The Legend of Zelda

Cadence of Hyrule (2019)

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Despite being one of the most prolific and well-known series of all time, The Legend of Zelda has few notable spin-offs. At first glance, it seems odd that a crossover was made with Crypt of the NecroDancer, a rhythm based roguelite game. As a game series known for its carefully crafted adventures, the randomly generated roguelite worlds seems antithetical to what The Legend of Zelda is known for. While I do think Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda has fun combat, the roguelite formula does not lend itself well to the traditional The Legend of Zelda style.

The strongest aspect of Cadence of Hyrule is without a doubt its presentation. The modern version of the classic top-down The Legend of Zelda world and characters is phenomenal. The sprites are clean, the colors are vibrant, and the animations are fluid. Being a game with a heavy emphasis on music, Cadence of Hyrule knocks it out of the park with its remixes. The Legend of Zelda series is brimming with memorable tracks, and Cadence of Hyrule brings them all back with style. It truly is fantastic how identifiable yet fresh all the tunes are, they are top tier remixes.

Crypt of the NecroDancer is a unique roguelite dungeon crawler in which you move to the beat. On every beat of the song, you have a small window to move in a direction. Enemies also move in a similar fashion, each with their own patterns. Some only move if you step directly in front of them, some move predictably every couple of beats, and some move erratically. It’s definitely an interesting twist on traditional dungeon crawling. Movement is essentially turn-based, but you have to think quickly and time your inputs to the beat.

It can be remarkably tricky to get a handle on the beat-based movement of Cadence of Hyrule. The majority of my deaths in the game came from the first hour or so while I was figuring out the rhythm and how to maneuver. I was pretty frustrated initially by constantly missing the beat, but eventually it becomes second nature to sync to the rhythm. I appreciate the fact that there was an optional mode to disable the timing-specific beat system. In fixed-beat mode the enemies move only when you move. While I did not personally activate this mode, I think it was an important inclusion given the initial awkwardness of the beat system.

There is a bit of an awkward difficulty curve in Cadence of Hyrule due to this system. Traditionally, games should get progressively more difficult as you keep playing as a way to test your mastery. Unfortunately, I felt that Cadence of Hyrule was the most difficult at the very beginning. The combination of learning how to move and having no health or weapons made for a brutal beginning. As soon as I got a grasp on how to play, got some health upgrades, and got a more powerful weapon the game became pretty easy aside from the very last dungeon. I wish some of the mid and late game content took more mastery, as I was able to steamroll most screens without much regard for strategy.

Despite the uneven difficulty curve, I do think the movement and combat in Cadence of Hyrule is enjoyable. It’s a solid twist on traditional top-down adventure games. Once you get in the rhythm, it becomes natural to strategize on the fly. It’s fun to learn the enemies’ patterns and they best approaches to deal with them. Maneuvering around each battle becomes second-nature, unless you lose the beat. While it’s not a system that fits every game, I think it is fantastic and creative approach. Especially when paired with the glorious soundtrack.  

It’s important to note that Cadence of Hyrule is not a true roguelite, but instead is much closer to being a more traditional adventure game with intermittent checkpoints. While there are some roguelite elements like losing some items upon death and a randomized map, I felt that it was closer to a traditional The Legend of Zelda game than I initially expected. To be honest, I wish they went even farther in ditched the roguelite formula altogether for this spin-off.

The randomized overworld just does not work well in a The Legend of Zelda game. These games are about exploration and progression. They are carefully crafted adventures that carefully guide the player in where to go, every element is intentionally placed. Unfortunately, I felt that Cadence of Hyrule just felt forgettable outside of a few distinct locations. Most screens are just generic layouts filled with enemies. There are some puzzles and upgrades to be found around the world, but ultimately the sense of adventure is lacking in comparison to the main series.

A key facet of a roguelite is to provide some variation between subsequent runs, to keep things fresh. I had no desire to play Cadence of Hyrule multiple times because I felt there was nothing remotely different after a single run. You will always unlock the same upgrades, weapons, and items. The only difference may be the order. The overworld is randomized between runs, but that really doesn’t accomplish the goal of replayability. It doesn’t really change anything that the desert area is now in the Northwest instead of the Northeast for example. You can improve your score between runs, but really that’s not a compelling reason to be a roguelite as plenty of games have a scoring system.

Truthfully, I believe Cadence of Hyrule would have been more enjoyable if it entirely abandoned its roguelite aspects. If the world was more intentionally designed like a traditional The Legend of Zelda game, it would have been more enjoyable to explore. The roguelite elements add nothing when there are plenty of checkpoints and there are always the same weapons between runs. I can appreciate the rhythm-based movement and combat that comes from Crypt of the NecroDancer, but the other elements just don’t work as well in Cadence of Hyrule.

Overall, Cadence of Hyrule is a fun mash-up that has some flaws as a result of its DNA. While I love the fact that an indie developer got a chance at The Legend of Zelda, and I think they did the series justice, I felt that it was missing the sense of adventure. The presentation is extraordinary, and the combat is fun once you get the hang of it, but to me exploration is key to the series. The randomized world of Cadence of Hyrule made exploration uninteresting and repetitive. It is for these reasons I give Cadence of Hyrule a 6/10. While I enjoyed Cadence of Hyrule, more than anything it made me yearn for a new top-down The Legend of Zelda game in the classic style.

Link’s Awakening (2019)

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Remakes are always tough to review, considering that they can be approached in many different manners. Some remakes are a complete reimagining of the original, others try to fix glaring issues, and some are just a modernization. Link’s Awakening fits into the final category. A few quality of life changes, an updated art style, and a couple new features bring the 1991 Gameboy game into the modern era. The question is: did they do enough? There are some aspects of the game that are too faithful to a nearly 30-year old handheld title that was heavily limited by its hardware.

The remake of this classic title may be a tad too faithful to its origins. To be fair there were some much needed improvements, but I’d say the game is a slightly modernized clone of the original. The biggest, and most important change, was an update to how the inventory works. In the original game, Link could only equip two items at a time, including his sword and shield. Since you virtually always needed your sword equipped, you constantly had to swap around the second slot depending on which item you needed. This was a giant inconvenience that has been mostly eliminated in this remake.

In the new Link’s Awakening the sword, shield, Power Bracelet, and Pegasus Boots are all permanently equipped once you obtain them. There is much less swapping around items and fiddling around in menus. Still, there could have been more “default” items mapped to buttons. Roc’s Feather for instance was one of my most used items, meaning it had to take up an item slot of most of the game. While the new permanently equipped items are an improvement, it could’ve been taken a step further.

Other than the way items are handled, the only other major change to the game was its visuals. The new art style is a bit odd, and I’m not a huge fan of it. While it does look alright, it makes everything look like a doll or a toy. To me, The Legend of Zelda games embody adventure, and playing as a shiny plastic toy just does not match the vibe of an epic quest. One other thing that was added to the new version of the game was Dampe’s shack. This feature lets the player build their own dungeons using pre-built rooms. It’s not really worth even talking about this feature, as it’s so restrictive and useless that it may as well not exist.

As far as The Legend of Zelda games go, Link’s Awakening is one of the more bizarre entries. There are classic Super Mario enemies like Goombas, there are rarely seen The Legend of Zelda items like Roc’s Feather, and there are plenty of self-aware jokes. It is somewhat jarring to have a The Legend of Zelda game make jokes that reference the fact that is a game. There is an explanation for these strange occurrences, but Link’s Awakening has a distinctly surreal vibe. Link’s Awakening is filled with meta humor, which definitely makes it one of the more unique The Legend of Zelda games.

The most appealing aspect of Link’s Awakening to me was how dense the world is. The map itself is actually pretty tiny, it only takes a couple of minutes to traverse from one end to the other. Despite this, it was designed in such a way that the world has plenty of distinct zones and areas that are jam packed with things to discover. Whenever I acquired a new item, the first thing I would do is search around the map for where I might be able to utilize it to uncover any secrets. Every screen has something hiding in it, and Link’s Awakening does a great job at encouraging the player to keep exploring.

The reason why the game does such a great job at prompting exploration is because it lacksany semblance of handholding. There is a helpful owl who may give the player the idea of where they need to go, but figuring out how to get there is a whole other beast. It really is up to the player to scour the map for any sign of how to progress. For the most part, I enjoyed being left to discover things for myself. That being said, there can be cryptic sections of the game that seem like a relic of the past. The infamous trading quest to acquire the boomerang is one of the best examples of this. You repeatedly trade one item for another in a lengthy sequence, not knowing who wants your current item. It amounts to having to wander around and talk to a bunch of NPCs, praying that they will trade for whatever item you currently have.

Plenty of enemies are designed in a similar manner, in that they require a specific method to defeat them and you must keep guessing until you figure that method out. The worst example of this was the Armos Knight boss. I spent a good chunk of time hitting this boss with all my different items and attacks to figure out how to damage it. As it turns out, you need to hit the boss at a very specific time, in a very specific spot, with a very specific attack. I usually try not to complain about isolated incidents, but this example it felt like something was very wrong. There was really no indication at all of the required timing, weak point, and required weapon.  

An important aspect of almost any The Legend of Zelda game are its dungeons. The dungeon design of Link’s Awakening is pretty basic, which was disappointing to me. None of them were particularly bad or frustrating, just boring. The only dungeon that stood out was the Eagle’s Tower, as that had an interesting theme and central puzzle idea. Every other dungeon just reused the same basic formula of hitting switches and gathering keys. Moreover, the boss design was fairly forgettable as well. This is potentially because the bosses were tremendously easy to defeat.

Overall, I think Link’s Awakening suffers from being a nearly 30-year old Gameboy game. A shocking revelation, I know. But I am somewhat disappointed that the developers did not really take the opportunity to modernize Link’s Awakening. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fun game, but you can definitely tell that is a relic from a bygone era. It is for these reasons that I give Link’s Awakening a 7/10. A respectable piece of The Legend of Zelda history, but it’s not going to impress anybody in the modern day.