{"id":7438,"date":"2021-05-10T10:24:09","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T16:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/?p=7438"},"modified":"2021-05-10T10:24:09","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T16:24:09","slug":"the-legend-of-zelda-links-awakening-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/?p=7438","title":{"rendered":"The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Two milestones! Surprisingly to me, I’ve never finished a Switch game before. Like, I kind of finished the Mario game from one perspective, but from another I was barely halfway through it. Regardless, no review! So, oops. (Or not. It’s hard to know.) But also<\/em>, I’ve never played a game that required specifying a year for version control. Link’s Awakening<\/a> has had three versions, two on various GamesBoy in the ’90s, plus this one on the Switch.<\/p>\n

As for what it is, it’s a mostly 2D game[1] set at a 3D angle, a la Link to the Past[2], where you[3] have shipwrecked onto a small island where nobody has heard of the concept of an outside world, where there’s a giant egg housing a Wind Fish (whatever that is), and where (surprise!) the monsters have started getting restless just lately. Also, the art is an adorably almost claymation thing, and every time I paused to actually look at it, it just… made me happy. You know?<\/p>\n

There’s item \/ powerup collection, there’s dungeons, there’s secrets (not all of which I found)… it’s a Zelda game, is what I’m saying, and those are good on their own merits in the vast majority of instances. On top of that, there’s a surprisingly emotional core to the thing, where the act of playing the game as intended leaves you wondering whether you should<\/em> do so. I dug it.<\/p>\n

Also, weirdly, I played the whole game handheld. Bad for my neck, good for my ability to actually finish. This is a problematic realization, to be clear. Especially if you happen to be my neck.<\/p>\n

[1] You can jump and dive, so it’s 2D with an extra two layers beyond the one you mostly exist in? Approximately.
\n[2] Arguably the best Zelda game ever made, Breath of the Wild notwithstanding. Inarguably the best 2D Zelda game ever made.
\n[3] by which I mean Link, the boy in the green tunic who acquired his first sword under, at best<\/em>, suspicious circumstances<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two milestones! Surprisingly to me, I’ve never finished a Switch game before. Like, I kind of finished the Mario game from one perspective, but from another I was barely halfway through it. Regardless, no review! So, oops. (Or not. It’s hard to know.) But also, I’ve never played a game that required specifying a year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[436,1334],"class_list":["post-7438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-software","tag-adventure","tag-nintendo-switch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7438"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7443,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7438\/revisions\/7443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}