The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX
Year: 1998
Rating: E
Time Played: ~16 hours
With the recently-released Switch remake of this game, I realized I never actually managed to play through the original Link’s Awakening. Perhaps one of the first Zelda games my family-owned, I decided to pull out my copy of Link’s Awakening DX and play through it (and thus, save me the $60 on a “new” game). While I played for a bit on the Super Game Boy to get that “big screen” feel, the colors I experienced on the Game Boy Advanced made playing in a handheld mode that much more enjoyable, if not more intimate.
After running through the first few dungeons, it became evident to me that I never made it very far in this game when I was 20 years younger. I was content just exploring what I could at the time. However, this also highlights how there were some moments where the next step in completing the game wasn’t entirely intuitive (even with the hints from the owl). Still, with a little help from the internet, I was able to complete the game and even gain a few of the top-tier items (like the boomerang) in the process.
Even if I was spoiled to the twist ending (the game came out in the mid-90s after all), it made the interactions with Koholint Island residents that much more poignant. What’s perhaps even more impressive about this game is how it holds up over 20 years after it was released. The Game Boy was a limited piece of hardware, but Link’s Awakening DX fully utilizes the small screen and chip-tune sounds to provide an experience that I think any fan of the Zelda series should experience at some point. I’ll still probably pick up the Switch remake of this game (it looks gorgeous), but I can wait until it goes on sale to do so.
An impressive adventure on somewhat limited hardware, I give The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX 4.0 stars out of 5.
