LogFAQs > #951203559

15. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (GB, 1993)

Link's Awakening is one of my favorite games in a series that I have all sorts of varying feelings about. I don't pretend that Zelda is one of my favorite series; there are some games I absolutely hate, there are plenty I found fine but forgettable, and I still haven't played some of its biggest entries. (I'll get around to Breath of the Wild some day...) My "favorite" changes depending on what I'm in the mood for, and what strikes my fancy (at least, among a few that I really like), but Link's Awakening always manages to end up in that conversation, which still manages to impress me for an original-release Game Boy game (and one that doesn't even have Zelda in it at all).
What always impresses me about Link's Awakening is just how much better it is at being a Zelda game than most of its contemporary Game Boy games were at pulling off versions of their series. Metroid 2 is a decent game but really struggles to perform on the hardware, and both Super Mario Lands (especially the original) weren't really up to the standard of the NES Marios. But Link's Awakening, on the first try, nails both what makes Zelda great AND how to handle (and maximize) the Game Boy system itself. Going back to the single-screen rooms and map squares of Zelda 1, but retaining the comprehensive story and world-building of A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening loses very little relative to its console counterparts.
Because it's a Game Boy game, it definitely has to get creative to maximize the amount of stuff in game, but it does a pretty solid job: there's eight full dungeons that don't feel like they had to cheapen their difficulty or limit their size to be fully realized. There's a handful of unique mini-games that were expanded upon in the Switch remake, but still feel good on the Game Boy. You've got a pretty robust set of items and collectibles that may be a little short of A Link to the Past but feels close enough. Plus, there's a lot of unique things that make it stand out, too: its main item, Roc's Feather, which lets you jump around like Mario, but in a Zelda game; a pet dog you get to follow you and gobble up baddies (but only for a brief time); an in-game store that you could actually swipe items from (as long as you don't mind being called a THIEF). Gameplay never feels like it's too much of a struggle, even with the Game Boy's limitations, because the designers structured the game around those limitations, and gave the player enough options and space to handle what's going on.
But look, there's one real reason why Link's Awakening is here, and while all of the above stuff is relevant, it's all about the story. Sincerely, I think Link's Awakening, a cute, relatively short, black-and-white-dot-matrix-Game Boy game, has the best story of any video game I've ever played. It's not the deepest or the most complicated, but it's extraordinarily moving; I have failed to play through Link's Awakening without being brought to tears at one or more points during the game. I think there's something absolutely brilliant about the way that the game's designers made the story so intimate and personal - swapping the epic grandeur of the console games for a quaint little island - for a game that most players would be playing in the palm of their hands. For those not familiar, here's the summary: Link gets caught in a big ol' thunderstorm, his ramshackle raft capsizes, and he ends up washing ashore on a mysterious island where everything is not as it seems. From there, you encounter all sorts of charming characters, notable among them Marin, the girl who finds you washed up on the beach. From there, you're doing all sorts of fun Zelda stuff, beating up monsters and solving puzzles in dungeons, to collect a series of musical instruments in order to wake the Wind Fish. See, the monsters haven't always been here, but have been showing up recently, and apparently waking up said fish (who resides in a big ol' Yoshi egg at the top of a mountain, of course) will solve that problem.
(BIG OL' UGLY SPOILER BARS incoming:)
What unfolds from here basically flips the conventions and expectations of the series: you're actually stuck in a dream - one that is somehow shared with the Wind Fish itself - and the farther you progress the game toward the ending means you're pushing ahead the demise of the dreamland's residents, who you've grown closer to over the course of the game. So instead of pursuing the game's end via some noble resolve to vanquish evil (okay, there's some of that), you're actively confronting the melancholy and bittersweet nature of having to end something that you don't want to end. It's simple, it's sweet, and it's magical - as I said earlier, that it managed to be pulled off by a Game Boy game, of all things, maybe makes it even a little more special.
And for possibly all of this, it's why this is always a tough one to rank for me - gameplay-wise, it's very good, but I'd have a hard time saying it's any better than A Link Between Worlds, something I placed almost 50 spots below. But it call comes together amazingly; it's just such an exceptional experience whenever I pull this one out for the second, third, fifth, tenth playthrough, that I still feel like I'm shortchanging it by putting it only in 15th. Anyway, basically every game left on my lists is an absolute all-timer; it's probably why I've had such a miserable time trying to write everything from here out without feeling like I've missed something important. Only three more to go (since I skipped to do 3DW) to the top 10!

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it's an underwater adventure ride