In 2019, Nintendo ported The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening from the classic Game Boy to the Switch, presenting it with a complete remake featuring vivid 3D visuals. However, a recent fan-made remaster, Link’s Awakening DX HD, offers a unique take on modernizing retro games. This unofficial remaster introduces widescreen and high frame rate support, along with continuous, smooth landscape scrolling, deviating from the original screen-by-screen presentation. Namely, the game launcher simultaneously launches every screen of the original game. Digital Foundry’s John Linneman revealed a slider in the options that allows users to scale down to 1:1 pixel scale, giving a beautiful view of the entire island of Koholint at once, filled with tiny, pixelated life.
Link’s Awakening DX HD goes beyond the visual spectacle, including practical improvements such as an auto-save function and minor graphical improvements. Returning to the game’s default scale, the experience remains smooth and vibrant at 120 frames per second, offering a more open and dynamic gameplay experience while staying true to the original content. Available as a free download on itch.io for Windows PCs, Link’s Awakening DX HD weighs in at just 24MB. However, the fate of this fan creation is uncertain, given Nintendo’s history of removing such projects due to copyright issues. Since the remaster is based on a game still actively marketed by Nintendo, its availability may be short-lived.
