Get a taste of what Breath of the Wild would have looked like if it was a classic Zelda release from the age of Link’s Awakening with this fan demake.
Forget about video game remakes – these days, it’s all about the demake. This phenomenon is especially prominent amongst fans of franchises that evoke great deals of nostalgia, and The Legend of Zelda certainly fits that bill, so it’s not at all surprising that Breath of the Wild has copped a demake prototype.
Ohana Studio’s YouTube video imagines what Breath of the Wild would look like if it was made for the Game Boy Color, so if you were into classic Zelda games like Link’s Awakening when they were released, prepare to feel a lot of emotions. The demonstrated gameplay shows Link exploring several areas of Hyrule’s map, from the High Plateau to Gerudo Desert to the Tabantha Tundra.
You can see Link cut down trees, fight Bokoblins and chase Sand Seals, which any Breath of the Wild fan could recognise no matter what the graphics look like. All of this is, of course, accompanied by Zelda’s main theme playing as an 8-bit melody to bump up the nostalgia even more.
Unfortunately, if you’re hoping to get in on the action, I have some bad news for you – the game is not playable. It’s just a brief prototype created out of love for the old Zelda titles to demonstrate how the game might have looked if made for the Game Boy.
Ohana Studio – a single-person developer – has suggested that they might swap some of the assets with their own to make a “full non-Zelda survival GBC-style game” out of it. They’ve also previously made their own unique game inspired by GBC Zelda titles, called The Tides of Time, which you can find on Steam.
While the creation of a Breath of the Wild demake for the GBC is a complete reversal of what Nintendo has been offering, with remakes like Link’s Awakening for the Switch (and more remasters expected), it’s clear that old-school versions of modern titles are in high demand lately.
Zelda is not the only Nintendo franchise affected by this phenomenon either, with a recent Super Mario Odyssey 2D demake for the NES bringing a whole lot of joy to retro game fans. Even better yet, it’s actually playable, with a download link in the YouTube video’s description (but nobody tell Nintendo).
It seems that fans are never going to stop yearning for a nostalgic gameplay experience, so if game developers aren’t going to give the people what they want, they’ll just keep making it themselves. Nintendo might try to sue them, but they can’t fault the creativity.
