Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Got the new Zelda Game & Watch

photo of the package and the item next to the Link's Awakening Nintendo Switch case

This has arrived in the mail today – Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda. It's the only 35th Anniversary item so far, but it's nice to have it as this modern retro system.

It's actually quite small, much smaller than I expected, where you can see the dimensions of the system against a normal Nintendo Switch game box in the above photo. It's 11cm x 6.5cm. Here is another comparison against the Nintendo Mini Classics version of the original Game & Watch Zelda:

It's not as small as a GameBoy Micro, but it's quite similar. It's also very light, where it feels a little bit cheap. The buttons could also be better, but the display is overall quite good.

Similar to the Special Edition of Metroid Dread, the box comes wrapped in a protective plastic casing (not pictured), where this time it even has some things printed onto it, like an Octorok. And I really like this development. Yes, there is a good argument against it, because it creates more plastic waste, but I'm not throwing it into the garbage anyway, because I like that it keeps the box protected from damage, so I put the box back into the casing. And since this one has things printed onto it, people might not throw it away anyway.

There is only the game device and its cardboard stand included, however, so there's nothing in the box to recharge the battery (correction: there is actually a small USB cable, it was just hidden inside the stand). It's just standard USB-C, so it's fine and you can use whatever you have for your Nintendo Switch to charge it. Also, there is even a sheet with Gold Points for MyNintendo included, so you get something there for this purchase, even though it's not Nintendo Switch related.

Well, I've already been playing a little bit with this thing and a separate review will follow in the next days, so I don't want to get too much into things here with this post. This is just to show some photos. But I can already spoil that my favorite thing is probably the playable Timer.

Overall, Zelda II - The Adventure of Link feels like the real star of this whole thing, instead of the original The Legend of Zelda. This is not only because of the fun timer, which is based on Zelda II, but also the fact that this device lets you play the Japanese version, which is quite different from the English one. And it's my first time actually experiencing this version.

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