hold on a second -
Yoshi, dog food...who's Christine?
what am I playing?
Additional Comments:
Obviously, I've been on a Zelda kick. As soon as I finished A Link to the Past, I immediately picked up Link's Awakening, which is doubly rewarding because of how similar the two games are in play style, and well, I love LTTP so why wouldn't I love this particular title? Now, I first picked this game up about a year or so ago, and the game really confused me. Never mind all the Mario references, it took me about an hour or so before I figured out how to get the sword. Huh? Add to that the misery I faced trying to deal with the second dungeon and I eventually put it down, sort of forgetting all about it. Well, as I said, after my LTTP run I couldn't help but not pick this game up again, and boy am I ever glad I did. This game totally delivers and really impressed when you think about it - we're talking about a GameBoy game here. This is one hell of a game for that little grey brick!
Playing through it the second time, I still faced slight adversity trying to get the sword - I don't know why I keep forgetting that you can push items with the shield. And sure enough Bottle Grotto immediately gave me the bird again. Honestly, I don't even remember what it was I had to do to continue past wherever it was that I kept getting stuck. But there were two things that absolutely stumped the hell out of me: obtaining the dog food and the bird. And you know what's sickening about the whole affair is how incredibly obvious both solutions were. I spent hours, even days interacting with every single thing I could find in every single way I could imagine. Seriously, I dug holes across every square inch of the land looking for solutions - especially for that damned canned item that Sale wanted. I slashed at everything I could. I picked up rocks galore and ran into just about every obstacle I could find. Why can't I just grab the bananas straight off the crate, or better yet, knock some out of the tree? Just what is the purpose of that monkey next to Sale's house? For the longest time, I though he might be part of the key. Arrghhh!!!!
Ok, ok, so Link has access to a wizened old coot, Ulrira, via telephone who likes to drop hints. While the hints seem incredibly blatant regarding your next move, they couldn't be further from the truth. It's amazing, given how obvious they are in context, they are actually of little help. At first I questioned the developers decision to put in what can essentially be regarded as a hint and/or cheat guide, but in the end, he's nothing more than a nuisance stating what we already know. Eh, I guess he's helpful in some circumstances. After all, if it wasn't for him, I would have never tried to hunt down a can of dog food so I can obtain a bunch of bananas. Wait, this is a Zelda game, right? Why am I performing such arbitrary tasks? It's like I'm given a grocery list: dog food - check, bananas - check, a new broom - ugh. What happened to good old action adventure?
This game definitely made me scratch my head at times. So yes, for some reason, there's a long succession of trades that must be made in this game. What better may to enliven an already proven game design than with an endless chore of fetch quests? Seriously, why does this exist? I probably wouldn't mind the whole ordeal if it wasn't so pivotal to the primary story line - looking at you mermaid scale and bananas. As a side quest for perhaps a leveled item or even something like the boomerang, whatever, but with the ultimate goal being the directions through the Wind Fish's egg, I've got to question it. Now don't take all this the wrong way, it's not bad. It's just, rather tedious and seems a bit out of character for a Zelda game. Yes, I know fetch quests exist in Zelda games, but to this extent? This is stretching it a bit if you ask me.
Enough bickering about the trading game, although I will say it really helped me to test the extreme limitations of the overworld. Much like Link to the Past, the overworld is cleverly built - seemingly designed with both obstacle and required item to overcome said obstacle constantly on the designer's mind. And while the overworld proved frustrating at times, I found myself really enjoying the overall layout. If I had to nitpick anything, it would be some of the harder obstacles that you couldn't overcome until very late in the game that led to treasure rooms that only contained a multiplied rupee. For being as late in the game as it was, it came across as a disappointing treasure. Other than having to purchase some bomb replenishment every now and then, once the shovel and/or bow is bought, the store is, well...useless. And if you can manage to steal the bow, then the store is even more useless.
Overall, Link's Awakening was fantastic. It really surprised me. Honestly, a GameBoy Zelda game - I didn't have the highest of hopes the first time I had picked up the game. This time through, I was aware of its LTTP similarities, so I expected to at least get some satisfaction out of it, but I still didn't imagine it was going to be this enjoyable. Quirkiness aside - shout outs to the Mario-verse, the fetch quest trading game, other oddities - the game is pure Zelda through and through, well at least in the form of mechanics, and really made its mark in regards to what the GameBoy was capable of producing. Another quirk worth mentioning: the music. First of all, this game has some brilliant music, especially Mysterious Forest, but there's something about it that sounds so out of place for a Zelda game. It's reminiscent of the Earth Area (Day) theme from Drakkhen - you can't help but groove while listening to it, but you also can't escape that giant question mark floating just over your head. Other great tunes include Face Shrine, Southern Shrine, or even just the basic House tune. Yet even as fitting as these songs are to the adventure, they too are just an odd curio in the full scope of the Zelda universe.
But there's one final peculiarity that I must investigate. I was chatting with a friend of mine about the game, explaining its similarities to Link to the Past. Well, similar, yet wholly different. There's a noticeable absence of some very important elements: Ganon, the Triforce and heck...Zelda! So, how is it a Zelda game, I was asked. I think what I really liked about this game is that it didn't fall into the same old trap of most Zelda games. It took familiar ideas and mechanics and wrapped it around a whole new story enveloped within a [spoilers]dreamscape[/spoilers] which I think is brilliant. There was something about this game that reminded me a lot of Wind Waker in that it was a completely fresh approach to a Zelda game. Sure, the basic mechanics were akin to LTTP, but the game on a macro scale felt wholly different. I think if it held true to form and more or less was nothing but a LTTP clone, both in mechanics and story, the game would be nothing more than an advancement of play for those who truly enjoy LTTP as opposed to a game unto its own. Although, yea, it is a bit weird that the fundamentals of a Zelda game are lost somewhere on the cutting floor.
Nano-Rant:
Now then, let me talk about items. And to properly talk about items, I must talk about the Nightmare. While I faced a dubious amount of untimely deaths against the final boss, I place most of the blame on item guesswork as opposed to the creature's immediate threat. The boss itself, other than Dethl's form, was a breeze - well, once you figured out what items each form required. Fortunately, some were easy, such as Agahnim's form, other's not so much, such as Ganon's form. I pretty much fell into a pattern with this boss: try item, failure, try item, failure, try item, failure, death. Rinse and repeat, except after a few deaths I'd eventually find the right item; after which I could move on to the next form and start the whole cycle all over again.
But of all the forms, there's really only two that tripped me up: Ganon's and Dethl's. Why I didn't see the Pegasus Boots as a form of attack is beyond me. But Dethl - what a total dick! I spent an exuberant amount of time throwing everything I had at this bastard, and what pisses me off the most is that both the boomerang and arrows were the first two items I tried, since they weren't used up until this point throughout Nightmare's battle. But they were both reflected because the weapon to eye contact was a frame too early or late - the eye was considered half closed. As a result, I figured that neither weapon was meant for the job and moved on. What the hell, nothing worked! Many deaths were had and much swearing ensued. Oh, and I haven't even mentioned how much bullshit his revolving arms manage to create. They are a total nightmare to avoid.
Anyways, after an hour of item testing, I finally inflicted pain with a lone arrow. Huzzah! Twenty arrows later and the game came to an end. What really frustrates me though is that I could have taken him down with one solitary flick of the boomerang, but I didn't think it worked because the goddamn eye was considered to be half closed. Goddammit!!
Which speaking of, why is the boomerang so damn powerful!? Holy crap! Isn't the point of the boomerang to stun?
Rating: 4.5 cans of dog food out of 5
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