Link is stranded. No Zelda. No Ganon. No Triforce. Honestly, when The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening first landed on the monochrome Game Boy in 1993, it felt like a weird fever dream. It was. Literally. While most entries in the franchise are about saving a kingdom, this one is about destroying a world just so you can go home.
It’s heavy.
Most people remember the colorful 2019 Nintendo Switch remake with its tilt-shift, toy-like aesthetic. It looks adorable. It looks like a diorama you’d find in a high-end hobby shop. But beneath that plastic sheen is a narrative that is fundamentally about existential dread. You spend the entire game befriending villagers, helping a goat write love letters, and teaching a girl named Marin how to sing, all while knowing that if you succeed in your mission, every single one of them will cease to exist. They aren't real. They are figments of the Wind Fish’s imagination.
The Weirdness of Koholint Island
Koholint Island shouldn’t exist.
After the events of A Link to the Past, Link decided to go on a voyage to train for future threats. A storm hits. Lightning cracks the mast. Link wakes up on a beach being stared at by a girl who looks suspiciously like Zelda. This is Marin. She’s the heart of the game, and her presence makes the eventual "ending" of the world feel like a genuine betrayal.
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What makes The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening so distinct from its siblings is the sheer amount of "meta" content. You’ll find Goombas in the side-scrolling basements. You’ll find a character named Mr. Write who is a direct cameo from the Super Nintendo version of SimCity. There’s even a Yoshi doll you have to win at a crane game. It feels like a crossover episode because, according to the developers at Nintendo, it started as a sort of after-hours hobby project. Takashi Tezuka and his team were experimenting with what a Game Boy Zelda could look like, and since it wasn't a "main" console release at first, they felt they could break all the rules.
They did.
Why the Gameplay Loop Still Holds Up
The game follows the classic Zelda formula but tightens the screws. You go to a dungeon, find a tool, beat a boss, and get an instrument. You need eight instruments to wake the Wind Fish. Simple. But the dungeons in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening are some of the most tightly designed puzzles in the 2D era. Take Eagle's Tower, for instance. You have to carry a heavy iron ball around the second floor to smash four pillars, which causes the entire top floor of the tower to collapse onto the floor below. It was mind-blowing in 1993. It’s still impressive now.
The items aren't just tools; they are keys to a world that feels increasingly claustrophobic. The Roc’s Feather allows Link to jump—a rarity in top-down Zelda games. Suddenly, the world isn't just flat. You're hopping over holes and dodging pits. The Power Bracelet lets you lift pots. The Hookshot pulls you across gaps. It’s a rhythmic progression. You see a crack in a wall, you remember it, you come back later with bombs. It rewards a specific kind of mental mapping that modern "open air" games like Breath of the Wild have traded for sheer scale.
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The Philosophical Gut Punch
Let’s talk about the Owl. He shows up constantly to give you "advice." In most games, the mentor figure is a source of comfort. Here, the Owl is basically the harbinger of doom. He’s the one telling you that you must wake the Wind Fish. But as you progress, the bosses—the Nightmares—start talking back. They aren't just monsters; they are the island’s immune system. They tell you that they are only trying to protect their world. They know that if the Wind Fish wakes up, they die.
If you think about it, Link is the villain of Koholint Island.
He’s the intruder. The Nightmares are terrifying, sure, but they are fighting for their right to exist. When you finally reach the Egg at the top of Mt. Tamaranch, the atmosphere shifts. The music gets haunting. You realize that Marin’s wish—to be a seagull so she can fly away from the island—is her subconscious realizing she’s trapped in a dream. It’s heartbreaking. Most Zelda games end with a celebration in Hyrule Castle. This one ends with Link floating on a piece of driftwood in the middle of a lonely ocean.
The Evolution: DX and the Switch Remake
There are three ways to play this game, and each offers something different:
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- The Original (1993): Greyscale, four-shade glory. It’s crunchy. It’s difficult. You have to manage your inventory constantly because you only have two buttons.
- Link’s Awakening DX (1998): This added full color and a "Color Dungeon" that used color-based puzzles. It’s widely considered the definitive way to play the retro version.
- The Switch Remake (2019): Developed by Grezzo, this version is a masterpiece of art direction. It keeps the tile-for-tile layout of the original but adds a gorgeous orchestral score.
The Switch version also fixed the most annoying part of the original: the inventory management. On the Game Boy, you had to constantly swap the Power Bracelet and Shield into your A and B slots. On the Switch, the Shield, Power Bracelet, and Pegasus Boots are mapped to dedicated buttons. It makes the flow of the game feel modern without losing the "old school" bite.
What Most People Get Wrong
A common misconception is that The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is just a "side story" that doesn't matter to the timeline. In reality, it’s one of the most important character studies of Link. It shows a version of the hero who has to make a choice between his own survival and the lives of people he has grown to love. It’s the first time the series really leaned into the "melancholy" vibe that would later define Majora’s Mask.
Another myth is that the game is "easy" because of the aesthetic. It’s not. Some of the later dungeons, like Turtle Rock, are absolute gauntlets. The puzzles require you to think in three dimensions even though you’re looking at a 2D plane. If you aren't paying attention to the dialogue from the Stone Slabs, you will get hopelessly lost.
Critical Tips for Your First (or Tenth) Playthrough
If you’re jumping into the island of Koholint, keep these things in mind:
- Talk to the phones: Ulrira is a shy old man who only talks via telephone booths scattered around the island. If you're stuck, call him. He’s the original "hint system."
- The Trading Sequence is Mandatory: In most games, trading quests are optional. Here, you cannot finish the game without completing the long chain of trades (starting with the Yoshi Doll). You eventually get a magnifying lens that lets you read a specific book in the library. Without that book, you won't know the path through the final maze.
- Don't Steal (Unless You Want To): You can actually steal from the shopkeeper in Mabe Village by circling around him and running out the door. But be warned: he will kill you the next time you enter. Also, your name for the rest of the save file will permanently change to "THIEF." Even the end credits will call you a thief.
- The Secret Seashells: In the remake, there are 50 shells (up from 26 in the original). Collecting them gets you the Koholint Sword, which deals double damage and shoots beams when your health is full. It makes the final boss much more manageable.
Actionable Steps for Players
To get the most out of this legend, don't rush. The beauty of Koholint is in its atmosphere.
- Seek out the Ocarina songs: There are three. "The Ballad of the Wind Fish" is the main one, but "Manbo’s Mambo" is the most useful because it lets you fast-travel to any Warp Hole or Manbo’s Pond.
- Watch the shadows: In dungeons, if you see a shadow on the floor, something is about to fall. It sounds obvious, but the perspective can be tricky.
- Perfect the "Bomb-Arrow" trick: In the original and DX versions, if you press the A and B buttons (mapped to bombs and arrows) at the exact same time, you fire an exploding arrow. It’s incredibly powerful for clearing rooms.
- Listen to the music change: The soundtrack is reactive. When you enter a house, it’s cozy. When you’re near the Wind Fish’s Egg, the theme becomes distorted and haunting. Pay attention to those shifts—they are telling the story better than the text boxes are.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening remains a high-water mark for the series because it’s willing to be sad. It’s a game about letting go. It’s about the fact that some things—no matter how beautiful or vibrant—are temporary. Whether you're playing the 8-bit classic or the 2019 reimagining, the ending hits just as hard today as it did decades ago.