Okay so, Link’s Awakening? I picked this one up around 2019, but never really got too much into it so I ended up accidentally dropping it for a while, I don’t think it was until 2021 that I gave it a second chance and I actually got pretty far, a little before the last dungeon, buuuut… I accidentally dropped it again until today :p
The game honestly just did not click that much with me unfortunately, which is a shame knowing that other ‘2D’ Zeldas such as Link Between Worlds are among my favourite by far in the franchise. The puzzles reminded me of why Ocarina of Time never clicked with me either: they try to go so out of the box sometimes that it simply becomes a stupid gamble of trying every last option until the game agrees with you, and the logic applied is never linear with the rest of the game design. Call it skill issue or call it whatever, but it’s pretty annoying that, for example, the final boss’ phases just require you to try out all of your inventory until something works, AND WHAT WERE SOME OF THE SOLUTIONS? MAGIC POWDER FOR ONE PHASE AND RUNNING WITH MAGIC BOOTS FOR ANOTHER
Overall, this game simply ended up being an infuriating experience at times, but beyond that I genuinely enjoyed my time with this game a lot, or else I wouldn’t have put the time to complete it 100%. The secret seashells reminded me a lot of LBW so that’s a big favorable point since I had fun collecting them all, and other collectables such as the heart pieces or stone chambers were fun in general. These collectables also involved getting deep in the minigames, and I must admit I had fun with the fishing and rapid minigames, and maybe not so much fun with the damn crane minigame but at least the ten figures are done… On the same line, who thought making the trading quest mandatory for the main game was a good idea?
The ONE thing I just couldn’t stand when it came to collectables is: the dungeon maker subcontent. I just… I just didn’t like it, I didn’t really vibe with it and it felt like I was constantly looking for the fastest dungeon pieces to get through the arrangement quests as quick as possible. Sometimes some of the proposals were genuinely interesting and entertaining like swordless or timed, but yeah. Kinda scummy to lock a whole heart and container, as well as an empty bottle, behind this. And don’t get me started on the dungeon chamber collectables: half of them were fun since they were related with the rest of the content, but the other half are just… bought for 1280 rupees at the shop. Each. It really was not very fun to farm rupees when there’s no many other options except to play the hell out of the rapids race or spam the same +rupee dungeon over and over. Buuuut, alas, it had to be done to achieve that sweet 100%
All in all, I had a lot of fun with Link’s Awakening and I hope you can forgive my whiny ass, cause in reality I really did have fun with it and I was such a huge fan of most mechanics and, especially, the art direction. I love Marin… I wish it hadn’t all been a dream, but her song lives on ❤ Very cute story and we will be waiting for TLOZ: Echoes of Wisdom which… is the main reason why I remembered to get back to this game
Silvy 