LogFAQs > #979866124

I've made it to the 8th dungeon. The 6th dungeon was an absolute labyrinth, I had to backtrack so many times to complete it. The Switch version never gave me that much trouble from what I can remember.

The 7th dungeon was actually much better for me, even though I remember always getting stuck on it in the past. I think this time I remembered that you can access the chest containing the Mirror Shield very early in the dungeon, and that your first priority needs to be destroying the four pillars.

Link's Awakening certainly has a very unique atmosphere to it. It's hard to describe. The story and truth slowly revealing itself to you is a very interesting approach, especially for a Game Boy game.

I'm getting the impression that the developers were just still trying to settle into a "feel" for the series. Link's Awakening is feeling a lot like an attempt to mix the positives from ALttP and Zelda 1. It's like it understands the significance of world building (like in ALttP) while also giving a lot of freedom for the player to discover things and solve cryptic puzzles on their own (like in Zelda 1).

There are some gameplay elements that don't really hold up, though. As I've mentioned before, the backtracking is very frustrating. The power ups are more annoying than they are helpful. Some puzzles, like the jar door (which has now happened several times) or the throwable chess pieces are total misses for me.

This has led to me having quite conflicted feelings about Link's Awakening. I'm also having a hard time pinpointing exactly what I like and don't like. It could very well be that I'm just spoiled since I've played through the Switch version multiple times yet only have beaten the Game Boy version once (and it was many years ago). I should be done the game by tomorrow, or by the end of the weekend at least.

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