Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Review – This is a game that I had not heard about but was offered a key by the kind developers. After seeing it was an old school Zelda clone, I thought I would have to play it. I’m really glad I did. This was originally funded through Kickstarter and only 3 people worked on the development. If I knew about it, I would have funded, but will be happy to pay for a physical copy if there ever is one released.
This game is very reminiscent of Zelda: Links Awakening in particular. It’s not a big game, but that is part of the charm. The combat is very similar and you unlock powers throughout the game that enable you to get to places previously unreachable.
There is a wonderful sense of progression and no hand holding. It’s not difficult in the sense of dying. The game is very forgiving. I died about 4-5 times in total and the checkpoints are usually the same screen so you barely lose any progress. The only times I really died were on bosses, while they are harder than Zelda bosses, are not annoyingly frustrating, such as is the fashion of retro-inspired games these days. Although I was playing on Normal difficulty like I normally would.
The real difficulty comes from the puzzles. There are some real head scratchers in here, and a lot of secrets in places that you wouldn’t normally think to explore. The only puzzle I really wasted time on was the one to find the second dungeon. Too obscure a puzzle, too early in the game. I wasted an hour walking around the map with only one power up, so there wasn’t much else to do in the rest of the map either.
Another problem in the design I would identify is the use of the B button (On Switch) to talk to characters. The problem with this, is that it is also the cancel button. So, if you have to make a selection after the character dialogue, you have to change to the A button to make a selection, otherwise you quit out with the B button and have to go through the dialogue again. The B button is also used to jump later in the game, so if you don’t line yourself up directly, you hop over the NPC, sometimes into water, or off a cliff. Multiple times I would also naturally press A (as in most Nintendo games, and it would turn me into a statue (another later power up), and I’d have to wait for the animation to finish before I could turn back again. A minor gripe, and doesn’t ruin the game.
The dungeons are good fun and feel like a ‘proper’ Zelda game. It’s always a treat to get to them.
The NPC characters are fun. I’m not sure about the Death theme, but I’m not a big story person anyway. The gameplay is all that matters, and it’s definitely there.
Due to playing the game early and there being no guides online, I really had to “old- school” my way through it. Not that I use guides often anyway, but there is a lot of post -game content that, usually in retro-inspired games, the devs make the puzzles too obscure and impossible, that a guide is necessary. I will admit I did have a couple of questions that I had to ask on forums that helped me to find all of the secrets, but I did feel obliged to explore as much as possible before I got any help.
Overall, this game is great, and really scratches that itch for an old school Zelda that we rarely get from Nintendo.
Rating – 8/10
Difficulty – 4/10
Nintendo Switch version played on Switch 2
Normal difficulty
No Cheats
More like this:-
Switch Games - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4Nh7Bf5xrkhJ-dnbvr0jCWI
SNES games - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4M6kAxkb28T32nne5FbcMd1
DONATE
paypal.me/Tinkstonten
buymeacoffee.com/retro2vr
Crypto
BTC - 3Q9mg5pjT4YZgAvHQha6izYDrX3nbJqMPZ
ETH - 0xB41482cB92E32C965E368f293701E5Ce18d5719f
MATIC - 0x9051a87257812febda27691fc84bdd54500eb26f
DOGE - DL3afUvT2UxhkoXsUZNXZS4nwxJny3s4Zm
#spindle #spindlegame #spindlevideogame
Review – This is a game that I had not heard about but was offered a key by the kind developers. After seeing it was an old school Zelda clone, I thought I would have to play it. I’m really glad I did. This was originally funded through Kickstarter and only 3 people worked on the development. If I knew about it, I would have funded, but will be happy to pay for a physical copy if there ever is one released.
This game is very reminiscent of Zelda: Links Awakening in particular. It’s not a big game, but that is part of the charm. The combat is very similar and you unlock powers throughout the game that enable you to get to places previously unreachable.
There is a wonderful sense of progression and no hand holding. It’s not difficult in the sense of dying. The game is very forgiving. I died about 4-5 times in total and the checkpoints are usually the same screen so you barely lose any progress. The only times I really died were on bosses, while they are harder than Zelda bosses, are not annoyingly frustrating, such as is the fashion of retro-inspired games these days. Although I was playing on Normal difficulty like I normally would.
The real difficulty comes from the puzzles. There are some real head scratchers in here, and a lot of secrets in places that you wouldn’t normally think to explore. The only puzzle I really wasted time on was the one to find the second dungeon. Too obscure a puzzle, too early in the game. I wasted an hour walking around the map with only one power up, so there wasn’t much else to do in the rest of the map either.
Another problem in the design I would identify is the use of the B button (On Switch) to talk to characters. The problem with this, is that it is also the cancel button. So, if you have to make a selection after the character dialogue, you have to change to the A button to make a selection, otherwise you quit out with the B button and have to go through the dialogue again. The B button is also used to jump later in the game, so if you don’t line yourself up directly, you hop over the NPC, sometimes into water, or off a cliff. Multiple times I would also naturally press A (as in most Nintendo games, and it would turn me into a statue (another later power up), and I’d have to wait for the animation to finish before I could turn back again. A minor gripe, and doesn’t ruin the game.
The dungeons are good fun and feel like a ‘proper’ Zelda game. It’s always a treat to get to them.
The NPC characters are fun. I’m not sure about the Death theme, but I’m not a big story person anyway. The gameplay is all that matters, and it’s definitely there.
Due to playing the game early and there being no guides online, I really had to “old- school” my way through it. Not that I use guides often anyway, but there is a lot of post -game content that, usually in retro-inspired games, the devs make the puzzles too obscure and impossible, that a guide is necessary. I will admit I did have a couple of questions that I had to ask on forums that helped me to find all of the secrets, but I did feel obliged to explore as much as possible before I got any help.
Overall, this game is great, and really scratches that itch for an old school Zelda that we rarely get from Nintendo.
Rating – 8/10
Difficulty – 4/10
Nintendo Switch version played on Switch 2
Normal difficulty
No Cheats
More like this:-
Switch Games - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4Nh7Bf5xrkhJ-dnbvr0jCWI
SNES games - youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4M6kAxkb28T32nne5FbcMd1
DONATE
paypal.me/Tinkstonten
buymeacoffee.com/retro2vr
Crypto
BTC - 3Q9mg5pjT4YZgAvHQha6izYDrX3nbJqMPZ
ETH - 0xB41482cB92E32C965E368f293701E5Ce18d5719f
MATIC - 0x9051a87257812febda27691fc84bdd54500eb26f
DOGE - DL3afUvT2UxhkoXsUZNXZS4nwxJny3s4Zm
#spindle #spindlegame #spindlevideogame
