2021 – Year of the Ancients

If you were to say that 2021 was a good year, then most people would probably burst out laughing. It was a good year for The Legend of Zelda, though, where there were many similarities to the year 2016, which is where the 30th Anniversary of the series took place. Back then we got the release of Twilight Princess HD, the release of Hyrule Warriors: Legends and all of its DLCs, as well as some small goodies for said anniversary, like new amiibo or the Arts & Artifacts book. It was also the year before Breath of the Wild came out, where Nintendo had a lot to show about the upcoming new Zelda game during E3.

Well, in 2021 things weren't as extensive, but still similar. In the early year we didn't really know what would await us, but the ice was quickly broken in February's Nintendo Direct, which is where the Expansion Pass for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was announced, as well as The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD for Nintendo Switch. The rest of the year was then laid out at E3 2021, which announced the new Game & Watch system for Zelda, but also gave us another trailer for the sequel to Breath of the Wild, which is supposed to come out next year.

Now, Age of Calamity already came out last year, but a game like this always lends itself as a platform for some DLC, where the Expansion Pass came in two waves – one in June and one at the very end of October, called Pulse of the Ancients and Guardian of Remembrance respectively. All combined the DLC added three new playable characters, new weapon types for Link and Zelda, eight new story scenarios, five new stages, ten new enemies, 36 new Challenges, and plenty of new Quests. It's not something that can keep you as busy as all the DLC for Hyrule Warriors: Legends in 2016, but it had more quality to it and expanded the game on all fronts.

Between all of this Nintendo has also released Skyward Sword HD, where Skyward Sword was the last 3D Zelda game from before the Nintendo Switch era to yet to be remade or remastered. The original Wii title was released ten years ago, during the 25th Anniversary, where it now basically was the next in line. Its upscaled graphics look beautiful in HD and the new button-only controls made the game a lot more accessible. All the control options still aren't fully ideal, however, and the remaster was completely devoid of any new content.

The game also came with some merchandise in the form of Special Edition Joy-Cons and an amiibo of Zelda and her Loftwing. The latter looks lovely, but sparked also some controversy with its ingame functionality, where the amiibo is used as a key for a new fast travel system, which lets you return to the sky and back to where you were at any time.

Speaking of merchandise, for the 35th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda Nintendo has released a Game & Watch system for the classic NES title, which also includes its younger sibling, Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, as well as the original GameBoy version of Link's Awakening. In addition it comes with a playable clock and timer based on the NES games, and a the Game & Watch title Vernim, which now stars Link as the playable character.

It's a neat, little system, but this was it for the 35th Anniversary. For some reason Nintendo has decided to not do any major celebrations this time, no 35th Anniversary logo, campaign, books, or anything else. (Keep in mind that the release of Skyward Sword HD officially didn't have anything to do with the anniversary, much like Twilight Princess HD in 2016.) And to be fair, 35 years isn't as special as a quarter century or another decade. Still, Super Mario Bros. also got such a Game & Watch device and many more things in 2020 and early 2021, including a whole theme park in Japan, where as a Zelda fan you can't help but feel a bit left out.

But of course this is nothing what fans of the Metroid series had to endure for the last decade... And here it's good to see that 2021 finally gave the franchise a real treat.

Enter Metroid Dread. After almost 20 years we finally got the long awaited sequel to Metroid Fusion and this game was certainly worth the wait. The E.M.M.I. can be a bit of turn-off initially and the controls take some getting used to, but overall MercurySteam has done an excellent job of crafting what's easily one of the best Metroid games in existence, which shines with its fast-paced, smooth gameplay, as well as lots of replayability.

The game also came with a Special Edition, which included a steelbook, an artbook, and some holographic art cards. And two amiibo, one for the new Fusion Suit Samus and one for the E.M.M.I., were also released this year.

As with Zelda, Nintendo didn't celebrate the 35th Anniversary of Metroid in any major form, but Metroid Dread in itself already did a good job with that. Both the art items in the Special Edition and the unlockable endings pay tribute to the main games of the series, while many of the story elements from the Metroid series also come together in Metroid Dread.

So, both for Zelda and Metroid this was overall a good year and we can be looking forward to more from these franchises.

Replaying Link's Awakening (Game & Watch)

Link's Awakening on the original GameBoy was my first Zelda game, which turned me into a fan for life after Christmas 1997. It became a tradition for me to replay this game in some form every year, a tradition I broke once or twice in the recent years, which includes 2020. But I'm making up for this in 2021, where I've already replayed the remake this June, and this week I've returned to the classic GameBoy version via the new Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda system.

I've never been the biggest fan of the DX version (see Link's Awakening vs. Link's Awakening DX), where I'm really happy that Nintendo has now preserved the original version in some form. While I still own a copy for the GameBoy, its battery has died by now, so I can't save. I will fix this eventually, but hardware deteriorates and nothing is truly forever. Also, my best device to play GameBoy games is still my GameBoy Advance SP with a frontlit LCD screen, which is pretty dark...

So, having this Game & Watch system is actually quite neat for re-experiencing the GameBoy classic. And while they have altered some dialogues in the German version, it's still based on the "uncensored" Japanese version, so that's great as well. I also love how they've emulated the green GameBoy screen colors. It really looks like it was supposed to look on the GameBoy, which is something that the GameBoy Color and Advance couldn't replicate with their weird predefined coloring sets.

But playing through the GameBoy version one more time made me appreciate the remake even more. It's not just the constant item switching or the unnecessary text boxes, but the remake got streamlined in other parts as well, for example around Kanalet Castle. There you can just jump down from the castle balcony, so you don't have to walk back all the way through the castle again. I got used to this so much already that I was confused where the "gaps" in the castle wall went...

Or when you get the Slime Key, there is a shortcut to leave the Pothole Maze in the remake, which is just very convenient. And the additional teleporters really made traveling across Koholint so much better at almost every step after the second dungeon. All in all, there was a lot of "going back the way you came" as padding in the original, which all got shortened in the remake.

But to be fair, Link's Awakening on the GameBoy is a short game, probably the shortest Zelda next to The Legend of Zelda on the NES and Four Swords. If you remember the game well enough, you can easily beat it in one evening. While the remake offers some good shortcuts, it also takes much longer to complete thanks to the new mini-games and the Chamber Dungeon. Which is also good, but it's very much padding of its own.

So, if you just want to breeze through Koholint one more time for the sake of nostalgia, then the Game & Watch version might be the best way to do so. I can certainly recommend it.

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.
  

Got the new Zelda Game & Watch

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.

Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda Announced

Happy 35th Anniversary, The Legend of Zelda! Here's a new Game & Watch system for you! I hope you didn't expect a theme park or anything, because that's all you get. At least it's better than the one for Super Mario Bros., right...?

Well, in any case, this is not necessarily what you would have expected out of the 35th Anniversary, where this is about as interesting as getting a bunch of new amiibo five years ago. But here we go... In the least this comes with a variety of games:

• The Legend of Zelda
• Zelda II - The Adventure of Link
• Playable clock based on The Legend of Zelda
• Playable timer based on Zelda II - The Adventure of Link
• Link's Awakening (GameBoy version)
• Game & Watch: Vernim (starring Link)

Now, if you're asking, "what happened to the actual Game & Watch Zelda game?", then you probably have a better memory about this than most Nintendo employees. To be fair, it used to have two screens, like a Nintendo DS:

But this didn't stop from them adding it to the Game & Watch Gallery 4 for the GameBoy Advance (and Wii U Virtual Console), where it used a condensed layout that fits a single screen. They could have done something similar here as well.

There also used to be a "Zelda Game Watch" as a second LCD title, which would have fit the screen just fine, but this was a licensed product made by Nelsonic, where Nintendo may not really have anything available here.

Instead you will have to settle for Vernim, some whack-a-mole with Link, which isn't exactly exciting. And the rest of the games are all titles that can already played on Nintendo Switch in some form, so this shouldn't be very interesting for newcomers to the Zelda series.

But this is actually the first time they've ever re-released the GameBoy version of Link's Awakening, because there was Link's Awakening DX for the GameBoy Color available since 1998, so this was the preferred choice for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console.

I personally always liked the classic, monochrome GameBoy version of Link's Awakening a little more, because this has been my first entry to the series and I wasn't the biggest fan of the coloring in the DX version. I'm even considering to play it one more time on this, but it might really hard to return to this game after the excellent Nintendo Switch remake.

Nintendo Classic Mini: NES Announced

Not to be confused with the Nintendo Mini Classics...

I have this little LCD game, it's quite awesome. I'm not sure, if I'll should get this thing, though:

It has a certain appeal, because I've never owned a Nintendo Entertainment System myself, only borrowed one from school buddies. My first own home console was the Nintendo 64, so getting a NES, SNES or old systems with HDMI output in general seems like an interesting deal.

However, I'm not a big fan of the pre-installed Virtual Console library. My backloggery is already big enough as it is and while the collection of NES games certainly leaves little to desire, you still might miss a specific game, which will be more of a problem with other systems. With a "Mini Super Nintendo" for example, I would certainly miss Terranigma, which is one of my absolute favorite games of all time, but which never made it to the Virtual Console. And without it, the Super Nintendo is just not the same. And if you could collect and insert small cartridges, the collector's appeal would certainly be larger.

Anyhow, I'm also drowning in copies of the Zelda NES Classics already. I have both The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II - The Adventure of Link for GameBoy Advance, on the GameCube with the Collector's Edition, as well as on Virtual Console for Wii, Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, where the Wii U copies are still untouched and probably even would give me a better experience than the Classic Mini System.

It's really just a Virtual Console collection box, which certainly will have some success, because there are many people, who loved the NES back in its day, but don't own any new Nintendo consoles. Or people, who just love the retro look. It's easily accessible and lets people reconnect with the past in a charming way. In a way Pokémon Go is seeing a similar phenomenon right now and Nintendo currently aims at people, who used to be Nintendo fans in their childhoods, to bring them back. Let's hope that they will also aim at the people, who adored Ocarina of Time back in its day.

Play Zelda Game & Watch Online

If you ever wanted to play the Zelda Game & Watch game, now is your chance. There's this site PicaPic.com which devoted itself to accurately reconstruct old LCD games online with the help of some flash. It's a very cool project and their recent addition definitely should gain some attention. Because it's ZELDA. Yeah, you can play this Game & Watch classic online right now, if you want to. And I suggest you really play it right now, because I'm not sure if this is exactly legal. Nintendo produced the Nintendo Mini Classics remakes and the game was part of the Game & Watch Gallery 4, so the "this game is hard to get nowadays"-argument doesn't exactly count. And they released some Game & Watch games for DSiWare at some point, which they will hopefully continue on the new 3DS Virtual Console.

However, the effort, which was put into the Pica Pic project, is amazing. It feels so much like the real deal. I already own the Nintendo Mini Classic version of this game, but playing this in high resolution on my computer is much better. It even feels like it's a littler easier. The game itself is no big deal, just some Zelda II style action, you dodge and block attacks from the enemies and try to kill the Moblin to the right to clear the room. Then you proceed to the next room, where the process repeats itself. Until you get to the boss, which is a giant Dragon, that can be beaten with a tomahawk item. Something the Zelda series never has seen outside of this game.

I hope they'll also remake the Zelda Game Watch. That one had a top down perspective and Aquamentus as a boss. And I never played that one, so I would be really curious. And keep looking for my highscores! ^^

Source: Zelda Power (via Zelda Informer)

Game & Watch on DSiWare

I was talking about a possible "Virtual Handheld" a lot and even gave up hope after a while, so this is really exciting news. Game & Watch games are going to be released on the DSiWare system. They will cost 200 points and nine games were already announced (in brackets the Game & Watch series and the release date):

• Ball (Silver, July 15th)
• Flagman (Silver, July 15th)
• Judge (Silver, July 15th)
• Vermin (Silver, July 15th)
• Chef (Wide Screen, July 29th)
• Donkey Kong Jr. (New Wide Screen, August)
• Helmet (Gold, July 29th)
• Manhole (Gold, August)
• Mario's Cement Factory (New Wide Screen, August)

How is this interesting for Zelda fans? Because there was Game & Watch Zelda game:



It was part of the multi-screen series and orientates itself at Zelda II - The Adventure of Link. You're fighting from a side perspective against Moblins and Stalfos in eight dungeons on the lower screen and a dragon boss monster on the upper screen, when you reach the final room of a dungeon. You can beat the boss using a tomahawk item (which never appeared in the main series) and free Princess Zelda as a soon as you collect all eight Triforce shards. Storywise it's assumed to take place between both NES games.

And probably Game&Watch games on the DSiWare service are not the end. Makes sense to start with Game&Watch, since the muti-screen Game&Watch games (like Zelda) were an inspiration for the DS and the best possible way to market those games is releasing them now without any competition from GameBoy games. Nintendo fans waited quite a while for downloadable classic games on the DSi, so the Game&Watch right now is quite an attraction. But I assume, GameBoy(Color) games for 500 points will follow. And at some point maybe even GameBoy Advance games for 800 points, since the DSi doesn't have a GBA slot anymore. And there's a lot of Zelda stuff on those systems, just check my previous article:

The Future of Zelda: Virtual Handheld

So far I've been skeptical about a Virtual Handheld on the DSi, because of all the costs from legal issues and ESRB rating, which the Virtual Console on the Wii is facing and which don't always justify the low profits from the games. But with the Game&Watch games on the DSi in the picture, everything changes. Those games can't be emulated, they have to be remade. Some of those already have been remade in the Game&Watch collection series, but still those games are made with the highest expense of all downloadable re-releases so far and they are sold at the lowest possible price of two dollars. If this is possible for Nintendo, GameBoy games shouldn't be a problem at all. And maybe even some nice additions like the emulation of the multiplayer.


Source:
Nintendo of Japan
NintendoLife