 Nintendo has something of a problem on their hands with Link's Awakening for the Nintendo Switch. The Legend of Zelda series was never supposed to come to a handheld device. The original Link's Awakening was a labour of love, created by developers who'd worked on a Link to the Past for Super Nintendo. A few colleagues worked together for months on a Game Boy Zelda prototype before getting permission to turn it into a full commercial release. In the years since, Nintendo has come to rely more and more on handheld Zelda titles to keep the series alive. Home console Zelda games tend to be among Nintendo's most critically successful titles, earning praise and accolades from across the gaming community. It's not easy to create such noteworthy games. Each big Zelda release takes years and years of work to bear fruit, and in the meantime Nintendo often uses smaller, less innovative, but no less enjoyable, handheld experiences to plug the gaps in their release schedule and to keep the Zelda series relevant. Nintendo often gets out at least one Zelda title a year, although it doesn't always manage this. So, for example, Skyward Sword came out in 2011 and Breath of the Wild was released in 2016. In order to keep Zelda relevant between these games, we got A Link Between Worlds in 2013, High-Rule Warriors for the Wii U in 2014, and Triforce Heroes in 2015. This is to say nothing of various ports of previous titles that were released incrementally. Smaller, bite-sized Zelda games keep excitement for Zelda High without taking too many resources away from the bigger, more challenging titles. Now, though, the two sides of the Zelda series are merging. The new Link's Awakening remake releases on the 20th of September, the same day as the release of the Nintendo Switch Lite. For the very first time, Nintendo's big-budget critical darlings can be played on their cheaper, portable handheld system. So when millions of newcomers pick up at Switch Lite in September, why would any of them want to play a remake of a Game Boy game when they could instead buy Breath of the Wild, 2017's Game of the Year? Certainly a lot of people who've already brought Breath of the Wild will want to pick up and use elder title, but everything about Link's Awakening makes it feel like a smaller, less noteworthy entry into the series. It's a remake rather than an original title, and the game it's based on is itself a miniature version of a Link to the Past. Whereas with the Game Boy version of Link's Awakening, the novelty came from finally being able to take a Zelda game everywhere. The new game doesn't have this advantage. In spite of this, Nintendo has opted to sell Link's Awakening at the same price as Breath of the Wild. Give or take a chunk of change depending on where you live. To a certain extent, this is understandable. A physical release for the game incurs the same manufacturing and shipping costs as its big sister. Even so, it's hard to feel like Link's Awakening, a pleasant yet fairly short game, is really worth as much as Breath of the Wild. Ultimately, the problem with Link's Awakening is that it's always going to be trapped under the shadow of Breath of the Wild. Its release ends up as an awkward teasing pain for Nintendo, as the company continues to learn how to straddle both the home console market and the handheld market at the same time, with the same hardware. So how has Nintendo opted to address this problem? For one thing, it's fun that the company has leaned into the idea that Link's Awakening is a tiny novelty. The art style for the game invokes this idea of it being a miniature adventure, with teeny tiny characters in a world that feels like it takes place entirely within a child's back garden. The design certainly calls to mind Shigeru Miyamoto's original idea of Zelda games being like a little world that would fit comfortably into a cupboard drawer. It helps preserve the original game's novelty, even though people can now play it on the big screen. Or indeed, play Breath of the Wild on a smaller screen while sat on the loo. There is also another helpful factor to consider, although it's hard to tell how much Nintendo planned this in advance. The release of Link's Awakening comes not long after the release of Cadence of Hyrule, a crossover with the indie series Crypt of the Necrodancer. Cadence of Hyrule is cheaper than Link's Awakening and provides a short, sweet, bite-sized adventure that's fun for a while but which won't suck players in for hours in the same way as Breath of the Wild. Essentially, Cadence of Hyrule is the new Minizelda game. Nintendo has outsourced the creation of their stopgap Zelda installment, and in so doing, has made Link's Awakening feel like something of a bigger deal. It almost feels like an accident that both Cadence of Hyrule and Link's Awakening have released so close to each other. Considering the delays that often beset indie developers, it's very possible that Nintendo had been hoping that Breath Yourself Games would be finished with their project a little sooner so as to space out the Zelda releases. Going forward, it'll be interesting to see whether Nintendo uses the same strategy for Zelda games again, allowing third parties to help keep the series feeling fresh until the next big game drops. The upcoming Breath of the Wild sequel will no doubt be the company's next big release for the series, but it'll be interesting to see whether we get any other surprises along the way. All of this serves primarily to keep the Zelda fandom in high spirits, while Nintendo figures out a way to surpass Breath of the Wild with another genre-defining classic that completely reinvigorates the series. This sounds like an impossible job, but then it'd hardly be the first time that a Zelda game far outstripped everyone's wildest expectations.