I bought a Steam Deck and more recently a Miyoo Mini Plus and it lead me back into replaying the games of my childhood. I decided to check out Link’s Awakening DX because that was one of the first Game Boy Color games I ever played, the very first being Pokemon Red.

I had a lot of fun playing through the game. It holds up surprisingly well for the most part.

Simple, Pure, Focused

The game is simple and pure in its design. There’s very little fluff to be found and the game maintains its focus on exploration and adventure. You won’t find the constant dopamine drip of progression mechanics here. There’s no XP bar, no skill meters going up, etc. You just play the game and if you don’t find it fun, then you move on to another game. I find a lot of charm in that. The game won’t try to trick you into playing it for longer than you want to.

Personality

And while Link’s Awakening DX maintains that sharp focus on the gameplay, it also has these small touches of cute and wholesome moments that give the game extra flavor and personality.

There are a surprising amount of them so I’ll just list a few as examples here that were memorable to me. I think it’s worth seeking these moments out because they’re neat little additions that definitely increased my appreciation for the game.

One of the moments that stuck out the most to me was when a female goat named Christine in the Animal Village catfishes Mr. Write by sending him a picture of Princess Peach. That got a chuckle out of me.

The small moments with Marin and the photographer really add a bit of dimension to the otherwise flat characters and help to add a layer of bitter sweetness to the ending.

Speaking of Marin, the wholesome humor is something I do miss in modern gaming. It always seems to be filled with snark and sarcasm. The moment when Marin picked up the crane game guy was also a small but funny moment that helped add a dash of levity and personality to the game.

Well Designed

The small moments like these that add flavor and personality are great because they add to a foundation that is already incredibly well designed. From the overworld map to the dungeons, you can tell that a lot of planning went into the design and structure of each area.

When you look at the actual size of the overworld map in terms of pixels or panels, it’s very tiny but they manage to make it feel expansive because there isn’t a lot of wasted space. Each new area is intelligently cordoned off by a single tile like a well placed rock or hole so that you can’t access these areas until you have completed the necessary dungeons and obtained new equipment.

The same consideration is given to the dungeon layouts. Even though they are very small in terms of the amount of panels used, they still feel very expansive. You can see signs of deliberate design in some elements such as the second dungeon entrance. When you enter, you wonder why there are so many pots with hearts underneath them, but then you realize that this is the area you respawn in if you die to the boss. It lets you quickly refill some hearts and continue on to the boss area using the warp tile.

Harder than I remember

Speaking of dying to bosses, Link’s Awakening DX was definitely harder than I remember it being. Some bosses did take a few tries to beat if I’m being completely honest here. That first boss, my goodness. If you get knocked off you fall into the dungeon below and you have to do the walk of shame to get back up. To top it all off, you have to hear the boss’s intro conversation again. It ain’t no Dark Souls but I would be lying if I said it didn’t induce at least a little bit of rage. Thankfully, I’m broke and can’t afford to replace the devices I’m playing on, so I can gladly report that no handhelds were harmed in the making of this video.

Some of the dungeons also provided a decent amount of challenge. I was honestly surprised in a good way. Some had unique puzzles that would be easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention, like that one key puzzle where you had to defeat the enemies in a certain order. Some had unique layouts like the one where you had to fall into a pit intentionally at the right locations to fall onto the floor below.

This goes to show that good game design is never limited or restricted by the hardware. Good game play will always pass the test of time.

In addition to the challenge provided by the dungeons, I did find some of the extras to be challenging to find as well. The boomerang is one of the best weapons in the game and it requires completing a long chain of trade sequences before you can get it. I don’t think I ever got it on my first playthrough back then and I had to use a guide in my recent playthrough to get some help. What a welcome surprise. For such an old and dated game, it still has these different aspects you can dig into.

This extends to the gameplay as well. You can combine the bomb and arrow to shoot bomb arrows. You can also throw the boomerang before gliding on the chicken to help clear enemies while flying. It’s amazing what you can pull off with such limited controls with just a tiny bit of imagination and inspiration.

Annoyances

While it seems like I’m gushing over the game, and I am, there were definitely aspects of the game I found to be annoying. Some minor elements of the game felt very dated and unnecessary such as the constantly repeating text reminders every time you ran into a boulder without the Bracelet equipped. I don’t have amnesia Nintendo, you don’t have to remind me every, single, time.

Having to switch items constantly was also a minor inconvenience. You get used to it but I wouldn’t call it an ideal control scheme. It’s understandable though because the Game Boy only has two buttons. One could make an argument of having items like the Pegasus Boots and Power Bracelet be passive items like the Flippers and activate them using combinations of the D-Pad and the B Button, but this control scheme wouldn’t be perfect either and introduces new annoyances. It does make one miss the four button layout.

I also had a small problem where I would fall into holes for no apparent reason sometimes. I’m going to blame the Miyoo Mini Plus ergonomics for this one.

Things I Wish were Added

Annoyances aside, I did find myself wishing for a few more additions to the game. While I mentioned before how Link’s Awakening manages to add in these moments that add some flavor and personality, I did find myself wanting just a bit more of those moments.

I think the game would have benefited from a few more well placed conversation flags and dialogue trees to make the characters feel more real and the world feel more reactive to your actions. For example, you meet a crocodile selling bananas. He mentions having a brother that is an artist. Is this a possible Donkey Kong reference? The world will never know.

Anyways you manage to meet the brother, who has a German accent for some reason, and when you go back to talk to the crocodile there is no additional dialogue about having met the brother. Having a small conversation about this would have made the world feel like it’s acknowledging your actions. It would have been a neat touch.

For example, in Lunar Silver Story Complete, there is an old man that tells you the legend of the four heroes. If you listen to this dialogue, then talk to him again, and tell him you already know the legend, the old man says it’s because he already told you. It’s a small trick but it makes the characters and world feel a tad more real. Some of the characters felt very flat and having just a few more blurbs of text would have made added some depth.

Speaking of bananas, there’s always money in the banana stand.

A Link to the Past

Moving on, I will be getting into spoilers in this section so you can end here if you want. This game has a neat feature where you can print the photographs taken by the photographer with the Game Boy Printer, which released around the same time as Link’s Awakening DX and the Game Boy Camera. This was a neat addition that ties into the story and ending of the game.

It turns out the entire island and adventure was a dream, and as with all dreams they must come to an end. With the defeat of the final nightmare and the Wind Fish awakening, the dream ends and the island vanishes, leaving Link with only the memories of all the people that he met along the way. The photographs printed are a physical representation of those memories being very real while the world and people you once knew pass away into the ether. I might be making a stretch here but that’s what Link’s Awakening and these retro games are for me, a window into a past world that no longer exists, with only the memories remaining behind. And it’s also a darned good game.

Thanks for reading and I hope you guys stay safe and sane out there. Catch you guys next time.