The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
This article has been tagged since August 2006.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

Developer(s)	Nintendo
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Shigeru Miyamoto (producer), Takashi Tezuka (director)
Release date(s)	June 6, 1993 August, 1993 December 1, 1998 (Game Boy Color)
Genre(s)	Action Adventure
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: DX version - E (Everyone)
Platform(s)	Game Boy, Game Boy Color
Media	4-megabit cartridge (Game Boy version) 8-megabit cartridge (Game Boy Color version)

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, released in Japan as Zelda no Densetsu: Yume o Miru Shima (ゼルダの伝説夢をみる島, Zeruda no Densetsu Yume o Miru Shima^?, lit. "The Legend of Zelda: Dreaming Island"), is an adventure video game developed by Nintendo and released for the Game Boy in 1993.^[1] It is the first game from the Legend of Zelda series to appear on a handheld game console. The game is believed to be a direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and if so, stars the same incarnation of Link from that game.

A remake called The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX (夢をみる島DX^?) for the Game Boy Color was released in 1998. The latter is compatible with the Game Boy Printer and features a new color-based dungeon. It can be played on a regular Game Boy, but the color dungeon is inaccessible.

1 Plot
- 1.1 Setting
2 Gameplay
3 Development
4 Presentation
5 DX version
6 Reception
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

This is the first game in the series to take place outside Hyrule and the main “Triforce” storyline. This is also the only Zelda game not to feature Princess Zelda at all.

After training abroad, Link is sailing back to Hyrule, but is shipwrecked in a violent storm. He awakens on Koholint Island, and is taken to the house of a kind man named Tarin, and his daughter Marin (who bears a strong resemblance to Princess Zelda). A mysterious owl tells Link that to return home, he must awaken the Wind Fish by gathering and playing the eight Instruments of the Sirens. The bosses in Link’s Awakening, who guard the Sirens’ Instruments, are said to be the Nightmares of the Wind Fish. When Link plays the Ballad of the Wind Fish with all eight Instruments, he can enter the giant egg atop Mt. Tamaranch, where the Wind Fish slumbers. There he must face the final Nightmare, shadowy apparitions which include umbral visions of foes from Link’s past. Upon defeat of this nightmare, it is revealed that the entire island is merely a dream of the Wind Fish. By playing the instruments again, Link ends the dream. He and the Wind Fish are returned to the waking world.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Setting

Koholint Island (コホリント島, Kohorinto-tō^?) is the location that Link explores in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

Mabe Village is a town which contains a shop, a Trendy Game, the Dream Shrine, a fishing pond, a phone booth and a library, as well as a few houses.

Animal Village is a community populated entirely by talking animals.

The large egg that is the island's most notable and elevated feature on top of Mount Tamaranch. It is fabled that the Wind Fish sleeps dreamily within its shell.

[edit] Gameplay

Like all games are in the Legend of Zelda series, Link’s Awakening is an action-adventure game. It followed its closest relative from the Legend of Zelda line of games, A Link to the Past, in its above-the-playfield viewpoint, sense of gameplay, and the possible actions that could be performed in the game.

However, Link's Awakening greatly expanded on the formula by being the first of the topview games in the series to feature jumping and platformer action scenes. Side-scrolling caves similar to those in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link were added also to make full use of Link’s new jumping abilities. Also appearing for the first time in a Zelda game were fishing, and flying around using a cucco. Link’s Awakening was also the first Zelda game where both buttons could be assigned to different items, neither of which had to be the sword, whereas previously one button was the sword by default.

In addition, this is the first Zelda game to include a "trading sequence" side quest. This minigame consists of trading a series of otherwise useless items, and lasts for most of the game. The last item, however, is useful: a mermaid scale that the user can put on the mermaid statue in Martha's Bay (need Hookshot to get to it). This reveals a cave, and inside is the Magnifying Glass, which can be used to read the library book in small print. This allows you to learn the directions through to the game's final boss. The Magnifying Glass also allows you to see certain "invisible" enemies, opens up a hidden cave in Toronbo Shores (where, inside, one can find the boomerang, the game's most powerful weapon), and lets you see a friendly Zora in a house in the Animal Village (this also opens up a new photo opportunity as the mouse photographer will take your picture with the Zora).

[edit] Development

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.
This article has been tagged since March 2007.

[edit] Presentation

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.
This article has been tagged since March 2007.

The music was composed by Yuichi Ozaki, Kazumi Totaka, Minako Hamano, and Kazue Ishikawa. This was the first The Legend of Zelda game to feature different background music for each major dungeon.

Totaka's Song can be heard in this game after waiting two and a half minutes in Richard's villa. This song first appeared in X, and showed up in many games whose music was composed by Kazumi Totaka. In the Japanese version of Link's Awakening DX, another version of the song can be heard at the file selection screen by entering the name "Totakeke" (とたけけ) to start a new file, in the same way the name "ZELDA" can be entered to hear an arrangement of the game's theme music. Other samples of the song have been found in the game's coding but not in the actual gameplay.

The same remix of Totaka's Song can also be heard in the German version by typing "MOYSE" to start a new file.

[edit] DX version

In 1998, Link’s Awakening was re-released as The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX for the Game Boy Color on a black hybrid cartridge that is also compatible with the original Game Boy. This was one of the few deluxe versions of Game Boy games, along with Wario Land II DX, Tetris DX, Super Mario Bros. DX and the cancelled Metroid II: Return of Samus DX and Kirby’s Dream Land 2 DX.

One addition to the DX version was the entirely new hidden color dungeon. The color dungeon made use of the Game Boy Color’s capabilities to deliver puzzles based on color. It could only be accessed by pushing the gravestones in a part of the Cemetery in a specified order, which is recorded cryptically in a hidden book in the library. Once the player beat the dungeon, Link was given the choice of a Red Tunic or a Blue Tunic. The Red Tunic allowed Link to become more powerful (the equivalent of always holding a Piece of Power), while the Blue Tunic raised his defense (the equivalent of always holding a Guardian Acorn).

Another new feature of the DX version was a Camera Shop and photo album. Certain actions trigger cutscenes in which the Camera Shop owner would appear and take a picture. The pictures could be viewed in the player’s photo album at the Camera Shop, and printed using the Game Boy Printer. This feature included the addition of an invisible Zora in the Animal Village as one of the triggers.

The DX version also contains a Super Game Boy enhanced border and color palette. The original game does not have those features, since it was released a year before the peripheral.