2D Zelda deserves its Metroid Dread moment

destructoid.com:

If you want to play a great 2D Legend of Zelda game today, the Nintendo Switch has you covered. With a Nintendo Switch Online membership, you can play any of the pre-Ocarina games, plus a handful of excellent Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance titles with more on the horizon. One of the very best 2D Zelda titles, Link’s Awakening, is available twice — in addition to the GBC version on NSO, there’s also an excellent 2019 remake.

But if you want a new 2D Zelda experience? You’re out of luck.

Since 1998, there’s been a fairly clean division between The Legend of Zelda games. There are 3D games, defined by behind-the-head and over-the-shoulder cameras, and 2D games, defined by their top-down view. This distinction might sound fairly unimportant but it is absolutely vital to the way these games are designed. 2D space allows for more rigid, defined puzzles, which make dungeons dramatically more satisfying. The 3D games are generally more concerned with what’s outside the dungeons, in the sprawling worlds. These games are frequently about the problems occurring aboveground. 3D dungeons can often be clever, but they’re inherently broader and more open to experimentation, making them feel less like riddles anchored in space and more like ruins that stand between the player and a goal.

Both of these models are worth something, and they’re both distinctly “Zelda,” but they have different strengths, and they’re perfectly capable of co-existing. The existence of Wind Waker did not erase the demand for The Minish Cap. Both of these games are considered some of the best in the series for entirely different reasons.

But one of these design philosophies simply does not exist anymore. The last major 2D Zelda game, Tri-Force