The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was one of the first games I ever played, and it left an indelible mark; its story proved unexpectedly deep and abstract, while its gameplay was so solid that it was effectively reused when Capcom went about developing Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages. Link’s Awakening is a game that I hold near and dear to my heart, so when Nintendo’s recent stream ended with a trailer showing Link surrounded by water, I instantly knew what that meant. I ended up being much less prepared for what the gameplay ended up looking like, however.

Transplanting a game as imaginative and odd as Link’s Awakening into a world full of chibi characters and plastic-looking trees just feels wrong. Don’t get me wrong—this art style works with something like The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes, but Link’s Awakening isn’t a lighthearted jaunt through a bunch of wacky dungeons. In fact, you spend the majority of the game realizing that all of your progress is pushing toward a conclusion that’ll wipe out the entire world and everyone you’ve met along the way. The more interpretative nature of pixels lent itself well to that bittersweet setup, and I can’t help but question how a dead-eyed chibi Link wandering around a hyper-colorful world could capture that same feeling of dread.

Nintendo’s track record when it comes to Zelda remakes is also a bit of a red flag. The port of Majora’s Mask on the 3DS carried with it some particularly appalling changes to boss fights and mechanics, and it feels like these remakes are being shoveled out by groups of people who fail to understand what made the originals so appealing and timeless. That’s not to say that I’m opposed to revisiting Link’s Awakening‘s island of Koholint again—I just think that a proper sequel would be a better (and more interesting) idea than potentially butchering one of the greatest games in the entire series and making its name synonymous with a lesser product. It’s entirely possible that my first impressions are wrong and Nintendo will somehow make all of this work, and I’ll admit to being curious about how they’ll handle things like stealing from the shop (which forever renames your save file to THIEF in the original). Still, it’s equally possible that this updated Link’s Awakening will introduce new problems, and some are already immediately obvious.

Case in point, the Roc’s Feather physics. For those unfamiliar with The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, the Roc’s Feather is the item that enables you to jump, and your jump arc’s momentum remains roughly the same on your way up and down. Contrasting that with the jumping at 1:16 and 1:21 (which showcases the jumping physics during 2D and 3D sections), it’s obvious to see that things have gone awry. The 2D sections replicate the original’s midair flipping animation, with the obvious difference being that Link was a square in the original whereas the new version is more of a rectangle, which combines with jerkier jump physics to make it hard to tell where you’re about to land and when. The 3D jumping looks like it fares slightly better, though the awkward perspective somehow conveys depth less well than a 1993 Game Boy game (you can even see the player swing and miss an attack at 1:06 because of this). These are major mechanics with instantly recognizable problems, and while I’d love to sit back and enjoy the overwhelming nostalgia of the whole thing, everything but the animated intro just feels overwhelmingly wrong to me.

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