I played “The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening” for the first time in January and early February. The game took me 13 hours to complete the main story and a few optional side quests. I started playing the game on Nintendo Classics for the Game Boy Color, but then remembered there was a Nintendo Switch remake. I bought the game for $30 on eBay and three days later was playing again.
I don't play a lot of Legend of Zelda games. Before Link’s Awakening, I've only completed Wind Waker, Four Swords Adventures, and Phantom Hourglass. My hesitation to many Zelda games is that they are large and expansive, which would require perhaps too much diligence to complete given my schedule. According to “How Long to Beat”, the main story for Breath of the Wild is ~50 hours. Given my current “pace of play” I would be playing just one game for the entire year.
Link’s Awakening is set in the compact pocket world of Koholint Island. The entire world map takes only a few minutes to walk from edge-to-edge even without the teleportation tool you receive part-way through the story. There is no space left unused, every square of the island feels deliberate. The entire world map fits into 16x16 screens of 10x8 tiles per screen for a total of 2560x2048 pixels. This is fewer total pixels than my laptop screen (3456x2160).
I played 3 sessions on Nintendo Classics and 17 sessions on the Nintendo Switch remake, averaging around 45 minutes per play session. I really appreciated how this game fit into my life, being able to make concrete progress even in shorter play sessions between 15-30 minutes. There's a telephone booth in-game where you can talk to a shy old man and get a reminder about what you're meant to be doing next. This mechanic was super useful picking the game up after not playing for a few days.
I was originally inspired to play Link’s Awakening after the glowing review from “videogamedunkey” in 2023. Just a few weeks after I started playing myself, the “Let’s Play”-er I've been subscribed to for the longest on YouTube, raocow, began playing Link’s Awakening, too. So now my play was put on the clock. I wanted to continue watching raocow's daily videos, so I had to keep up in my own game.
Watching raocow play on the Game Boy Color version made me feel even better about my choice to play the Nintendo Switch remake. Otherwise, you spend so much time in menus swapping your tools! I also learned how to enter the Color Dungeon, an optional dungeon added in the “DX” re-release for the Game Boy Color, by watching raocow's play-through. Without this I probably wouldn't have known the dungeon was available so soon in the main story.
There were little things here and there that I accomplished differently, too. Like defeating the enemies within the Dream Shrine using a sword spin attack instead of the Pegasus Boots. Apparently these enemies are called Arm-Mimics, they look like gourds to me.
Despite the heavy optional hand-holding in the game through in-game hints, I still needed to look-up solutions a few times in my play-through. Here are a few things I missed:
Other than this, the entire game went very smoothly and I didn't feel lost for the vast majority. Nice work, game designers!
What Legend of Zelda games are most similar to Link’s Awakening in terms of popularity and time to beat? I used the ranking from the publication Zelda Dungeon, which I learned from following the personal blog of one of their writers: Evan Hahn. Approximate time to beat was taken from How Long to Beat. Games that take 15 hours or fewer to complete are highlighted in green.
| Rank | Game | Hours | Beat? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Breath of the Wild | 50 | |
| 2 | Ocarina of Time | 30 | |
| 3 | Tears of the Kingdom | 60 | |
| 4 | Twilight Princess | 40 | |
| 5 | The Wind Waker | 30 | X |
| 6 | A Link Between Worlds | 15 | |
| 7 | Majora's Mask | 20 | |
| 8 | Skyward Sword | 30 | |
| 9 | Link's Awakening | 15 | X |
| 10 | Echoes of Wisdom | 20 | |
| 11 | A Link to the Past | 15 | |
| 12 | Minish Cap | 15 | |
| 13 | Oracle of Seasons | 15 | |
| 15 | Oracle of Ages | 15 | |
| 16 | Spirit Tracks | 20 | |
| 17 | Four Swords Adventures | 15 | X |
| 18 | Phantom Hourglass | 20 | X |
| 20 | Four Swords | 2 | |
| 21 | Tri Force Heroes | 15 |
Looking at this table, it looks like the most acclaimed Zelda games that are “shorter” and that I haven't played are in order: A Link Between Worlds (3DS), A Link to the Past (SNES), Minish Cap (GBA), and Oracle of Seasons and Ages (GBC).
A Link Between Worlds being on the 3DS is unfortunate, because it's one of the few Nintendo consoles that I don't own and is apparently becoming more and more popular due to the modding community. Maybe I'll wait for 3DS to come to Nintendo Classics? :(
A Link to the Past, Minish Cap, and Oracle of Ages & Seasons are all available on Nintendo Classics. I own a genuine Oracle of Seasons cartridge, so I can dump the ROM and play on my phone using Delta. I think I'll be playing Link to the Past on Nintendo Classics and then playing Oracle of Seasons once the GameSir “Pocket Taco” pre-orders ship in March.
What is your favorite Legend of Zelda game and why? Let me know via email or on Mastodon.
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