Nintendo Nintendo Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda

Awesome game.

If there’s one thing I should address before this review, it’s that I was a 1990s kid, and was an infant at the tail end of the 80s decade, I never grew up with the Game & Watch series and only knew about Nintendo’s green screened brick handheld, although I did own a few Tiger electronic handheld games which were close enough to G&W as it was. But, I’m just stating my history here.

The Legend of Zelda modern Game & Watch is a fine nostalgia trip into Nintendo’s past era of gaming, where 8-bit games were still going strong, three classic titles, The Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and the Game Boy game, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening are all included on the small system, along with a small twist on the classic Game & Watch game, Vermin as you play as Link hammering down a bunch of…. octoroks? that’s what they look like anyway!

All of the games are preserved working in perfect quality, with a game pause feature allowing you to continue where you left off, changing screen brightness, and even having an exclusive little screensaver for each game if you leave the games idle for a while. On top of that, the handheld also has its own clock that you can adjust the time to, and exclusive for this handheld is setting a timer and playing a fun minigame of defeating as many enemies as possible as the timer goes down.

The handheld itself feels very sleek fitting right into the palms of your hands, and a nice rubbery feel to the buttons, apparently feeling accurate to how the original 1980s Game & Watch systems did. I’ve heard nitpicks from certain social media comments saying they wished that Nintendo went with the DX version of Link’s Awakening, but I think in theory Nintendo wanted to use the 1993 release as the original Game Boy and Game & Watch released in the same decade, and really, I have no complaints about that.

Some may not take a liking to the pricing, especially when scalpers have to bring up the price higher, but if you can manage to grab a copy on the retail shelf for its actual price, I highly recommend picking one up, as these may not last for long.

1st of all, what is NOT to like about the Legend of Zelda series? Most folks who are familiar with the series most likely played it 1st on the NES or Famicom as it was called in Japan. If you want to relive the memories or are playing it for the 1st time… this is a neat little package of 3 mainstream Zelda titles plus the Game and Watch title. It is smaller than a Switch so it is MUCH more portable. But since the screen is so small, it may be hard to see without glasses for older folks like myself. Either way… it is well worth the purchase in my humble opinion.

I only got a supernintendo when I was 18 with A Link to the Past and only got to play the original zelda when we’d visit my cousin in another state for an hour. I never had another system besides PC and handheld games dating back to Palm Pilots. Alden’s Quest was the most Zelda like game I ever found but its only for Palm Pilots which I no longer have. This Zelda handheld is everything I ever wanted. Emulators aren’t the same because it’s the Nintendo buttons you want to press! The screen looked like it would be too small but it’s perfect. The sound is great and even the clocks are cool but I’m too afraid of burning out the screen by leaving them on. My only gripe is that the buttons are slippery. Not sure if it’s to help maneuver but sometimes I think about putting tiny nonslip stickers on the cross button. Buy it!!

This is gorgeous! It’s a must if you are a fan of the series, or a collector. It’s super lightweight, yet feels very sturdy. The graphics are perfect, the esthetic is right-on, and one can tell a lot of thought has been put into this little device! The packaging is brilliant, unfolding to become a stand for display. It charges with a USB cable, and you can control the volume, even mute it if you don’t want to hear the music (which… why wouldn’t you – it’s so iconic!). Another cool little bonus detail: the etched triforce at the back of the unit glows when you turn it on.

Such a great buy!!!