Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Game Boy, 1993) (Game Boy Color, 1998)

I just finished Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the first time ever. It wasn't particularly enjoyable, but it had some good moments. Looking back on it now I don't think that it was a very good -Zelda- game, but as far as games in general go it was solid. I'm going on to Skyward Sword next and I really hope it's better.

Playing Twilight Princess made me want to revisit an older game in the series, so I'm digging into my screenshots from Link's Awakening back in the day. Specifically, the DX version for the Game Boy Color, which added a nice color scheme to the game. I'm not sure whether to label this a Game Boy game or a Game Boy Color game, so I labeled it both. This is probably my favorite original Game Boy game of all time, no joke.

At some indeterminate point in time, Link is sailing during a violent storm.

The ship gets wrecked, and Link barely survives. This is the teenage Link from LTTP, who I suspect is roughly the same age as the adult link from Ocarina and Twilight Princess.

Link washes ashore on the nearby island of Koholint, where he is found by the way-sexier-than-Zelda Marin. I'm a big Marin fan.

Our hero wakes up in the house of... Mario? That's right, Marin's father is Mario. Well, OFFICIALLY his name is Tarin, but he is very clearly America's favorite Italian plumber with a sweet 70's porn stache.

I don't usually rename Link, but this time I decided to buck that trend. That's right, our hero is...

...former Vermont governor Howard Dean! "We're going to Hyrule! And Koholint! YEAAAH!"

The doors to Mario's posh crib swing open, and Dean emerges, ready for battle. ...well, not quite. He lost his sword in the shipwreck, but at least he still has a shield. A generic n00b shield, but a shield nonetheless.

So where's the sword, you ask?

"It's DOWN BY THE RIVER!"

Awesome, thanks Chris.

Sword acquired. I think this is the Master Sword, since it's the only sword that most people will get in this game. Actually, I have no idea what sword it's supposed to be. Whatever it is, it gets the job done right up until the final boss.

That spiked monster right there sure looks a lot like a certain breed of Kirby's Dream Land enemy. Matter of fact, this game has more references to other Nintendo games than any other Zelda. Characters from other games pop up regularly while the game furiously winks at the audience.

Next stop: The Mysterious Wood. Lost Woods, this ain't. It's fairly straightforward. You also get a visit from a wisened old owl. This guy drops in at various points throughout the game and usually explains what Link needs to do next.

This owl also graced the cover of Nintendo Power Issue 50, one of the greatest covers that magazine ever had. If you were a kid growing up with this particular issue, you HAD to have Link's Awakening.

Meanwhile, back in the woods... Unfortunately the world has trees, and trees are both a hazard and a nuisance. Here, Link is nearly struck and killed by a falling leaf as he retrieves the Mushroom.

A much-needed Great Fairy Whore shows up at this point. She doesn't screech before flying off like the N64 version does.

Trading in the mushroom to this witch gets you the Magic Powder. It's ten grand a kilo on the street.

The Magic Powder transforms some enemies. It has very limited practical usage, unfortunately, and usually just ends up taking up an inventory spot for the whole game. I'd like to think that our hero does lines of it off of Marin's chest at some point when the cameras are off. In any case, you need it to turn this raccoon back into...

...Mario. Why was he a raccoon?

WAIT, LAWL, I GET IT

Here's the first dungeon. Generally you need to find a key to get into every dungeon in this game; usually the key is obtained from an overworld quest of some sort. Since the quests are usually flagged to start after other story events, this makes it difficult to just go from one dungeon to the next or do them out of order.

The color palette of the DX version is on full display here. Even with Super Game Boy enhancement, the original game could only give you four colors at a time. This one, on the other hand, has many more.

In any case, I go into the first dungeon to grab the Feather, which lets you jump. This is a HUGE gameplay improvement over LTTP, but the downside is that the Feather perpetually takes up one of your two item slots. This leads to more trips to the item screen than I'd like.

Time to run around collecting other stuff with my new ability.

No. No I don't.

I take a moment to snag the Yoshi Doll from the claw minigame. This thing is popular with the kids.

What? Look, man, I'm just trying to do the right thing for the kids here.

Marin is singing in the town square. What an attractive character.

Dude! Leave Marin alone!

Madame Meow-meow here is one of the oddball town residents. She has a "dog" with a "fine fur coat", but I think she's batshit insane because...

...it's actually Chain Chomp, of Mario fame. No, seriously. Her dog is one of Bowser's deadliest weapons.

There's a huge overarching trading sidequest in this game, the first of its kind. It's a lot like the Biggoron Sword quest in Ocarina. However, the end result this time isn't as cool. It's something you want to be doing as you play the game (rather than all at once later), since most of the trades are found in a fairly linear order while doing the main quest.

Trading the ribbon with a local dog (read: another Chain Chomp) gets you a can of dog food. I feel like the value of these items has been all downhill since the Yoshi Doll...

The dog food is sought-after by this banana-peddling alligator man, who of course trades you some bananas for it. Things are just getting weirder and weirder...

The fishing minigame is another Zelda trope to make a debut here. It's actually better-designed and easier to fish here than it is in Twilight Princess for some reason. In this case, you can fish a Piece of Heart out of the lake.

I grab another one at the bottom of the well. Collecting these things is one of my favorite parts of a Zelda game, and I usually go on a collecting spree at the end of the game. In this case I'm being thorough as I go.

With the Feather I'm able to hop over these pits to grab another piece. THIS GAME IS SO MUCH FUN.

Unfortunately, I can't get a fourth piece for a bit, so I go run some other errands. What's the difference between a Deluxe Shovel and a plain old run-of-the-mill regular shovel?

I actually just bought this so that Bombs would appear in the store. The shovel takes up their spot until you buy it. Good thing I have 200 rupees already (somehow). Farming rupees is actually one of the things this game doesn't do as well as other games in the series; perhaps due to the original color palette, rupees only have one color/denomination. Collecting one rupee at a time is quite painstaking compared to the other Zeldas, which usually have blue/yellow/red variations.

Yet another of the myriad fun sidequests in this game: Seashells. Collect 'em all to get the L-2 Sword, which owns everything. Good luck collecting 'em all though, because there are TONS of them hidden around the world. Some require digging on specific nondescript spots. In the pre-internet days, I had to dig almost every square of almost every overworld room to find them all, and I'm pretty sure I was still missing one until the official guide arrived in the mail.

The first miniboss is this thing. It rolls a screen-wide spiked pillar towards you, then sits back cackling about how you can't possibly avoid it.

Luckily, our hero has THE FEATHER~! and leaps over it with ease. You can see the Fear Of God on the miniboss' face now as he realizes his mistake.

Here's a shot of the inventory screen, which is quintessentially Zelda. My copy is glitched, and for some reason starts me off with the Red Mail. This increases my attack power, not that it's necessary because the game isn't that difficult already. The Red Mail is a DX exclusive item that didn't exist in the original game, so the bonuses it provides aren't that big (so as not to unbalance the existing game).

Here's the first boss, Moldorm. It slinks around rapidly, trying to push you off of the platform, and you have to strike the tail lots of times to subdue it. It's very much like the variations in A Link to the Past. Funny story about that: I rented LTTP when I was trying to get ahold of this game. You couldn't rent portable games back then, so buying it was the only option and it took a bit to get the funds. LTTP ended up being a poor man's Link's Awakening for me for a little while. Then I bought this game, and all was well in the world for a while.

But wait! After I beat this game at least once, I found myself missing LTTP and all of the 16-bit, console-based enhancements it has that this game does not. So then I found myself playing LA as a placeholder while lusting after LTTP. I guess it's true that we want what we don't have.

Victory gets me the first of eight musical instruments. These things are the goal of the game, and getting all of them allows Link to put on a raucous one-man concert to awaken a giant God-whale that can send him home. It's a long story. I'll get to that.

While returning to town, these creepy twins accost our hero. What's with their hair parts? They look like Young Penguin from that Gotham show.

Madame Meow-meow has an orgasm before sending Link to rescue her "dog" from Moblins.

Moblins are, of course, that recurring tribe of ruffians that Link ends up fighting in almost every Zelda game. We get a quick mini-dungeon leading to...

...the Moblin Boss! He's more of a mini-boss, and is easily dispatched.

After rescuing the "dog", you can tote it around the world. It's important for eating the plants that block the entrance to the second dungeon, and it also aggressively attacks enemies. It's good for farming rupees.

The second dungeon has a cyclops miniboss, and this might be a good time to mention that I'm a cyclops-thusiast. The minibosses in this game tend to be fairly simple battles that can be won by simply dodging and slashing; there's a distinct lack of the weird, specific battle mechanics that you get in most of the 3D Zeldas.

One of the downsides to this game is that you need to equip this thing to actually lift ANYTHING - pots, stones, whatever - and this means lots and lots of trips to the item screen. LTTP just made the A button the lift button, making this an innate power.

Somewhere in here, I finally get the fourth Piece of Heart that I need for another full heart. That's right, four pieces to a heart, as The Lord intended. I don't know why Twilight Princess thought it was necessary to make it five pieces, because that continually threw me off for the whole game. You're not hip and trend-setting, Twilight Princess!

Sometimes, this game sends you to side-scrolling areas. Thanks to the jump ability, Link can handle this without issue. Also, Pirahna Plants and Goombas are even less of a problem when you've got a sword. It's SMB Crossover/NES Remix/Smash Bros before their time!

The dungeon boss hides in this bottle, where he's invincible. Luckily, we just got the power to lift and throw pots.

We've got Skynet by the balls now!

One smash later, and...

...the Genie appears. Hopping Mad? Who says that?

A step above the Moldorm, this guy teleports around. He's an irritating fight, but again, easily-dispatched.

Second instrument acquired! The band is coming along nicely.

"We're going to Eagle Tower! And Turtle Rock! And then we're gonna hatch the egg! YEAAAH!"

More on this game later. In the meantime, check out my post on OG Legend of Zelda. And check out the Legend of Zelda Retrospective, brought to you by an ensemble superstar cast.

Other Future Link's Awakening Posts Here