20 Years After Link's Awakening

One of my favorite video games of all time was released 20 years ago this year (June 6, 1993 in Japan, according to Wikipedia).  That game is Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.  My older brother, Chris, brought it home in 1994 when he got his first Game Boy as a birthday present.  It was the first Nintendo game that anyone in my immediate family ever owned.

Link's Awakening begins dramatically with a small wooden ship being tossed about a violent ocean with thunder and lightning booming all around the helpless vessel.  The screen then cuts to a close-up shot of Link, our pointy-eared protagonist whose ship then disappears after a massive lightning bolt strikes it.  The screen fades to white...

Some time later, a young girl stumbles upon Link, whose limp body lays washed up on a beach.  The camera soon cranes up to a mountain at the summit of which sits a gargantuan egg.  Say what?  Yes, a majestic white egg with spots all over it. 

If the memorable opening does not endear the game to you, then the gameplay, music, and plot will.  To this day, 20 years after the game first came out, I still have not seen everything that Link's Awakening has in store.  Yes, I finally beat the game last year after adding the task to my bucket list, but I still haven't completed the entire overworld map or found all of the game's secret seashells, among other things.

What most appeals to me about Link's Awakening after all this time is its milieu of mystery.  Throughout the game, characters refer to dreams as if the entire story itself were nothing more than the product of Link's deep sleep somewhere on the ocean.  There's the soothing Ballad of the Wind Fish that Marin sings in Mabe Village, the eerie House of Dreams, Kanalet Castle and the golden leaves therein, the ghostly House by the Bay, quirky Animal Village, the friendly mermaid, the creepy shop owner, rocky Tal Tal Heights, the sagely owl, and the dynamic wind instruments that ultimately combine to awaken the dormant Wind Fish.

Link's Awakening is a game I will never forget.  I often hear its playful melodies in my mind and cannot help but think of a distant place called Koholint Island.  On that mystical isle, life is but a dream.