The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
|
| Released August 6, 1993 for the Nintendo Game Boy in North America by Nintendo, and developed by Nintendo EAD, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening is Link's first handheld Action-RPG adventure. |
I first played The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on some other kid's Game Boy on the playground right after it was released in 1993. I thought it was a fun game, but I didn't play it again until the late 90's (1999, spring break of junior year, to be exact), when I discovered emulation. I made it to the penultimate dungeon, then lost my save file, and quit in anger. When Nintendo released the remake in 2019, I decided I wouldn't play it until I finally played through the original version on the Game Boy...which I finally did last week...in May of 2022. Better late than never, right? Third time might have been the charm, but did this game charm me?
 |
Back when Link's Awakening was released, there were only a handful of Zelda games, and certainly no games of its scale on a handheld system. Awakening was rightly hailed as a bit of a miracle after its release, Nintendo somehow faithfully transporting the graphical and gameplay style of its 16-bit SNES masterpiece, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past into a handheld game. Story wise, the game picks up not long after A Link to the Past ends, with the heroic Link setting sail across a Hyrule sea, only to find himself shipwrecked on a mysterious island. It seems that the only way Link can leave this island is by awakening the mysterious Wind Fish, by playing a song called "The Ballad of the Wind Fish" with eight instruments in front of a giant egg on top of the island's tallest mountain. Those instruments are found at the end of eight separate dungeons hidden beneath the island, each guarded by a specific boss, called a "Nightmare." All of the things I just wrote are true statements.
 |
The gameplay is similar to that of A Link to the Past. Link traverses the island, talking to its strange locals, fighting enemies, solving puzzles, and exploring vast, enemy and puzzle-filled dungeons. Along the way, he'll acquire useful weapons and items that will allow him to reach once inaccessible areas, more easily defeat enemies, and solve certain puzzles. That formula is followed through to perfection in A Link to the Past, and done quite well in Link's Awakening. This game, with its plethora of dungeons and large map, is surprisingly long and involving, and frequently rewarding. However, it does have a small handful of flaws that cause frustration. Obviously, the original Game Boy has less buttons than a SNES controller, and Link can only assign one item to the "A" and "B" buttons at a time. This means that, without pausing and reassigning different items to the buttons, Link only has access to two items at once...which would have been fine, if not for one strange change Link's Awakening makes to A Link to the Past's formula. Items that allow Link to pick up heavier, obstructive objects, as well as Link's dash, aren't just integrated into Link's normal move set as they are in A Link to the Past--you have to go into the menu and manually select them. This makes traversing parts of the map a drag, as you've got to keep pausing and selected the appropriate item again and again when you're going through areas you've already been through 100 times. This is frustrating and makes the game's pacing exaggeratingly sluggish at points. Speaking of sluggish, there are moments of framerate drop, as well.
 |
Really, that sluggishness is my main complaint with the game--the puzzles and certain aspects just don't quite feel as intuitive as they do in the series' best games...but Link's Awakening is still pretty incredible. I mentioned the graphics, as the Game Boy's green-tinted black and whites do a solid job of replicating A Link to the Past's look. The setting of Koholint Island is mysterious, and if you can't tell from the above plot description, strange, creating a unique and immersive experience for the player. Within that setting, there's a surprisingly dark and haunting exploration of the nature of dreams that is even just a little bit frightening. Also, the game's difficulty level isn't quite "Nintendo Hard," but Link's Awakening is certainly a welcome challenge. To set the game apart even more, there are short, side-scrolling sections in some of the dungeons featuring MARIO VILLAINS. The chiptune music is great, featuring wonderful, original pieces, as well as fun takes on Koji Kondo's original Zelda themes. There are even three save files (you can save anytime) just like in A Link to the Past...but despite the Link to the Past influence, Link's Awakening really is a singular experience. With that said, unless you are simply playing for nostalgia's sake, you may want to try the Switch remake, which includes quality of life improvements that mitigate most of my criticisms (as well as major graphic and sound updates). Even the DX version has some features this original version doesn't. However, for what it is, flaws and all, Link's Awakening is still, deservedly, a Game Boy classic.
Comments
Post a Comment