Daily Debate: Which Zelda Games Deserve a Remake?
Posted on November 30 2023 by Nick Miller
What makes a game deserving of a remake? Maybe hardware limitations hindered a game from reaching its full potential. Maybe the gameplay mechanics haven’t stood the test of time, or the controls are dated and foreign to a modern audience. Maybe the story is worth retelling in an entirely new genre. Maybe a new hardware feature presents an opportunity to enhance the game in an exciting way. There is a plethora of reasons why a game might be worthy of a remake, so I want to hear about them. More specifically, I want to know which Zelda games you think deserve a remake.
For me, that game is Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. I love this game. I appreciate that it shook things up instead of retreading ground its predecessor had already covered. The Adventure of Link may have been ambitious, but it is still to this day the black sheep of the Zelda family. Its difficulty, its cryptic progression, and just the fact that it’s so different from most other Zelda titles turn players off. As such, it’s a bit of a niche title, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a crowd-pleasing game somewhere in its framework.
While a remake could tidy up a lot of the smaller issues by smoothing out the controls, rewriting NPC dialogue, and adding better indicators for progression — among other things — what would easily bring The Adventure of Link to the forefront is rebalancing the difficulty. Enemies are often difficult to the point of feeling unfair. Combine that with a limited health bar and harsh checkpoints, and this game will easily turn away anyone who isn’t fully committed to muscling through it. I’m not suggesting we convert The Adventure of Link into a Weenie Hut Jr. or anything, but balancing the difficulty to at least make it feel more fair, and adopting a modern checkpoint system, would do wonders to make this game more palatable to a wider audience.
So, what do you think? Which Zelda games deserve a remake? What should change in remakes of those games? Are there any Zelda games that should never be remade? Let us know in the comments.
Nick is a writer for Zelda Dungeon and a longtime fan of the Zelda franchise. In his free time, he enjoys fishing, archery, skateboarding, and some good ol’ fashioned family time. He’s an advocate for physical media and an avid video game collector. His favorite Zelda game is Ocarina of Time, though Breath of the Wild and the Link’s Awakening remake are close contenders.
