LogFAQs > #951531976

07. The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening (GB, 1993, et al)

This is where it all started for me with the series, nearly a quarter of a century ago. Links Awakening is the absolute peak of the classic Zelda formula, but its also remarkably unique and different from its NES and SNES relatives. Its distinctly weird and other, and not just because it manages to pack a full Zelda experience into a handheld title.

Its the first Zelda game to take place entirely outside of Hyrule, on the odd but idyllic Koholint Island. Characters, locations, and creatures here seem to be echoes of more familiar faces and places from other places, including Hyrule and, peculiarly, the Mushroom Kingdom. It doesnt all add up, and as you progress through the game, you begin to learn why: the entirety of the island exists in the mind of the slumbering Windfish, who you are trying to wake so that you can return home. To save himself and get home, Link must destroy this place, and the people who reside there, the very same people who have helped him on his quest, unwitting self-saboteurs to their own existence.



SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION BELOW

Ive been thinking about Links Awakening a lot lately, in part because I knew this writeup was coming, but also as WandaVision has wound to a close. This may seem weird to you, but my brain makes connections in strange ways sometimes, and I think in this case theres a reasonable comparison to be made.

Both pieces of culture are set in a fiction created by a character central to the story: Westview created by Wanda for herself, Koholint by created by the Windfish. Both position their protagonist in the center of an idyllic world; Mabe and Westview are unaffected by the harsh realities of the world outside their borders. The residents of both towns cant even conceive of any other place existing! Both WandaVision and Links Awakening engage in misdirection around the nature of their protagonists, and what it means to be a hero. The difference in how the game handles this dilemma is what Links Awakening an all-time great game is what prevents WandaVision from being an all-time great superhero story: the game slowly but steadily makes Link the villain, the undoer of the world youve come to love. WandaVision, which leans so hard into the idea of this hero doing unspeakably villainous things in wake of her grief, instead pulls up lame at the end, trying to convince the viewers that Wanda sacrificed so much for the people of Westview.

That Links Awakening tells such a strange and surprisingly bleak story so simply, and sticks the landing, is one of its greatest feats. The best Zelda games are not only fun to play, they tell an interesting story. Links Awakening - in all three of its equally excellent iterations - succeeds marvelously on both points, and having that in my first Zelda experience undoubtedly hooked me for life.



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The Thighmaster