The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening Review: A Timeless Classic, Perfected on Nintendo Switch 2
Some video games age gracefully, while others need a helping hand. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, originally released in 1993 for the Game Boy, made
waves—pun intended—upon its debut. The adventure begins with a seasoned Link
sailing across a vast ocean before a violent storm leaves him shipwrecked on
the shores of Koholint Island. Stranded far from home, Link must brave the
island’s mysterious dungeons in a quest to awaken the Wind Fish and find a way
back home.
Link’s Awakening was the first handheld entry in the Zelda series and remains one of the few games not set in Hyrule, notably excluding both the Triforce and Princess Zelda. Despite these departures, the game was a critical and commercial success, selling approximately 3.83 million copies by 2004. Its impact extended beyond software sales, helping boost overall Game Boy hardware sales by a notable 13% in 1993.
That success led Nintendo to release The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX in 1998 for the Game Boy Color. This enhanced version introduced full-color visuals, a brand-new Color Dungeon, camera features, and tunic upgrades. Link’s Awakening DX was the version my brother and I owned growing up, and I still fondly remember playing through the adventure with his help during both long and short road trips—memories that remain deeply tied to the game’s charm.
In 2019, Nintendo returned to Koholint Island with a full remake of Link’s Awakening for the Nintendo Switch. The Switch version isn’t about reinvention—it’s about preservation, carefully polishing a beloved classic while respecting what made it special in the first place. The game later received a Nintendo Switch 2 update in 2025 alongside the console’s launch, further improving visual fidelity. For this review, I’ll be focusing on The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening as experienced on the Nintendo Switch 2.
When the Switch 2 launched and Link’s Awakening received a day-one update, I was excited to revisit this classic. While the original Switch version occasionally struggled with performance in select areas, those issues appear to be fully resolved on Switch 2. Throughout our time with the game, we didn’t encounter any notable performance drops, resulting in a smoother and more consistent experience overall.
One of the most striking elements of the Switch remake remains its art direction. Featuring a diorama-like world enhanced by tilt-shift visuals, Link’s Awakening adopts one of the most distinctive art styles in the Zelda series. The toy-like presentation may be divisive, but it works remarkably well here, reinforcing the dreamlike tone of Koholint Island while still evoking nostalgia for the original. This visual style would later be reused in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and it’s a direction we hope Nintendo continues to embrace for future 2D Zelda reimaginings.
Link’s Awakening also succeeds in balancing faithfulness with modern quality-of-life improvements. The world layout has been carefully adapted for modern widescreen displays, though dungeon sections still feature bars due to their original square-screen design. While black bars can often feel immersion-breaking, their implementation here is subtle and rarely distracting. Other welcome improvements include key items—such as the sword and shield—remaining permanently equipped, dramatically reducing menu friction, especially during more complex sections of the game.
One of the most notable additions in the Switch version can be found at Dampé’s Shack, which houses the player’s customizable Chamber Dungeons and replaces the Camera Shop from Link’s Awakening DX. This mode showcases Nintendo experimenting safely with a light Mario Maker-inspired approach, allowing players to rearrange completed dungeon rooms into custom challenges. The result is a fun and clever diversion, though it plays more like a solid first draft than a fully realized mode and shouldn’t be the primary reason to purchase the game. Still, it’s an exciting concept that we’d love to see expanded into a full-fledged 2D Zelda dungeon creator in the future.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is a strictly single-player experience, with no multiplayer or online features—but it doesn’t need them to find its footing on the Nintendo Switch 2. What players will find instead is an engaging, intimate story filled with quiet moments that still manage to tug at the heartstrings decades later.
As Link explores Koholint Island, he encounters a wide variety of enemies—many of which aren’t exclusive to the Zelda franchise. Familiar faces from other Nintendo series, such as Super Mario’s Goombas and Chain Chomps, appear alongside classic Zelda enemies like Moblins and Like Likes. This diverse enemy lineup keeps encounters feeling fresh and playful. While the combat system is undeniably simpler than modern Zelda entries like Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, there’s a unique charm to that simplicity. Players will still find a surprising amount of flexibility in how they approach combat for such a streamlined game.
Speaking of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom—both flagship Zelda titles that, alongside Link’s Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom, received Switch 2 updates—this classic adventure still has plenty to offer fans of Nintendo’s modern Zelda era. If you enjoy puzzle-solving, exploration, and adventure, there’s a lot to love here. Even players coming from the series’ massive open-world entries will find that Link’s Awakening offers a more focused, intimate experience that remains just as rewarding.
With so much to love—and remarkably little we would change—we’re awarding The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening on Nintendo Switch 2 a well-earned 10/10. Nintendo’s remake strikes a rare balance between nostalgia and innovation, preserving the soul of the original while thoughtfully modernizing it through meaningful quality-of-life improvements.
On Nintendo Switch 2, Link’s Awakening is both beautiful and impeccably polished, recapturing a cherished moment in gaming history while performing smoothly and consistently throughout. Rather than attempting to reinvent what already worked, Nintendo focused on refinement—resulting in an experience that feels timeless, confident, and complete. As far as we can tell, Link’s Awakening delivers exactly what it sets out to achieve, and it does so nearly flawlessly on Nintendo Switch 2.
Input Lag Score: ★★★★★ (10/10)
Input Lag Ranking: Highly Recommended
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About the Author
Scott (Scotty) Greenhalgh is the founder and owner of Input Lag, an independent Nintendo-focused publication. Scotty brings a player-first perspective informed by years of hands-on experience with Nintendo games to his reviews, rankings, and editorial coverage. His writing focuses on how games feel to play, their long-term value, and the impact Nintendo’s creative and business decisions have on players.
Outside of Input Lag, he also creates Pokémon-focused content online under the name Gr3atScotty.
