The New Koholint
By Ice
I'm sure all of you are quite informed about the new Zelda 4 coming out on Game Boy Color. But, in case you're not, I'll tell you everything I know right now on the subject. Even if you are quite up to date with it, you'll probably learn something here anyway.
I guess the true beginning for this awesome addition to the Zelda universe began in 1993, with the release of the original Zelda 4. Soon after the release, Miyamato began to question whether or not it was truly ready for the world (he does this with ALL his games. That's why he's the maker of Zelda and I'm just the maker of IZC). He reviewed the game that he had put so much time into, and he found many flaws in it (perfectionism is the essence of his work). So he felt that the game was not fully complete. But it had already been released. It was too late to redo anything. So, as he does with all of his titles, he put it up and resolved to make his next game even better.
Years later, the geniuses at Nintendo invented something new. A piece of hardware somewhere along the lines of Sega's Game Gear, only 10 times better, and with all the games of the original Game Boy. This invention, of course, is the Game Boy Color.
I don't know who had the brilliant idea to go back and "finish" Link's Awakening. Perhaps it was one of the head programmers. Or even Miyamato himself. But whoever thought of it, it's happening. And this is what you can expect from it.
The new Link's Awakening will be in full color. The Game Boy Color can display 56 colors on the screen at one time. That's a lot.
The new game will also have enhanced and updated graphics. We've already seen a screen shot of the new title screen, and it has the mountain and egg with clouds circling it. Way cool.
One of the coolest things is the new sound that will be in it. The music will be corrected and enhanced (like it needed any of that). And the most exciting aspect of this is that it will feature six channel stereo sound. However, none of the current Game Boy systems can handle this, so we may have to wait years to hear this aspect of the new Zelda.
Nintendo has also hinted at a few new items and perhaps objects in the trading sequence. I have no information on these yet.
The best feature to be included is the NEW DUNGEON. Yes, a whole new dungeon. And it will be VERY well hidden.
So, when are we getting all this? The Game Boy Color is going to be released at the same time as Zelda 64. And Nintendo has clocked the release date of the new Zelda 4 to early 1999. We can only pray that we'll get it before Fall '99. This one's going to be big.
