The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (3DS)

Like There Can Be No More Black

Continuing my Zelda Easter and in preparedness for the remake of this game I had to play through it again. Never played the original Game Boy release, but got the DX version when I bought my Game Boy Colour in red (as that was the only colour left). Like A Link to the Past this took forever to finish and I remember hardest part was the 7th dungeon, the Eagle Tower since I never got the gimmick of the place. Now I run through it in 15 minutes (that might be an exaggeration, but it at least doesn't take a month or so). Coupled with that I got the red shirt which doubled my attack, while I really needed the blue shirt for the defence bonus, but the damn rooster you have to carry around until you beat the tower makes it impossible to get hold of. Thanks game.

Playing it again I feel that the game wants you to be slow with it, explore and go around with the new items you get all over the map before continuing with the next dungeon. So there are a lot of missable things if you don't do it slowly. For example some of the photographs are locked at certain points, especially those with Marin. And when you try to get seashells for upgrading you sword you got to stop what you do and go to the seashell mansions when you acquired 5 and 10 shells respectively to get the ones  from the mansion. 

Storywise it has some interesting twists and turns, like that the island is just the imagination of the Wind Fish and the nightmares are trying to preserve it that way. But it seems like Link the one that actually pushes them to be aggressive since they didn't do much until Link landed on the shore. All in all it was fine to play again and I can't wait until the remake comes along. The artstyle already sold me on it and it's gotta be fun to see what they've kept and what they got rid of (if they got rid of anything). The biggest change will probably be the fact that you have enough buttons now to not need to equip things like the bracelet and the pegasus boots. In A Link to the Past they were used with the action button, but since the original game boy line only had an A and a B button, that would be problematic since you needed them for the sword and other items (including the shield). So I get that decision, but I hope they don't keep it since it was a lot of back and forth to go anywhere since you need to change items a lot to get around on Koholint Island.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

Original boxart, even though it follows the golden box and such I still prefer the black DX cover.

Well, let us just continue on the Zelda-game retrospective and we do it with Zelda 4, the first portable game in the series. Now, I never got the original black and white game since I didn't get a game boy until 1998 or something and just 2 years later I believe got the Game Boy Colour together with the newly released Link's Awakening DX. Basically an extra dungeon and the whole game in colour so it's obviously the supreme version, which is proven with the rerelease on the 3DS virtual console. Still, would have been nice if you could switch between B/W and Colour... that goes for all Game Boy-games. I played this game a lot as a child and it wasn't always easy. For example the 8th dungeon always make me lose my way in the labyrinth. The Eagle Tower (which is dungeon 6) is constantly annoying me. Doesn't help that the DX also gives me the choice of a blue or a red shirt which enhances defence or offence (a permanent acorn for either thing really) and I usually need the blue one for the dungeon since you already found sword-2 which doesn't add anything, but due to the nature of reaching the dungeon (resurrecting a chicken that follows you around) I can't enter the colour dungeon again to change. That really annoys me.

I really hate that boss

The story is that Link, after some adventure in foreign land gets into a storm in his ship and it sinks. He awakes on this mysterious Koholint Island in the care of Marin and starts his adventure to get out of here. It is a really interesting story since the island is overrun by creatures known as Nightmares and by defeating them they berate you for destroying this world. It turns out this is a dream world created by the Wind Fish, the creature sleeping in the egg at the highest mountain top on the island that the Nightmares keep in his sleep and only with the 8 instruments can you awaken him. The price for this is that the island will be destroyed. Including all it's inhabitants which you get to know during the course of the game. Now if you are good at the game and never actually get killed you will save one person, Marin. And of course I usually dies just once playing through this game, but I managed once to do the feat. And it felt rewarding.

She really deserved to appear again in Hyrule Warriors

Due to its portability its one of the more easier Zelda-games to play and bring with you (well, until Virtual console on the 3DS together with rereleases on the very same system). DX version had of course the extra dungeon with the two tunics that add defence or offence. Then we have the picture book that you could use with the Game Boy-camera, if it's unique for the DX version I don't know. Pity that one of the pictures is of Link stealing from the Item Shop meaning your name on the file gets changed to THIEF. It's a good game although the music have some noteworthy songs I actually think later Zelda portabel games have more memorable songs.