It has three full Zelda games, a clock, and a minigame
In case you forgot, the Zelda Game & Watch device is here this week, and it works pretty much as advertised. Nintendo pretty much has these down like clockwork at this point. This unit is very similar to the Mario device released last year, which featured two full games and a Game & Watch minigame rework with Mario in it, on top of a clock. This is basically the same, but with the following full-length titles:
- The Legend of Zelda
- The Legend of Zelda: Adventures of Link
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (the original, not the Game Boy Color DX version)
That’s quite the power trio, and “three full-length Zelda games” has a little more of a value prospect to it. These are three action-adventure games, which have been endlessly replayed throughout the lifetime of many Zelda fans, myself included. I mean, even just the addition of Link’s Awakening alone gives this thing a huge amount of cachet: as I can basically recreate the world map from memory having played it in countless car rides. It’s that timeless.
A lot of the presentation elements are the same as the Mario release, which is generally a plus. The translucent slipcase is still present, as is the slim roughly 67mm high, 112mm long, 12mm deep, and .15 pounds layout, on top of the 30cm USB type -CA cable for charging (without an AC adapter), with a roughly eight-hour battery per charge (and three-and-a-half-hour charge time).
Again, Nintendo has this manufacturing process down to a science, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see another one of these pop up every so often (is Metroid next?). It also comes with a little card for 300 My Nintendo Platinum Points. It even has the same limited menu (sound and brightness settings), and several Easter eggs baked into the playable clock feature. This device does have a “sleep” toggle of “off” or “three minutes.”
That’s pretty much all there is to it. It’s a collector’s item through and through, but your $50 is going a little further this time with an extra game, and longer ones at that. That said, I hope that in the future Nintendo continues to iterate, and adds more features to the core product, like an alarm clock, or a more robust OS. Get a better look at the full packaging and device below.
[[These impressions are based on hardware provided by the manufacturer.]
