2025 Special - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening is one of those games that is known and beloved by practically everyone. It's also significantly more difficult to write about than almost every other action-adventure I've covered in the past couple of months. Everything that can be said has already been said... or something. I forget how that cliched line is supposed to go. Point is, I've got the ugly task of coming up with a worthwhile thought for a game you already know everything about. 

Before going any further, it must be mentioned that this is the first time I've played through the game in over thirty years. I used to own the original version of Link's Awakening. The actual cartridge, if you can believe it. A lot of hours and batteries were spent on Koholint Island. 

A clearly tired Gabriel who spent all night and all morning playing Vampire Survivors has just sat in front of the keyboard.

Okay no, this isn't working.

I mean damn. What was I doing waxing nostalgia just a second ago? Gross! C'mon Mr. Jones, get it together! This isn't some untarnished symbol of hope. It's not a faint reminder of better days. It's a video game, so treat it like one. Let's get down to brass tacks, or rather... brass swords. Yeah, I haven't talked all that much about the swordplay in these Game Boy entries, and that's probably because it's perfectly functional. Perfectly functional, and maybe a little bland. What I'm saying here is that there's not enough spice in the sauce. Link's sword has this huge area of effect that instantly shreds any opposition. It's not 3D Dot Heroes' ridiculously thick sword swings, but it's still quite a lot. Like, I can't help but think about the original Legend of Zelda, back when Link's hit & run tactics were the only thing keeping him out of the grave. There were limits to his abilities, particularly his little stibbety-stab sword. A small sword trapped in a room with so many nasty monsters, that is one spicy recipe. Maybe the monsters of Koholint could've tried a little harder.

See what I mean? Everyone's a quitter.

All told, the swordplay is not a subject that I want to dwell on for too much longer. The combat is fine, serviceable, does what it needs to do. I wish it did a little bit more, but that's partly on me for revisiting the game after 30+ years and fresh memories of its successors. The Oracle duology, might I add, came out in 2001, nearly 8 years after Link's Awakening. That's a lot of time for analysis and player feedback. Still, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I didn't mention the reverse-difficulty issue. One of the hardest bosses is the clown genie from Bottle Grotto. It was in his second phase that I noticed the fireballs he was chucking around liberally swallowed hearts like donut holes. I set myself up thinking there'd be more adversaries like him, but nope. Bottle Grotto was also a lot shorter than I remember. Over time, the dungeons become larger and more complex, but the threat of death slinks further and further into the background until it almost disappears entirely. Almost, because the last phase of the final boss hits hard. It's especially painful if Link didn't bother to grab the blue tunic from the DX-exclusive dungeon.

Much like the simplistic swordplay, I can't complain overmuch about the reverse-difficulty. This is such an intricately-crafted game that its few issues never affected my enjoyment. Koholint Island. Hot damn. This might be one of the best overworlds I've ever explored. It's not densely packed with a gazillion secrets and things to interact with. It actually feels real, well... as real as a dream world in a video game, but whatever. Just the fact that I can come back to Koholint after 30+ years and still navigate it as easily as my own living room is unreal. 

Side note: I have got to stop saying "30+ years". Every utterance is causing me to age like that one asshole from The Last Crusade who drank out of the wrong cup. I'll be dust in the corner by the time 2025 finally ends.

Seriously though, this is one top tier overworld. One of its underrated qualities is that most of it can be explored with just a couple items: the feather & the bracelet. Link can visit several points of interest after clearing a mere two dungeons. He doesn't have to constantly swap items to get around either. The amount of time spent in the inventory screen is comparable to the NES game, which all things considered is pretty amazing. The Oracle entries deserve a ton of praise, but retrofitting an N64 Zelda's worth of items onto a two-button platform got to be really burdensome. Not only are there just enough items to make the adventure fulfilling, but players aren't obligated to swap their entire loadout every other screen. I love this amount of restraint. Nintendo has always had a keen understanding of game-design, and Link's Awakening is absolutely a showcase.

The dungeons themselves are also really good. Indeed, they are shorter than I remember, but let's be real here: I've got these two elephants sitting on my shoulders and I can't keep mentioning them. Besides, what's important here is the pacing. Each labyrinth is designed to be just long enough to warrant the player's full attention. Puzzles are often easy to understand and take very little time to solve. It just makes sense for a battery-powered platform aimed predominantly at kids to feature dungeons that can be completed in a brisk 10 to 20 minutes apiece. Eagle Tower, the 7th dungeon, features probably the most complicated puzzle in the entire game, which involves carrying an iron ball through several rooms to destroy four pillars. I actually got stuck here for a hot minute, and that's probably because I was going around it the wrong way. I mean that literally; I was trying to throw the iron ball across a chasm that's much too large. The game even casually drops a "if this isn't working then try a different approach" hint. Awfully kind of them. It's like they've noticed all the brainrot I've accumulated from playing forty action-adventures in four months.

Smashing the pillars is pretty satisfying.

Time spent in-between dungeons never feels wasted either. There is usually a small task that Link has to complete before he can proceed to the next dungeon, and I'm pretty sure I enjoyed all of them. They're an excuse to see the world, return to previously visited locations, and utilize acquired tools to find new paths or hidden rewards. Again, this is smart design. The subtlety is what brings everything together. I'm not just going from point A to point B so an NPC can hand me a key-item. I'm making my way around Koholint in ways that feel natural, as if I'm just as much an inhabitant as anyone else.

I've also gained a deeper appreciation for all of this game's smaller details. Like, I just noticed that Prince Richard is actually the guy from The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls and not a random vampire with frogs in his house. The cameos by Wart and a Shyguy from Super Mario Bros. 2 are cute reminders that Koholint Island is not what it appears to be. Oh, and how could I forget Link lifting Marin over his head while the "item-get" jingle blares away. This entry had a lot of fun with the fourth wall. One other thing: the shop. If the "999" didn't give it away, I was never struggling for rupees. Despite this, I was always stealing from the shop. That probably says many things about me as a person, none of them good. Oh well.

When you're "low" on health and slashing a bush is too much trouble.

All in all, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening is one damn good game. More than that, it serves as a stalwart reminder of what drew me to the series in the first place. There's this great sense of discovery when walking from one screen to the next. It's hard for me to describe, but it's something that I've always missed in the 3D games. Maybe it's because oftentimes they rely on taking control away so that the camera can point at objects of interest. Then again, I could just be that type of gamer who's tired of always moving the right analog stick and locking onto anything that breathes. Whatever the case, this entry in the series has aged miraculously. Try to replay it whenever you can. You definitely don't want to catch yourself saying shit like "30+ years"...