We've seen a lot of Zelda remake projects over the years here at Nintendo Life, but every so often, one pops up that makes us think, "oof, yes please". Spoiler: that's exactly what we're thinking here.
2D animator Hugo Vasgestian dos Santos (Vasge on YouTube) has recently set out to remake the first dungeon from the OG The Legend of Zelda. Rather than take on the Ghibli-inspired visual style or Link's Awakening-esque toy look that we have seen a handful of times before (to no less impressive results, we might add), Vasge is playing to his strengths and imagining the game with fine-line hand-drawn visuals. And it looks awesome.
In the above video, the animator lays out the parameters for his new project — noting that he's only working on the one dungeon — and shows his progress so far. This includes a detailed look at his environment and sprite drawing process, creating Link's movement animation and how he set about creating the first three rooms.
It's still early days — the description calls it "the first of (probably) many videos" — but it looks interesting so far. The animator says he'll be working on enemies and combat next, adding a little more action to the action-adventure.
We'll be keeping an eye out to see how this one progresses. We can't imagine a 'Zelda 1' remake is high on Nintendo's list, but wouldn't it be cool to see it take a visual punt like this if it ever happened?