[HN Gopher] Link's Awakening DX HD
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       Link's Awakening DX HD
        
       Author : Ivoah
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2023-12-14 15:30 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (linksawakeningdxhd.itch.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (linksawakeningdxhd.itch.io)
        
       | beezlewax wrote:
       | I just played this on the switch the original gameboy version.. a
       | lot of the gameplay involved moving onto the next screen to avoid
       | critters. This looks like there's nowhere to hide! What you've
       | done looks fun but changes the gameplay mechanics somewhat.
        
         | tigen wrote:
         | I played it on 3DS via emulator. The "redux" romhack vastly
         | improves the experience (e.g. remove the intolerably frequent
         | help messages). Not sure if the official Nintendo offerings
         | have ever tweaked old games this way.
        
       | mrguyorama wrote:
       | I was very sad when I bought the Switch Link's Awakening game,
       | because it looks beautiful and plays well but the music went in a
       | direction I really don't like. They took gritty and energizing
       | chip tune music and replaced it with breathy, gentle wind
       | instruments. It fits the aesthetics of the game but it's so
       | boring.
       | 
       | I'll have to grab this before nintendo kills it.
        
         | syncbehind wrote:
         | >They took gritty and energizing chip tune music and replaced
         | it with breathy, gentle wind instruments. It fits the
         | aesthetics of the game but it's so boring.
         | 
         | I felt the same but I didn't really know what was wrong with it
         | until I read your comment. It is beautiful, but it's just...
         | lacking something for me.
         | 
         | I'd previously described it as a "soul-less remake" but I think
         | perhaps it's just taken in a direction that didn't sit true to
         | the original. Whereas, if you look at the recent Super Mario
         | RPG remake, it's got the same vibe and soul as the original
         | game.
        
         | bitwize wrote:
         | The whole aesthetic of Switch Link's Awakening, even the janky
         | movement, reminded me of old Ivor Wood stop-motion animations,
         | and I was so there for it. Especially as a nice contrast to the
         | grand epic scope of BotW and TotK.
        
         | johnwalkr wrote:
         | I didn't notice this but thinking back, you are right. Still an
         | amazing remake though. 100% faithful yet has great graphical
         | upgrades and adds a bit (but not too much) extra content to
         | play through.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | > I was very sad when I bought the Switch Link's Awakening
         | game, because it looks beautiful and plays well but the music
         | went in a direction I really don't like. They took gritty and
         | energizing chip tune music and replaced it with breathy, gentle
         | wind instruments. It fits the aesthetics of the game but it's
         | so boring.
         | 
         | Same with Super Mario RPG's music. Yoko Shimomura didn't quite
         | capture the same feeling with a lot of the tracks, such as
         | Forest Maze [1, 2]. It's cool that they rehired her and it's
         | cool that they let you switch the music between the two
         | versions in the remake.
         | 
         | I wasn't a fan of either art style reimagining, either. The
         | mood of both games was changed entirely.
         | 
         | [1] old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmbqeMTfoXs
         | 
         | [2] new: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYiRpciZ6_g
        
       | LeoPanthera wrote:
       | This is amazing, but they're very brave to put this up at all. I
       | can hear the thundering hooves of Nintendo lawyers already.
        
         | UberFly wrote:
         | If they didn't know about it they do now. Also, Lynel hooves
         | most likely.
        
       | sanqui wrote:
       | I might be the only one thinking this but in my opinion seeing
       | more than a single screen at once doesn't really suit Link's
       | Awakening. The entire gameplay is built up around restricted
       | scrolling: the screens are designed as puzzles to tackle
       | individually. With free scrolling, the map looks very squairy. I
       | think it might work if the map is redesigned and reimagined, and
       | I'd definitely be interested in seeing that done, but I imagine
       | that would be too much for the purists. I do like the subtle soft
       | shadows behind the character sprites though!
        
         | giraffe_lady wrote:
         | Yeah it's a failure to understand the constraints of the medium
         | & the artists' accommodations to them as itself part of the
         | art. "We sharpened Monet's paintings into full detail" type of
         | thing.
         | 
         | You can certainly do it, it might be better in some sense, it's
         | not wrong or inappropriate or bad. But it is a new thing that
         | didn't exist before, not simply a new way to see the old thing.
        
           | jareklupinski wrote:
           | > a failure to understand the constraints of the medium & the
           | artists' accommodations to them as itself part of the art.
           | "We sharpened Monet's paintings into full detail" type of
           | thing
           | 
           | re-doing a prior work using newer technology is itself a kind
           | of art :)
        
         | rrix2 wrote:
         | This was, I thought, the most interesting choice Nintendo made
         | in the recent Switch remaster of Links Awakening. The Dungeons
         | are still room-based but the overworld free-scrolls in a
         | similar fashion to this experiment, and that leads to awkward
         | things like seeing hidden/inaccessible parts of the overworld
         | earlier than you would in the original even though you couldn't
         | zoom out like you can here. I think it was interesting but not
         | necessarily good...
        
       | hoten wrote:
       | Love to see it.
       | 
       | I myself am on a 2 year long journey (so far) to convert a ~20
       | year old Zelda game engine (see profile) to support free
       | scrolling (we call it z3 scrolling, for Link Of The Past being
       | the third Zelda game and first to implement free scrolling). It
       | will hopefully allow for way more flexibility in game design with
       | the engine, sparking a new round of fresh Zelda fangames.
       | 
       | I wonder how well applying free scrolling to a game not designed
       | for it works. Guess I'll find out when I play this port. iirc the
       | switch remake does it, but still limits the viewport so slightly
       | different approach
        
       | atlas_hugged wrote:
       | Whoa, this whole website is full of cursed reimaginings I've
       | never even heard of before. Sounds like I've got my winter break
       | activities covered.
        
       | Minor49er wrote:
       | Itch has flagged the download for review due to potential
       | suspicious behavior from the page owner. I'll wait for that to
       | clear before downloading (and hopefully before Nintendo catches
       | wind of it)
        
         | UberFly wrote:
         | Uh oh. Nintendo has already sent the team in.
        
         | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
         | https://itch.io/t/1659440/psa-beware-the-try-my-game-scam
         | 
         | > If you see a zip file that is "password protected" DO NOT
         | DOWNLOAD. Scammers encrypt their zip files with passwords so
         | file hosts can't run malware scans on the contents.
         | 
         | It is a .zip file but I can't see anywhere on the page that
         | says whether or not it's password protected. Would that show up
         | on the page? I guess that might be moot if itch.io doesn't scan
         | zip files without a password.
        
           | joombaga wrote:
           | It's not password protected. It also contains a source.7z
           | that is not password protected.
        
         | kevinh wrote:
         | I imagine that's an automated thing that flags new accounts
         | with games that suddenly are very popular (maybe with lots of
         | referrals from discord?).
        
       | Modified3019 wrote:
       | Looks like they did the intelligent thing of releasing the
       | complete 1.0 version.
       | 
       | As opposed to the usual dumbass thing of working for months/years
       | and getting _almost_ done when the C &D from nintendo finally and
       | predictably hits.
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | It will get a Cease & Desist for sure.
        
       | garrettjoecox wrote:
       | Redistributing Nintendo owned assets (textures/sounds/data) on
       | the internet? What could go wrong!
        
       | Loughla wrote:
       | This seems like a really good way to get a lot of people to
       | install some kind of malware, right?
       | 
       | Am I just being paranoid?
        
         | zamadatix wrote:
         | It is, as any page hosting a binary is, but this also includes
         | the source code so you can get as comfortable as you want by
         | going down that route instead.
        
       | andrewclunn wrote:
       | Dot net core, but no linux port?
       | 
       | EDIT - Oh they include the source. Nevermind :-)
        
       | zamadatix wrote:
       | This looks awesome. It'll almost certainly be taken down but it
       | seems they opted to wait until it was done and just release it,
       | at which point the file will never really go away. Link's
       | Awakening already has a modern remake with it's own take on
       | trying to add a more flexible camera though so I wish it had been
       | A Link to the Past or similar. I'll take what I can get for free
       | though!
        
         | CM30 wrote:
         | They definitely took notes from previous attempts to take down
         | fan projects by releasing it anonymously when it was completely
         | finished. In fact, it's kinda surprising just how well the
         | creators kept it under the radar too; neither the modding scene
         | for Link's Awakening/the Zelda series as a whole nor the folks
         | disassembling the original game knew a thing about the project
         | until its release.
         | 
         | It just came completely out of nowhere, and took us all by
         | surprise.
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-14 23:01 UTC)