Link's Awakening doesn't work without the blocky characters and chiptunes (though I really like the manual artwork).
"Sadly, these intriguing dilemmas receive little more than a cursory glance throughout the story, relegating much of the soul-searching and moral wrangling to the player’s own imagination"
It's way better the way it is. I wouldn't want a story pointing all these things out and telling me what to feel, and one could say the mystery of this game is what gives its longevity.