In 2019, Nintendo released its classic Game Boy game The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for Switch, and gave it the full remake treatment, with beautiful, toy-like 3D visuals replacing the minimal sprites of the 1993 original. But as a new fan-made remaster shows, there's another way to bring old games like this to modern hardware: one that retains the original look but is just as impressive in its own way.
Link's Awakening DX HD updates the game with widescreen and high framerate support, and a continuous, smoothly scrolling landscape instead of the original game's screen-by-screen presentation. The game engine essentially runs every screen of the original game simultaneously; as noted by John Linneman of Digital Foundry, you can use a slider in the options to zoom out the view to a 1:1 pixel scale (or even a half or a third scale) and see the entire island of Koholint at once – all full of tiny, grainy life running back and forth. The game remains fully playable in this view (if your monitor is large enough and your eyesight allows it). Incredible.
There are also other improvements, such as an autosave feature and a few minor graphical improvements. When I finished admiring the zoomed out island, I turned back Link's Awakening DX HD to the standard game scale (about 5x magnification) and was struck by how smooth, lively and crisp the game's controls felt at 120 frames per second, with the entire widescreen frame buzzing with activity. It's a very different, more open experience than the original, despite being scrupulously faithful to the gameplay and content.
Link's Awakening DX HD is available for Windows PCs as a free 24 MB download itch.io – for now. Nintendo generally takes a dim view of fan-made projects and has them removed on copyright grounds; Considering this is a free remake of a game that Nintendo currently charges for through Switch Online (not counting the full-price remake), I don't expect Link's Awakening DX HD to be available for a long time. Its creator seems to have chosen to remain anonymous, perhaps for this reason.
Still, it's a fascinating proof-of-concept for another way to improve retro games for the modern age, and well worth a look for Zelda fans (and perhaps Nintendo itself). Because at the end of the day, Link's awakening is a masterpiece.