Was the first handheld Zelda game.
It has been said that the island Koholint is actually a Limbo between the living world and the world of the dead. Link must wake the Wind-Fish in order to regain his life, having died at sea when his boat went down. This backstory was supposedly changed for American players; in this version, Link is unconscious after his ship is lost at see, and the game merely takes place in his dream. His goal is to wake up the Wind-Fish, who can awaken him as well. According to the makers, Link survives the game and turns up again in the Oracle series.
One of very few Legend of Zelda games in which both Zelda and Ganon themselves do not appear (although the final boss briefly takes on Ganon's form).
Although the game was released many years before the Oracle series, it was originally set after the events of those games, where Link set sail to a new destination to find a new challenge, and got shipwrecked. However, the series' producers revised their timeline in 2018, and stated that Link's Awakening takes place before both Oracle game's. The rationale for this change was not revealed, but a remake of Link's Awakening for the Nintendo Switch was announced half a year later, and may have been part of the reason.
Link's Awakening features many references to Super Mario games. Among them are the Yoshi Doll (modeled after the Mario character of the same name) and several enemies/characters in the game, including Goombas, Chain Chomps, Boo Buddies, Piranha Plants, and Wart. Incidentally, the Zelda games and the Mario games were both conceived by the same man, Shigeru Miyamoto.