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curl-6 on 24 February 2019
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S.Peelman said:

The great atmosphere, mysterious story (the game was written by Koizumi who also wrote and directed Majora’s Mask, it’s notable how these two both have a very unique style to them) and characterization in this game has already been adressed, but it’s also of course just excellent in gameplay, level and character/enemy design.

It has great dungeons all around with elaborate and original puzzles, sometimes spanning the entire dungeon. There’s backstories to them, and bosses are intertwined with dungeon themes and stories. The overworld is varied and packed with content and challenge. Certain items can also be used together for extra uses.

It was the first game in the series to do a lot of things that remained in later games; most notably the fishing mini-game and the collectathon and trading side-quests. It was also the first to include unique mini-bosses for each dungeon and a musical instrument that has multiple uses with different songs. The owl was the first guide character, though not yet a constant companion like Navi.

Really it was a wonder it could be on GameBoy at all, as it does pretty much everything better than big brother A Link to the Past on the SNES, except control scheme and graphics but those were obviously a hardware limitation. It’s also almost as big as A Link to the Past, and even had cutscenes!

Wonderfully put, thanks for the insight.

The_Liquid_Laser said:
curl-6 said:

Well, thank fuck it's not a 3DS game as rumored. That would've been a real low blow.

Btw, can somebody explain to me why this game is so beloved? Not knocking it, just curious as to why so many people list it among the best of the series?

Just speaking for myself, but to me the NES/SNES Zeldas are amazingly great games.  In fact the very first LoZ is still my favorite game of all time.  I just love these early Zeldas so much, and after Ocarina of Time, Zelda changed a whole lot.  Even the 2D Zeldas just don't feel right anymore.  They tend to be more about puzzles instead of action.  The pre-Ocarina Zeldas were about 2D action.

Link's Awakening is the only pre-Ocarina Zelda that I haven't played.  I was originally going to get the GB Color version, but I'd rather have this version instead.  It's a wonderful, new-to-me style of game that just isn't made anymore.  It's a day 1 must buy for me.

A lot of people who began the series pre-Ocarina seem to have similar sentiments.

Ocarina was my jumping off point for the series so that style more defined what Zelda meant to me. I doubt I'd get much out of the NES games as *raises flame shield* I find most games from that era practically unplayable nowadays. Even Link to the Past (while it was well made and I did overall enjoy it) felt a tad clunky when I finally got around to playing it, mostly due to limitations like not being able to attack diagonally. (Something that the trailer reveals is thankfully not an issue in this remaster)

Given that Nintendo will most likely add a lot of modern polish to this remaster to make it more playable by today's standards, this could be the game that finally makes 2D Zelda click for me.

mjk45 said:
curl-6 said:

Still haven't made up my mind on this one.

I usually don't buy remastered old games on principle as there has been way, way too much rehashing of old content this generation and I don't want to support this horrid practice, but on the other hand, there comes a point where a game is old and primitive enough that I feel like a remake is justifiable, especially one like this that's over a quarter of a century old and made for an 8-bit portable.

Funnily enough I actually don't mind the art direction (which is unusual as I am very picky about art styles) and since I never played it before, I may actually pick it up. 

I feel strange after this the opening isn't my bag , was about to turn off  but surprisingly when I saw the ingame content  I actually liked the games style. 

Yeah I like the art style too. I mean, I'd prefer the next new mainline Zelda to have a less carefree/cutesy style, and if this was the look for BOTW's sequel I'd be super disappointed, but for a remaster this is fine.

Since making the post above I've decided that I will definitely be picking this one up.