You know, I have a history of WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS disliking zelda games since I was a WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS little kid. Maybe part of it WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS is because I had all sega stuff growing up, but WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS going back to link's awakening once I WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS finally acquired a taste for zelda and saw everyone say this game is WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS one of the best in the series only to discover WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS that it plays it's little fucking "you cant do this yet" message every WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS fucking WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS time you even so much as touch the WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS thing you can't use yet that I just cant help but think my old point of view was just a little bit WOW THIS LOOKS PRETTY HEAVY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO LIFT IT WITH JUST YOUR BARE HANDS justified.

i've spent most of my life not really being a big zelda fan, but after playing and loving majora's mask and link's awakening, i think what i like in zelda is when it does something weird and interesting. guess i'm not too big of a fan of most of the series' established mythos or conventions. overall link's awakening is an incredibly solid 2d zelda with consistently good dungeons and a great presentation. turtle rock was kind of annoying to navigate but otherwise the game is amazing. the story isn't the most in depth but it didn't need to be, it conveyed it's themes and narrative in a way that i adored and i hope more people give this classic a try.

Só tinha jogado uma vez, a versão DX. Isso foi Deus sabe quantos anos atrás e não tinha gostado muito. Talvez porque eu tivesse jogado os Oracles à exaustão antes ele não atendeu às minhas expectativas.

Em minha revisita à Link's Awakening, decidi jogar a versão original, de 1993. O que posso dizer é que minha expectativa dessa vez foi muito mais positiva. E não é só oela perspectiva histórica de que é um autêntico The Legend of Zelda rodando num Game Boy tijolão (um grande feito). Mesmo para jogadores contemporâneos que não têm apego nostálgico ao jogo ele tem bastante à oferecer.

Link's Awakening tem dois principais pontos fortes que se reinforçam mutuamente. O primeiro é o ritmo. Sendo projetado para um aparelho portátil, a aventura divide a famosa fórmula de Zelda em objetivos e subobjetivos que nunca duram mais que 30 minutos. Eu fui jogando o game em doses homeopáticas no decorrer de dois meses, e mesmo nas seções mais curtas a sensação de progresso era constante. E o segundo ponto forte, que se liga diretamente ao primeiro, é a variedade. Na transição de uma dungeon para outra à sempre alguma missão interessante que você tem que cumprir antes, como ajudar um príncipe a recuperar seu castelo, salvar Marin de moblins ou encontrar a Vila Animal. Às vezes o que você tem que fazer é meio non-sequitur, mas até isso acho que se encaixa com a temática onírica da história.

E falando em história... Que finalzinho meio melancólico, né? Outra coisa que meu eu do passado não soube apreciar muito, mas o do presente se sentiu um pouco emocionado.

Genuinely one of the most fun and charming games i have ever played. The overworld is fantastic, with a bunch of interesting areas and characters in a way that both makes it a joy to explore, but also makes you feel at home in a number of the areas. Mabe Village is of course the highlight here, but there's also Animal Village and a handful of other fun and charming characters throughout the island. This is of course crucial to the story since the island is a dream, a dream that you must end. This completely different angle on the traditional quest is really interesting and gives the story, particularly the ending a really beautiful and melancholic tone. I also think that the game is able to do this because it was a handheld game, coming out only 2 years after a Link to the Past it would be pretty boring to just rehash the same story in the same setting. The quote from director Takashi Tezuka that it was like they were making a parody of Zelda. On top of all that, this game actually features some of the most creative design in the series. There are only 8 dungeons here which is on the short side compared to the in A Link to the Past, but I actually think that's beneficial, since Link's awakening really doesn't outstay its welcome with it's shorter length, making for a more impactful finale. It also makes you much less likely to be burnt out as you get to the last two, much more complicated dungeons as well.

While not the first Zelda I ever played, it's easily the one I put the most time into as a kid. I was pretty much glued to this thing, and it was the first Zelda to suck me in so much that I felt compelled to learn more about the franchise. This was in the early days of the internet, so there was a lot of scouring for details on fan pages and printing out character bios and getting my dad's computer filled up with viruses. Good times...

I remember being awestruck by the amount of secrets and easter eggs in this thing, like being branded an all-caps THIEF, or turning Marin into a dang ghost. It was years later that I caught on to the more disturbing fan theories about the story, and while those are almost certainly false, I think they're fun to think about too. The game certainly has a mysterious air about it, and for a an early 90s Game Boy game, they managed to pack in a lot of atmosphere.

Naturally the smaller scope of the game means there's a lot less content to explore. This isn't as vast as some other Zelda titles, and even the Ages/Seasons games feel like they're more robust, but there's still a lot to do for an early 90's Game Boy game. The graphics are pretty sharp too and the controls are spot on, it feels like a perfectly condensed version of A Link to the Past, impressive given the power game between console and handheld hardware.

There is a remake for the Switch, and it's fine. It has a horribly tacked on create-a-dungeon feature and the framerate really likes to nosedive for some reason. But it's still pretty authentic to the original, and is a perfectly fine way to enjoy Link's Awakening today. But my fondness will always be for the original, and I think it holds up surprisingly well today.

This game had no right to be as good as it was. Back in the Game Boy days, you were lucky to get anything resembling the home console experience on the go. Clunky ports, clumsy sprite retooling and departures from series staples were the norm, with concessions having to be made to cram things into that tiny cartridge and monochromatic screen. The biggest successes of the platform were games like Pokemon, which took full advantage of the quirks of their hardware, or games like Tetris which simply accepted their place in the market and embraced the idea of being addictive timewasters. Link's Awakening said nuts to that and offered the full Zelda experience, and even managed to buck some series trends way before it was the cool thing to do. Taking place on a mysterious island, the narrative is completely divorced from just about any previously established characters or concepts, save for Link himself and a single name-drop of Zelda at the beginning. The twist at the center of the game isn't a particularly revolutionary one, but it is a twist, and one that was surprisingly emotionally affective for its time. There are minor gripes, of course - the dungeons are a bit simpler, only having two buttons for items (including your sword) means constantly having to jump to the pause screen to swap things around, and you will never want to see another acorn again for as long as you live by the time the credits roll, but otherwise, it's the genuine Zelda experience in the palm of your hands. I love this game and I will happily pick it back up to play it any time I have a long car ride ahead of me. Arguments can and have been made about whether or not this is the best 2D Zelda, but as far as I am concerned, it's the best got-dang Game Boy game ever made, and that's a title it gets to keep forever.

Many people are familiar with David Lynch's screed against watching films on smart phones. I agree with Lynch that watching films on phones sucks, though people certainly take it further. If you spend enough time talking about movies, you will encounter the "well you didn't really see the movie watching in that format" argument: only this cut, on this size screen, projected in these specifications, colour graded this way, with this quality of sound, sitting in this seat, and knowing this historical context is the only true experience of a film. Undeniably these factors can impact your appreciation of a film but I will maintain that, unless you stopped watching, you did see the movie. When my dad saw Mad Max: Fury Road on a plane and didn't like it, he was seeing it equally as much as I did in a theatre with a packed crowd or when he saw it on a big TV and enjoyed it a lot more.

You'll find this sort of discourse in any artistic medium, and as I've gotten more into video games, I've both seen and advanced similar arguments myself. Beyond the obvious instances where controllers differ substantially in form and function or a CRT provides a more authentic image, you have hundreds of invisible technical quirks that can affect the experience for better or worse. It becomes easy to just recommend/instruct people to play a game you enjoyed in the exact way you did and not risk the potential differences of emulating or going back to original hardware or whatever undermining their enjoyment. There will also always be the argument in gaming for the highest specs and most modern conveniences possible: give me a 30 year old 8-bit game running on my 360Hz 4K OLED monitor with save states, rewind, debug menu available, whole nine yards (and if I like it there better be a randomizer mod I can try out afterward).

This is a long way of saying I don't really care how you play Link's Awakening: on a pea-green Game Boy, on your Switch, on your phone; in its original, DX, or remade version; for a couple hours, to the end, to 100% completion, etc. Go nuts. There's value in all its iterations, and all of it is Link's Awakening. However you played it, you played it, and I wouldn't be concerned about what someone in a discord or on here will shame you for.

But if after all that you'll indulge me one thing: I think you should play it handheld, because I think that's the point.

Worlds in (single player, offline) games materialize when you boot them up and disappear when you turn them off. Multiple games have made artistic hay under that particular sun, tending towards the "the best thing you can do is stop playing" conceit. Link's Awakening is distinct. I've heard Koholint Island being a dream described as a twist, when in reality it is much more a premise. I'd say the twist is that despite being the destined hero who always saves the day in other Zelda games, here there is nothing you can do to alter the transience of this world. Yet the game wants you to keep playing, and see it through to its conclusion.

We make and unmake every dream we have, inherently. Turning an idea into something material or corporeal is both creation and destruction: the result is never exactly what is in your mind, and you can never quite go back to what it was as just an idea. That disconnect can make anyone despondent if they dwell on it; if they let it convince them there is no value to making something no one will see just as you see it, if they see it at all. "Verily, it be the nature of dreams to end."

The Wind Fish is right, but it is also the nature of all things to transform. Experience becomes memory becomes premonition becomes experience and on and on. Dreams deferred will dry/fester/stink/crust/sag/explode. The story in the author's mind becomes the story in the cartridge becomes the story in my mind. You know it's just images moving really fast, it's just words put into a specific order, it's just code rendering. But when I take out my Switch and boot up this game, I feel like I am holding a world in my hand. I know it will textually evaporate when I finish it, I know it will literally evaporate when I turn it off, I know it was never really there to begin with.

But they only ever made and remade this game for handheld devices. And when I hold it I feel it. And maybe by telling that to you, you'll hold this game and feel it too. Or maybe you'll feel something different because you've held these words in your head. I'm fine with whatever.

This is a game quite beloved among The Legend of Zelda community, either because of the cute and goofy charm of its world, or also because of how incredibly well made it is for a game for a console as primitive as the Game Boy, I wouldn't exaggerate to say that it easily surpasses even most NES games, and almost equals many SNES masterpieces.

Link's Awakening is that kind of game that was made to be more than just a game for a handheld, unlike games like Donkey Kong Land, Mega Man World or Mario Land, which were simple adaptations that today leave much to be desired. This game on the other hand was made to match the quality of a home console game despite the major hardware limitations that the original Game Boy had, such as low resolution, low power, little storage space on the cartridges, lack of buttons, and lack of color, to name a few. This game is not only overflowing with excellence in the highly polished and well-groomed technical section, but it is also excellent in game design.

The gameplay is directly inspired and designed to emulate that of Zelda A Link to the Past (a Super Nintendo game), and you can tell on more than one occasion that the developers of this game just put some things in so they could say "See, like the SNES game, but on a Game Boy!", and the truth is that I won't deny that this is both awesome and cool, A Link to the Past is my favorite and the fact that this game is not only inspired, but is a sequel to it pleases me infinitely. However, due to the limitations of the GB small alterations were made that actually end up improving the inventory system in part, because given the limited amount of buttons on the console, in order to have a more flexible gameplay, we can now choose what items we want to equip on the "A" and "B" buttons, we can even leave Link without a sword, which is something that will be necessary in some cases and can serve to make some combinations between items, such as bomb arrows.

As for the design of the overworld, it was something that disappointed me at first, as this game lacks the freedom that previous Zelda games gave you and also the backtracking can sometimes be a bit exessive, although I think this is more annoying than it should be due in part to the map is divided to only a small area per screen at a time, and partly I feel it was also a decision taken to lengthen the game a little more. However, when you play it with the mindset that you're playing in a world with a small Metroid Fusion style main map (unlock abilities to unlock areas as you progress through the story) it's quite enjoyable, and more so because of the amount of optional Puzzles that are hidden. Also, this game started a tradition in the series which are the exchange sequences, which basically consist of starting with a useless item such as a stone, which you will be exchanging for all kinds of items until you end up with something big like building an entire bridge.

The dungeons that this game features are pretty well designed, they have puzzles that will require you to really think a bit and make you use the item you got in that dungeon in a lot of ways. At the end is the typical boss that will usually be an easy battle.

But hey, since I already talked about what makes Link's Awakening excellent as a video game, I'll talk about what makes it an even more memorable and special adventure: its charming personality. After saving Hyrule from the forces of evil in the previous adventure, Link finds himself on a strange island where everything has a rather relaxed and goofy tone, but in a good way, as it endows the game with a lot of grace and uniqueness, for example, there are kids who break the fourth wall and literally tell you "I have no idea how I know this, but if you press the Start + Select buttons you can save game" or other NPCs that say "I'm going to get lost in the mountains, so go look for me", even the bosses of the dungeons that I mentioned before, the great thing about them sometimes is not the battle itself, but how the boss looks and behaves. All of the above makes the game stand out from the rest of the era, as most games always had a "Save the world from evil" type story and not a simple but effective "Find a way to leave this strange, but lovely island".

Conclusion
To be honest, the first time I played this game I found it just "okay", but this time it was different, as I was actually hating it, as I was looking more for a more open game like Zelda 1 or ALttP. But still, because of expecting something from the game that I wasn't going to find in it, I was missing out on appreciating the things that it did do differently, the things that it did have and did well; its originality. And it was here that I realized something very important, and that is that a sequel doesn't necessarily have to be "the same but better" than the previous game. This game has taught me that a sequel doesn't necessarily have to be that way, because even if the changes mean losing things that I as a player love, they can also mean new things that can be just as great.

And having said that, the message of the game is about that, that things are not forever and sooner or later we will have to leave things behind to move forward, but not for that reason those things will be forgotten, because we must appreciate them and value them fondly for what they were and meant to us... Similar to the past (or a dream), we can not return to it, but the memory that it once happened is what gives it meaning and importance in our day to day.