sounding music, but it's still interesting to give this a try, since both games don't have that much text anyway.

It even treats each language version as its own game, so you can start playing Link's Awakening in both English and German for example, where it will create separate save states and you can keep playing these versions independently from another. A language switch probably would have been more intuitive, but since all of these versions are actually different in other aspects than just the texts, this does make sense from a technical point of view. And as already said, it can be interesting to try these different versions to experience the changes yourself.

For the German version of Link's Awakening they've actually altered some of the infamously lewd translations of Claude M. Moyse, however, where the Cukemen don't speak of condoms and sharing juices any longer. Some character names also got altered, just like in the Virtual Console release of Link's Awakening DX on the Nintendo 3DS. (BowWow used to be called "Struppi" originally, as a reference to Tim & Struppi  / The Adventures of Tintin, while Crazy Tracy was named "Geierwally", as a reference to The Vulture Wally. Those references got cut on the Virtual Console, which is the same for this new version, where now these characters are called "Komet" and "Trantrudi" respectively.)

Otherwise there don't seem to be any changes, however, so the mermaid will still look for her bikini top and get upset if you dive in front of her. And the hippo model has pixel breasts to cover when you enter the house of the crocodile artist, Schule Donavitch, where it implies that they are doing a nude portrait. All of this got censored in Link's Awakening DX for the German and French versions, where the mermaid has lost a pearl necklace instead and the hippo has lost her breasts entirely, where she simply sits down when you enter the room. For the English version this always used to be the case, even on the old GameBoy, while the Japanese versions both had the lewd jokes. Cultural differences and all that...

But if you're from Germany and you want to re-experience the game exactly like it used to be on the GameBoy, keep in mind that these texts were changed. The rest looks and feels pretty much like on the GameBoy, however, where it even emulates the green colors of the original display. You can also switch screen sizes between full width and original, just like on the GameBoy Advance. It's all pretty thoughtful and it's absolutely fantastic that Nintendo has finally preserved the original GameBoy title now in this form.

That being said, it still would have been nice to get Link's Awakening DX in addition, maybe even all GameBoy Color Zelda games, where they could have gone for a complete 8-bit Zelda collection. All these games can be played with only the A, B, Start and Select buttons, which is what the system has.

The emulators employs suspend points for everything, so you can leave a game at any time and then return to it exactly where you left off whenever you want, similar to suspended Virtual Console games, which is highly convenient. It doesn't offer restore points, however, so you can't make your own save states that you can create and load, which would have been very nice to have for the unforgiving Zelda II - The Adventure of Link.

Still, you might find a couple of secrets to make the games easier or harder, mostly by holding down the A button when selecting the game mode or save file. With Vermin you'll get the much harder "Game C" for example. In Zelda II you can get eight lives and everything maxed out right from the start, which makes the game a breeze. If you really want to give the Japanese version a try, then this might even be a good idea, because there it resets your levels to the lowest one on a Game Over, which can be quite demotivating.

However, this trick also unlocks all magic spells right from the beginning, which is a little bit too much and removes part of the fun of collecting everything. Same with the Life and Magic Containers. A middle ground, where you get the highest levels from the start, but still have to collect all the items, would have been great here.

Other than the playable timer, there is also the main clock, where it animates gameplay scenes from The Legend of Zelda and shows the current time on the background / underground. You can also take over and play Link yourself, but unlike in the timer there are no highscores here or anything. It's just for fun.

Conclusion

The Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda system does a good job at preserving the different language versions of three 8-bit Zelda classics, while offering some nice little mini-games as extras. But a couple more games would have been nice, like the original Game & Watch: Zelda or the GameBoy Color titles, where it's a shame that Nintendo didn't go the extra mile with this device, which also doesn't have a high quality to it.

The Good:

• Sharp and bright screen.
• Includes all the different language versions.
• Nice preservation of the original Link's Awakening.
• Suspend and switch between games quickly at any time.
  
• Playable timer with highscores.
  

The Bad:

• Feels cheap and too small.
• The speaker isn't very good and there's no support for headphones.
  
• Doesn't come with the actual Game & Watch: Zelda.
• Doesn't come with any of the GameBoy Color Zelda games.
• No manual restore points.