Link’s Awakening remake lets you zoom out to see the entire island

Replace December 15, 2:10PM ET: As anticipated, Nintendo attorneys stepped in to drive Itch.io to take down the sport, so sadly it’s now not out there to obtain. Our authentic protection follows beneath.

An nameless and creative Nintendo fan has recreated the Recreation Boy traditional The Legend of Zelda: Hyperlink’s Awakening with a twist that separates it from the official 2019 remaster. The widescreen Home windows remake provides excessive body price help and allows you to zoom out to view a bigger portion — and even all — of Koholint Island. However the sport might not final lengthy as Nintendo has a behavior of crushing copyright-infringing fan video games, even when crafted lovingly and supplied free of charge like this one.

Spotted on X (alongside a writeup by Polygon), Hyperlink’s Awakening DX HD is a love letter to the 1993 authentic and its 1998 coloration re-release. The unofficial port recreates the quirky Zelda installment with 120 frames per second (FPS) help, which the developer describes as including “unparalleled fluidity.”

The homebrew port additionally eliminates the unique’s transitions, which loaded a brand new display each time you walked to the following one (old-school Zelda fashion). On this model, the digital camera pans fluidly as Hyperlinks strolls across the island, one thing we think about was no small job for the unnamed creator.

Zoom degree, out there within the in-game settings menu, helps you to pan out to a 1:1, half or one-third pixel scale, permitting you to view as a lot as the whole island concurrently. This isn’t a static perspective, both. Every seen part is absolutely activated (as if Hyperlink had been on it within the authentic) and swarming with enemies. You possibly can transfer round within the panned-out views, swinging your sword at Moblins and trying to find the following job with out pausing to seek the advice of a static sport map.

The sport’s developer posted the ’90s love letter anonymously, more likely to protect them (for a time, anyway) from Nintendo’s litigation-happy authorized group. The 24 MB Hyperlink’s Awakening DX HD is a free obtain on itch.io, however we wouldn’t rely on it staying there for for much longer. Both means, you may watch a snippet of gameplay within the video beneath.