Inside dungeons and the houses of villagers, Link’s Awakening runs like a dream. It’s a striking effect, but beauty has its price. Similar to Yoshi, everything in Link’s Awakening looks like it was designed by Playmobil, and the edges of the screen blurred as if I were looking down on Link in a toy box through the haze of memory. On the Switch, the orchestral soundtrack of Link’s Awakening soars and Zelda’s original theme is rendered gorgeously on strings and woodwinds. The distinct music of the Zelda series was relegated to MIDI bleeps and bloops on the original Game Boy. The Switch port is more than just a rough transfer of an old game to a new system - Nintendo has worked magic to update the game’s graphics and sound. When I was young, Link’s Awakening was my favorite Zelda game, and returning to Koholint Island for another run has been comforting. ![]() Link’s goal is not to escape the island per se, but to collect seven instruments that will allow him to play a melody that will crack open an egg at the top of a mountain and awake a deity-like fish who is dreaming up the entirety of Koholint Island. ![]() Wright, the green-haired guide of SimCity on the SNES, is trading love letters with a goat in a village across the island. A woman in town keeps Chompers, from Super Mario Bros., as pets. Koholint Island is a weird place full of little nods to classic Nintendo characters.
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