Links awakening thoughts
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening review
I just finished the game last night and I had a really great time with it. Zelda games are so easy to fall into. I don't really have any nostalgia for the series but it's feeling more and more familar to me as time goes on. All of the games I played as a kid I bounced off of (DS Spirit games, Twillight Princess). Since picking up a Link between worlds on the 3DS in ~2014/15 I've understood the appeal. Beating Breath of the Wild as my first big Switch game was an absolute slam-dunk. I couldn't believe everything people said about how good the game was ended up being 100% correct. I went into this one confident I'd have a good time and experience what I ended up calling "zelda joy".
how I played it and why I liked it
I played this game at first on the big tv, then the bones of it in handheld mode in my family home, then finished it on the same big TV I started it on. My time at home for Dad's 60th perfectly book-ended by time at home. The gorgeous anime introductory and conclusary (real word) cut-scenes were such a treat. Treat is a good way to describe these perfectly architected zelda experiences. Time to beat dot com says it takes 14 hours to complete the main story which sounds about right. It was a really short game but I feel I got my moneys worth.
With some caveats, every part of the progression was rolled out at a nice level of obscurity. By that I mean some things took some time to explore and work out what to do next. One exception, the part where I had to play the ocarina song to the dead bird was farfetch'd, no guilt googling that one. All of the dungeons were really fun (with the exception of the Eagle's Tower) and had a comfortable level of difficulty.
i loved...
- Ulrira, the shy old man who operates the phone
- the mario references (and the animal crossing elephant watering can?)
- the cute scenes with link and marin on the log
- beautiful OST, the games conclusion bringing it all together was a 10/10 moment
- the song for the animal village alternating between pitch-shifted samples of meowing and woofing
- gorgeous ending sequence itwasalladream be damned
- the item-swapping quest
- the bear chef, "Chef Bear" take a look yall
- papahl saying you'll find him lost in the mountains later, then you do
- bombing the wall
i didn't care for...
- the raft area, bit boring for the real-estate it takes up
- dampi's dungeon maker, it was kinda cool until I saw someone compare it to mario maker. It's the bones of it's own game but by replaying disjointed rooms and no over-arching dungeon mechanic they feel like going through the motions
- trading in an item to get the boomerang? once the game is already over?
The "I loved" list covers a good bit but it's too specific to describe "zelda joy". The first part is the dungeons and local area exploration/combat phase. It's that blend of low-scope high-quality engineered and diorama'd experience dished out room-by-room that feels so-so good to spend time in. The other part is the wider world exploration, where that simplified and *very* distinct world design allows your brain to problem solve on island-scale. I don't know how else to describe it, it's like the game knows you're having a good time.