Video game fans take inspiration from their favorite games to create art, music, and other media to show to other fans. Sometimes, fan art can even answer hypothetical questions; in this case, the question is of how the bosses of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess would look and play if it were a Game Boy Color game.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was released on both the GameCube and Wii (with a later port to the Wii U), and is known for its dark story, gritty world and highly creative boss design. The Game Boy Color was, of course, significantly less powerful than the GameCube, but managed to have three Zelda games released on it over its lifespan.
A fan artist who goes by ncxaesthetic on Reddit has re-created all major Twilight Princess bosses with high attention to detail. One such boss is Morpheel of the Lakebed Temple, where in the original the Clawshot would be used to grapple its eye while avoiding Bombfish. In the re-creation, Link can be seen slashing an exploding Bombfish with the Clawshot in his inventory, ready to grapple. Click here to see all of the images.
Another iconic boss from Twilight Princess can be seen in the re-creation of Stallord, more specifically its skull. In the game, Stallord is a skeleton, reanimated by the power of the Scimitar of Twilight and fought using the Spinner to attach to walls. In the Game Boy Color rendition, Link can be seen riding the central pillar from the second phase of the fight as the terrifyingly-rendered skull of Stallord flies by, the Swimitar of Twilight stuck in its forehead.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is considered one of the darkest games in the series, but a menacing tone looms over many other mainline entries, including the Game Boy Color games to an extent. Even though they are part of the same series, however, Twilight Princess plays very differently from the three Game Boy Color games, being in full 3D. Despite the limitations of translating 3D boss designs to 2D pixel art, ncxaesthetic manages to create believable boss fights that appear like they could work on the Game Boy Color, though if they were real they would probably have some form of sprite flicker or another compromise to run at full speed.
Even beyond the bosses, ncxaesthetic manages to render the arenas and world in a way that appears entirely plausible for the Game Boy Color. Every screenshot could plausibly be mistaken for an actual prototype or a romhack, and shows how well a portable Twilight Princess could possibly have worked if it were given the same gameplay style as Link's Awakening.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is available now for GameCube, Wii, and Wii U.