Link's Awakening Retrospective
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- Опубликовано: 26 июл 2024
- Whether you played the original release or the Nintendo Switch remake, I think everyone can agree that Link's Awakening is a fantastic game! Let's talk about it!
I put a ton of time and effort into this video, these aren't quick to make, so I'd really appreciate if you left a "like". If you enjoyed watching and are interested in more videos on the rest of the Zelda games, please subscribe! I can't wait to continue on this journey and it would be awesome if you would join me.
I'm still getting the hang of this, so please excuse any beginner mistakes. Don't hesitate to offer any constructive criticism; I want this video series to be the best they can be! All opinions and footage are my own.
Thanks for watching!
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
2:21 Limitation Breeds Creativity
5:08 Segmented and Linear
12:58 Masterful Dungeons
18:30 Requiem for a Dream
21:17 Closing Thoughts 
Игры
I grew up in the 90s and played the original on Gameboy as well as DX later. Also there was additional content added with Link's Awakening DX on a Gameboy Advance I believe; if not Link's Awakening DX it was one of the Oracle of Ages/Seasons games. I really hope Nintendo gives the modern makeover to Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons they did to Link's Awakening. Those games are every bit as good, some would argue even better, than Link's Awakening. Awakening will always hold a soft spot in my heart. My closest friends and I played it and would talk about it at school and some of my church friends even played it. The world of gaming felt so much smaller but much more intimant then. It was like everyone knew every little game that came out and there was less options but we loved what we had. Gameboy really impacted my entire life in such a way that would seem ridiculous to say in a RUclips comment but for sure it is what got me into gaming and kept me gaming. As the youngest of 3 I was the odd kid out with the Nintendo Entertainment System so I often had to wait for my brothers to finish playing or hope they weren't interested in playing so that I could play. My first Gameboy came out of my neighbors trash can! It sounds odd because it is. The thing was my friends parents were divorcing and they had this clean garbage can full of toys in their front yard. I knocked on the door/rang the doorbell to see if he was home and wanted to play but no one was there. I never saw him again. On the way out of the driveway I saw the can full of toys from Barbies, GI Joes, and atop it all a Gameboy! I was shocked and felt like a miracle to get it so easy, and the AA batteries still worked! Inside was a copy of Tail Spin and when I turned it on I realized why the Gameboy was tossed out. The entire screen was blacked out from a large drop, it was not just a contrast issue, there was clearly lots of damage to the screen and it just made a large spill/crack pattern of pixels when I turned the game on. For months I would turn Tail Spin on in that Gameboy and imagine having my own; I listened to the music and imagined what it would be like to actually play the game. Just based off of the cartridge art and the cartoon my imagination went wild with dreams and possibilities. My birthday came later the following year and after my older brothers both got Gameboys I was finally able to get one quite unceremoniously for my birthday. My mom drove me to Kmart. We found an employee who got the Gameboy for us. Then we checked out. I had no games but that Tail Spin game and my mom said I could share games with my brothers. We left the Kmart and I was glued to that Gameboy and every Gameboy iteration from GB to GBC to TONS of GBAs (I had 4 SP's at one point but have owned 10 GBAs not including 2 micros). One of the first games I ever got besides Tail Spin (which I didn't really understand how to play at that young age) was Link's Awakening and what a dream game to start with. I played it for years. I got the Switch version when it came out and am replaying it again in 2022 and loving it. It's truly video game comfort food that's good for the soul. It's in my top 10 games of all time along with Resident Evil 4. Anyways this is a long rant and it's over. Zelda 4 Life.
Thank you for sharing your story! Like I mentioned in the video, I hadn't been exposed to Zelda or video games at all until much after Link's Awakening released so hearing your experiences with it is really cool. The GBA was my first gaming system and I've been hooked ever since. I was a Nintendo-only gamer for YEARS before I graduated to Playstation and now PC but all those Nintendo games are still incredibly special to me.
Man I remember playing it over the summer of 98. I was 15 years old and playing it over summer vacation on a 1 month pop camper vacation. That plus everything else during that vacation definitely the best summer of my life
Sounds like a blast! Thanks for sharing!
Great video!! Make more like this, you're channels gonna blow up soon just keep grinding bro, keep it up!!
Loved this dude, I hope you make more. I’m gonna binge your others. It seems this took a lot of work and time, but I hope the lack of views rn doesn’t discourage you from doing more.
Thank you so much! Your comment made my day! Each thoughtful comment like yours is worth way more to me than thousands of empty views. I’m so glad you enjoyed my video and rest assured I plan to continue making more.
I’ve been binging a few of your videos and I just wanted to say amazing job, very well put together retrospectives :) Definitely looking forward to more!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the kind words and I'm glad you've enjoyed them!
I've really enjoyed all of your videos! I especially appreciated the section of this one where you highlighted how each item opened up the overworld. That was a really satisfying visual aid! Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much!
Another stellar video.
I just finished the remake yesterday and was honestly looking forward to watching this retrospective. Great analysis and recap of a great game, and such a good way for viewers to get acquainted with the original version. You’re not wasting anyone’s time. Hope you will continue to make more retrospective videos, and that they will get more views!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it!
Such a quirky game. Loved it even with the hardware limitations. Though I played it on a super gameboy 2. Too bad we didn’t get it on the nes.
Dethi, "Our world is going to disappear... our... world..."
18:27 Forgot to mention that unlike nearly all Zelda bosses past and present, these Nightmares most of the time have something to actually say!
Great video! Love the depth of your critique. I don't know if you watch Matthewmatosis videos, but he also does a great job at analyzing video game design, making his reviews very entertaining and rewatchable. Creators like this are few and far betweeen, and I wanted to say that you scratch this particular itch very well! Thank you for the time you put in & all the best!
Thank you so much! It’s a great honor to even be compared to matthewmatosis. I’m a massive fan of his, Joseph Anderson, and other similar essayists and they inspired me to make this channel. I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Love these videos
Really great video! Well done!
Thank you so much!
My second game ever and my first Zelda game
I rather like "item gate" games. Key items really have a sense of gravity and importance
I love them too! With the direction Link between Worlds and Breath of the Wild took I'm concerned we might not be getting any more games in that style anymore and that's a shame because getting new key items that open up the game is so satisfying!
Well, you've made a new subscriber today ^_^
Yay! Happy to have you on board!
Thank you, I'm happy to be here 👍
This is very interesting. I just beat the 2019 version last week.
It’s a really charming remake, I’m hoping they do the Oracle GBC games in the same style.
This is the first Zelda I ever beat on my own. I had the DX version and lost it under my bed since I was a pretty messy kid. One day years later while looking through the Strategy Guide that I still had, divine intervention happened and my mind had the urge to crawl to the back of my bed and I found it. Picked up where my Save was and beat it within a few days. I just remembered all of that from around 20 years ago - good video
Thanks for sharing!
You know I love your videos and this one is older, but I've got to ask if you've changed your mind on not needing to explain why a linear Zelda game is inherently inferior to an open air zelda game. I love a good choose your own adventure book from time to time, but I've yet to find one that even comes close to the experience of reading a novel.
I just believe that the heart of the Zelda series has always been a sense of adventure. This feeling can be effectively replicated with a more directed game, but it's not as fulfilling to me when you're aware that every step of the journey was planned out for you. Linearity certainly facilitates story and a smoother experience, but the feeling of true exploration and blazing your own trail is something rare in video games and something that early Zelda games excelled at.
Wow! What a great Game...boy
Oh ya see what I did there HAHA😆
anyway😮💨
I remember my mom taking me to gamestop to buy links awakening i did alot of chores for those batteries 😅 If im being honest the most popular zelda is Oot hands down. But the best zelda is majoras mask imo it had it all plus it proved that you could take out Ganon and zelda and make a game in 1 year and have it still being played and modded 25 years later
Just one question Nintendo? Where the FUCK is Marin !
Dreams don't become seagulls !
If Marin got her wish to become a seagull that implies too heavily that the island was "real" and that she and all of the islanders were not "just" dreams .
So what was the wind fish lying or stupid and that he did not know he dreams magic super dreams ?
You are also not proving that Marin wanted to be a seagull FOREVER .
or that she was so callous as a person that she wanted to be a seagull even if that meant everyone else has to die .
As if she never wanted to see Link again after she was done singing for all the far away lands .
Also is not hyrule a far away land ?
You are in the middle of the ocean "all" land is far away land .
There is no legend of a magic singing seagull and ballet of the wind fish never plays in any of the other games to prove that the seagull ending is the real one .
Which means if you wanted to make a "it's just a dream" story then there should have been no wind fish at the end .
You hit your head and had a dream that's it Link wakes up and paddles back to hyrule .
You don't even see Link make it back to hyrule and that was like the whole point of the game .
For all we know Link dies on the raft ether way and the only difference is whether or not he is awake or asleep when he dies .
Also WHAT does the wind fish even dooooo ?
What great disaster is going to befall hyrule if he does not wake up ?
The nightmares only seem to want the island not destroyed .
There is no part 2 of there plan .
because if any part of the plan is "and then we will become real and rule the world muhaha" it makes the whole "the dreams have to die" part of the story make no sense .
It makes it seem like the nightmares are the good guys for trying to stop you because they just don't want to die .
Making all there fighting you self defense .
In the official lyrics to balled of the wind fish all of the pronouns used makes it seem like it's Marin singing the song .
The line that hurts most I think is "stay with me, by my side, never leave" .
It seems like Marin hit meta awareness after chapter 6 when you find Marin on the bridge
.
You hookshot acrossed to save her and then she has a hard time er umming the next lines .
See it seems like both the nightmares and the owl are lying to you but the only lie Marin did was a lie of omission.
You know because depending on context ether Marin tried to break the barrer on the island herself so she could go see the world or MARIN JUST TRIED TO KILL HERSELF TO SAVE YOU FROM BEING TRAPPED IN THE DREAM!
So whether or not Marin was meta aware or not is kinda important.
Was Marin not a dream or is the real ending the one where she dies disintegrated in to nothingness with her last words being "I at least want to be remembered" and then no one in cannon ever saying her name again proving,no ever that 1/2 sliver of a wish didn't come true.
I like how this happens 2 times in the lore too .
In phantom hourglass Linebeck escapes the dreams as a person and it only takes till the next game to prove he did OK .
Linebeck III exists in spirit tracks as Linebecks grandson .
Justice for Marin! You’ve definitely given the ending a lot of thought, I appreciate that. I had never considered that Marin may be on the bridge for reasons other than “the monsters put me up here” but it does kind of fit whether or not it was the developers’ intent. I also really liked your idea that the nightmares only fight Link in self defense. It is kind of frustrating how the game wants to have its cake and eat it too in regards to Marin at the end.
I've been arguing this since DX when they didn't show Marin in the walking world at the end. Was it Aonuma? DX was just updated by interns and the remake was made decades later. I truly believe the secret ending where you realize that the entire thing wasn't only a dream was forgotten entirely by the original team.