[MathUser2929]

So, I was browsing foreign magazines and I found some images of Zelda, Links awakening that I havent seen before.






The GB game never used solid black for lava, and the mountains on the bridge don't exist in final either. The picture that seems to have the least drastic changes is the 2nd one. Which is only missing a few background details and a skull.

The scan of the full magazine page can be found here.

[KingMike]

The font is also different and Link has more bombs than he's allowed in the final. (IIRC, 60 bombs/arrows and 40 powder sprinkles is the limit)

[Xkeeper]

Awesome. I've seen these before, but never in this level of quality.

I'll go ahead and go blow-by-blow on the changes:




Layout's rather different. Also, I don't think it's pure black as much as it is a contrast issue; note the fact that his shadow is visible despite that it's supposed to be black... by that and the walls, it's almost clearly not supposed to be that dark.

The Fire Rod has a different tip, and the hearts are different as well:




Not much to say here... Link has too many hearts if they're playing normally (3 + 3 bosses + at most maybe 3 full heart containers from pieces of heart) -- 9 versus 10 (though it'd be more like 8)

Oh, and the design of this area is a tad different too:




This is clearly different... this may've been somewhere in between the idea of making it into LttP. It's hard to say... there's nowhere in the game remotely like it in terms of background.




Two closest matches, and even then it's a far stretch:

The second screen features the Giant Ghini, but none of them are as open as this one...


Unfortunately, these are the only 4 screenshots of note I've seen other than the ones at the bottom of this page. Notice that the world map is very, very similar to that of LttP's.

[MathUser2929]

Well, there is a bridge area in final, but there is a view of the ocean, and of clouds.

As for the first pic. I'd wanna think it was just contrast issues but everything that should be outlined in black, is outlined in white in that lava.

[KingMike]

[ProgrammingAce]

I'm guessing the screenshots were taken from one of those wideboy style devices... the name escapes me at the moment. That's probably why the contrast is off.

[Xkeeper]