Growing up, one of my favorite video game series was The Legend of Zelda, and one of my favorites in the series was The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. The idea of having two item slots was incredibly novel, and while swapping your sword out was tedious, it gave us item combinations we never had before and made dungeons much more interesting.
While Link’s Awakening on Switch helps reduce this item swapping tedium, I still prefer to play the Game Boy Color original. Thankfully, skilled modders have created the best of both worlds with Link’s Awakening DX HD, giving us amazing quality of life features and the classic Link’s Awakening DX experience.
I learned about this version thanks to fellow RPGFan writer Jonathan Logan and was immediately impressed by how it seamlessly transitions the world from a grid-based map to a fully interconnected world. The way Link’s Awakening DX HD flows is surprisingly strong, as if Link’s Awakening was originally designed with this in mind.
An interesting outcome of this design change is that, much like with the 3D The Legend of Zelda games, Link’s Awakening DX HD teases you with areas that you cannot quite get to. For someone who’s already played Link’s Awakening, it’s quaint, but if this were my first time playing it, I imagine I’d have found it exciting. This map structure is also used in dungeons, which makes the dungeons a wildly different experience, with only a few The Legend of Zelda games having such open dungeons.
For those who started with the original Game Boy Color game, Link’s Awakening DX HD feels more or less the same mechanically. You still progress through the game as normal, fighting enemies, solving puzzles, and clearing dungeons. Yet, veterans will notice that there are key design changes evident from the very beginning.
Once you get Link’s sword back, the first thing you will likely notice is that the sword slash properties have changed, allowing for greater reach and a wider hitbox. Despite loving Link’s Awakening, I cannot deny that this is a welcome change, improving flow and pacing.
While the sword change is interesting, it does not compare to how much of a difference the additional item slots make in Link’s Awakening DX HD. Even adding two slots is a massive pacing improvement, meaning you rarely have to pause. Throughout most of my journey, I had the Power Bracelet, Sword, Pegasus Boots, and Roc’s Feather equipped, allowing me to always have my most important movement items and sword at all times. Even better is when I discovered that I could expand it to six, and thus almost never had to swap items outside of specific use cases. It’s such a strong feature that I’m shocked the Link’s Awakening Switch remake didn’t go half as far!
Going into Link’s Awakening DX HD, I knew that it had a lot of customization features, but I never realized just how extensive they were. While many things have changed with this remaster, such as the sword properties and additional item slots, these can be set back to how they worked in the original game.
The customization is highly granular, allowing you to modify numerous aspects, big and small, to tweak Link’s Awakening DX HD to your preferences. Do you want to get rid of the message for picking up a Guardian Acorn? Do you want to increase how much damage you take? Heck, do you want to give yourself a veritable Assist Mode, a la Celeste? This game has settings for all that and more. And if you don’t know what something means, the game includes a handy tool tip for every setting. They even made sure people who hate fiddling with settings are satisfied, including a classic preset and a modern preset!
What I found with the more modern customization features is just how quickly you can beat Link’s Awakening with the right settings. The updated sword, the interconnected world, the reduced menuing required, all this genuinely surprised me by how quickly I beat the game. Granted, it doesn’t hurt that I’m pretty familiar with the game, but you would be shocked by how much time is spent in the original game’s menu!
The graphics in Link’s Awakening DX HD remain true to the original, though with plenty of added effects to help things stand out, most notably the lighting. When Link awakens in Marin’s house, the global lighting is immediately obvious, while the Mysterious Woods adds a fun fog effect. Like all changes made to Link’s Awakening DX HD, both of these can be disabled if you want to keep your visual experience pure!
The music in Link’s Awakening DX HD, meanwhile, is identical to the original, which is a huge plus for me as someone who usually does not love remakes doing new compositions. The Link’s Awakening Switch soundtrack is still strong, but for as much as I enjoy it, I far prefer the original.
One minor issue I experienced with Link’s Awakening DX HD, perhaps the only actual issue I took with this game, is how it handles transitions between areas with different music. The first area this comes up in is the Mysterious Woods, and it really irks me when the one song instantly jumps to the other. It’s nothing that affects my feelings about the game, just something I wish could be fixed by having a beat of silence between songs that the original game has.
As a big fan of fan games and hacks, I believe Link’s Awakening DX HD stands as one of the best that anyone has made for The Legend of Zelda series. You can tell that the people involved have a lot of love for Link’s Awakening and for game development in general! The only real misgiving I had was it was confusing to figure out how to set it up at first, but once I figured it out, it was smooth sailing.
I strongly recommend anyone interested in replaying Link’s Awakening try this. Those who want to try it for the first time may be well served by this version, though honestly, I think half of what makes me like it so much is having already played the original. Whichever version you end up playing, I’m sure it’ll be a great time!
