The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Switch remake reviews are making the rounds, and it sounds like Nintendo has a smash hit on its hands only in time for the holiday season. While expectations for the game were undoubtedly high, many fans tempered what they believed the game would be due to the fact that the developers were going to effort to preserve as much of the classic iteration's intent as possible.

Given thatLink's Awakening debuted in 1993, that led many to await a game with a dated feel to it, a gorgeous-looking trip down a nostalgic road that might be hampered past its conclusion to laurels the past. The feeling around the game began to change the more it was showcased, withal, and with each reveal or trailer, fans began to go more excited about the possibility of aLink's Enkindling remake that lived upward to more just the bar it set for itself over two decades ago. The Nintendo Switch has proven to exist the ideal platform for games to get a 2d lease on life, after all, and even if most of the time that'due south been for direct ports, at that place was reason to believe that magic might extend to remakes also.

Fans will be happy to hear, then, thatThe Fable of Zelda: Link's Awakening remake on Switch has lived up to the lofty expectations of fifty-fifty the nigh diehard supporter. Reviews accept been overwhelmingly positive for the Switch remake, with many declaring it a game that, despite its classical roots, feels new. Descriptions of the game indicate that it is a prime case of how to practice a remake well, while others are labeling information technology one of the reasons to own a Switch - and at that place simply so happens to be the Nintendo Switch Lite debuting in sync withLink's Enkindling. The game currently sits at a loftyMetacritic score of 88, while Opencritic isn't far backside with an 87 average - and a 98% critic recommendation charge per unit, which is extremely high. It's another win for Nintendo, a company that tin seemingly do no incorrect when it comes to exclusive releases. Read on for more impressions ofThe Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Switch remake.

GameSpot - 80/100 - Peter Brown

Though the remake has a couple of blemishes, it's still an easy game to recommend. People speak of Link's Enkindling as the secret best Zelda game. That's a tough call to brand, but it's definitely one of the all-time. If y'all haven't touched a classic Zelda game in a while, Link'southward Awakening will near instantly transport yous back to the '90s. Information technology'due south uncomplicated, in many ways, simply the orchestrated journeying even so conveys a sense of adventure, and this new version is without question the best fashion to feel it. And more than anything else, it will put a smile on your face up. Remakes are a dime a dozen present and often easy to overlook. Don't make that fault with Link's Enkindling.

Game Informer - 9/10- Jeff Cork

Link's Awakening has ever held a special place in my middle, merely asking someone to get back to the original release is tough. With this remake, people don't have whatever excuses for not playing through one of the best (and strangest) entries. I envy those of you who will be experiencing this for the first time, though revisiting information technology all these years after is still an absolute pleasance.

USGamer - 5/v -Nadia Oxford

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening remake for the Switch improves most of the flaws from the original game while maintaining (or enhancing) everything that makes Link's Game Boy adventure a classic. Its shiny new glaze of paint suits it well, even if slowdown issues pop up from time to time. A few hours of play is all information technology takes to remind you why Zelda fans dearest Link'southward Enkindling so very much.

IGN - 9.4/10 -Joe Skrebels

My most succinct recommendation for the 2019 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening would be this: a couple of weeks ago, having finished the original, I was actively hoping that this wouldn't be a shot-for-shot remake. Entire decades after the fact, the dungeons felt a piddling underthought, the controls a fleck primitive. Even slowly making your way through the overworld by mode of prepare clues, rather than the kind of self-directed navigation we were allowed in A Link Betwixt Worlds, felt old-fashioned. And nevertheless, equally I potter once once more across Koholint, digging upwardly its last remaining secrets to avoid turning information technology off again, I'1000 delighted to have been wrong. Link's Awakening retains the manner and feel of its 1993 self, just looks and controls like a game – albeit a retro-styled one – made in 2019. In doing and then, this feels like it was made in some alternate present, where games remained in 2d, puzzle-focused and strange, but tech improved to support it all. You could, I gauge, phone call it time travel.

Forbes - 100/100- Ollie Barder

This is a excellent remake of an already faultless Zelda game. If yous never played the Game Boy original, then you absolutely need to pick this upwards. If, like me, y'all grew up playing this game, then there is a lot of new content to proceed yous busy. While Breath of the Wild was the game many bought their Switch for, Link'south Awakening has only reinforced that decision for me. So buckle up and let a friendly owl testify you what Koholint Island has to offer.

Overall, critical response has been naught short of amazing forThe Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Switch remake. Critics seem unanimously impressed by the game's power to preserve the experience of its 1993 counterpart while modernizing the game enough to make it compelling in 2019 - no small feat, given the huge gap in time between these two releases. Critics also seem enamored by the game'southward strangeness relative to the residual of theLegend of Zelda franchise, another characteristic that has been kept and improved upon in the newest iteration ofLink's Enkindling. While reviews have a scattershot interpretation of the game'due south few flaws, they never seem to corporeality to plenty to call the game annihilation but a must-play for the Nintendo Switch.

It looks like Nintendo has made an even more compelling case for consumers to pick up a Nintendo Switch this holiday season with The Legend of Zelda: Link'south Awakening , a game that will inevitably entreatment to both old-school retro gamers and new fans alike. It really feels similar it's Nintendo'south world when it comes to exclusive titles - the other platforms have their own stars too, only the Switch has swung for the fences with many of its big exclusive releases and come up away with a abode run basically every fourth dimension.

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Cody Gravelle (1589 Articles Published)

Cody is Screen Rant's Game Reviews Editor. He joined the team in 2018 and has been reporting on games pretty well every twenty-four hour period since - except on weekends, where he's typically playing them instead. Despite being in a field ostensibly about critiquing and enjoying quality games, his most played game of 2019 was Fate/Grand Order - something unlikely to change in 2020 and across.

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