My first game console growing up was a Nintendo Gameboy. My brother and I received one each for Christmas when I was about nine or ten. My first games were Metroid II: Return of Samus and Gargoyle’s Quest. Metroid II is the first game I finished, I remember exploring every inch of the map, trying to find every secret I could. I still remember the final boss fight against the Queen Metroid, panicking that I would not have enough rockets (nine year old me was an awful shot). I scraped through the fight with barely any health and made my quick escape against the clock from SR-388.
Once I was done with Metroid II I began looking for my next adventure. Gargoyle’s Quest was impossibly difficult, and then trivialised when I stumbled across how to break the password system (FFFF-FFFF for all items and a start halfway through the game!). I remember going to the shops one day with my mother and browsing the games I could buy and spying a little golden box that would change my life forever.
I even remember the conversation with my mum around buying the game “Are you sure you want this one? It’s $34 dollars, that enough for two other games. It doesn’t even have a nice picture on the box!”. Without knowing much about it I was still drawn to the box and insisted that this was the one I wanted. Thus began my incredible journey with Link.
The 2019 remake has been a great excuse to relive those childhood memories. With my wife looking on, I explained to her all the tricks and tip I had learned as a kid. Thankfully she is a Zelda fan too so I haven’t bored her too much! I remembered my amazement the first time I managed to steal the (dramatically over-priced) bow from the shop and watched her shock as I demonstrated the trick to her.
Playing this game when I was younger was a challenge. There were some particularly nasty bosses that seemed impossible when I first encountered them. I think that this played a large part in why I remember this game so vividly. Playing the remake as an adult the fights are trivial, however I am getting more enjoyment from remember how difficult and how long the game used to seem compared to my experience now.
I have enjoyed my time with the remake, but am unsure if I would have gotten so much from playing it if it didn’t have a connection to my childhood and growing up. As I said before, playing it though as an adult I felt as though it was fairly easy and quick although admittedly, I did retain quite a bit of knowledge from 25 years ago. While I have regretted purchases based upon nostalgia in the past, I am happy to say I feel as though I got exactly what I wanted from this game. I might even go back and try to find all the secrets that I had missed!
According to Gamer Dad 