Link's Awakening: A 25+ Year Retrospective

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening was originally released in 1993, and I vividly remember playing Link's Awakening on that bulky, unlit, green-screened Game Boy while sitting in church and on long car rides as a young boy. It's probably safe to say that it was one of my favorite games in my early childhood, and I was overjoyed when it was re-released on the Game Boy Color a few years later with extra content. With the 2019 remake for the Nintendo Switch coming out, I figured it was time to go back and re-examine a classic that I used to love so much as a kid, and see how well it holds up 25+ years later.

As it turns out, Link's Awakening is still really good. Surprisingly good, actually, considering it's one of the oldest games in the series on one of the most primitive Nintendo devices. The only thing really holding it back is the sheer limitations of the Game Boy, only being able to render a very small resolution and only having two buttons to work with; otherwise, the actual game designs feel timelessly classic, which makes sense seeing as later games in the series seem to have taken a strong influence from Link's Awakening. Its impact on the series is especially noteworthy considering it originated a lot of elements that have now become Zelda staples, like playing songs on the ocarina for various effects, trading sequences, collectibles that lead to extra rewards, fishing, owl and companion characters, and more. It is, as far as I'm concerned, a quintessential Zelda game and ranks among the series' best, easily making my top five, and maybe even having a case for top three.

A Review of the Majora's Mask 3DS Remake, and Why Majora's Mask is My Favorite Zelda Game

Majora's Mask is a bit of a black sheep in the Legend of Zelda series; some absolutely love it, while others find it too cumbersome and weird to enjoy. As a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask reuses the same engine and similar gameplay elements while recycling a ton of graphical and mechanical assets from OOT, but places them all in a new world, Termina, with a central gimmick of having a three day time limit constantly ticking in the background as you work to save the world from total destruction while the moon slowly falls on a collision course towards Termina. A bit like the Harold Ramis and Bill Murray film Groundhog Day, all of Termina's NPCs follow the same scripted schedule over those three days, and you have the power to reset time to the beginning of the cycle to do things differently and change people's lives, if only temporarily, until the next reset.

With a fairly dark, depressing atmosphere, a story that has nothing to do with the usual Zelda, Ganon, and Hyrule motifs, and more demanding, sometimes obtuse gameplay, it's no surprise that Majora's Mask isn't universally loved. It's a pretty weird game, after all, and I can totally understand it not being everyone's cup of tea, but it's those uniquely weird idiosyncrasies that make it my favorite Zelda game. It is a bit of an acquired taste, though; I actually didn't like it much at first, because it felt like too much of a weird departure from Ocarina of Time, a game with which I was fanatically obsessed at the time. But over time I came to appreciate its differences, and realized that it's actually better than even the more modern Zelda games in a lot of ways. As I was playing Breath of the Wild, for instance, I couldn't help but occasionally wish I were playing Majora's Mask, instead.

With the N64 quickly becoming more and more obsolete, the Majora's Mask 3DS remake aims to bring Majora's Mask to a new audience on a platform that is both readily available and also playable, while also improving the original game's accessibility with a bunch of quality of life improvements that make it not only easier to play, but also easier to understand. I was inclined at first to say that the 3DS remake is now the definitive way to play Majora's Mask due to the superior graphical quality, technical performance, and user interface, but unfortunately Nintendo also decided to make some radical changes to things like overall difficulty, boss fights, and transformation masks, which leaves me more conflicted about whether I'd actually recommend Majora's Mask 3DS to first time players.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild -- Better Than Expected, But Still Overrated

Breath of the Wild took the world by storm last year, with many people proclaiming it to be not only the best game of the year, but also the best Zelda game of all time and the best open-world game ever made. Those are some pretty lofty claims, so naturally I was skeptical that it would actually live up to that kind of hype. I've played a fair number of open-world games, after all, and while I generally enjoy the genre, they're difficult to pull off well and usually leave me feeling unsatisfied. Meanwhile, there's only been one Zelda game in the last 15 years that I've actually enjoyed (that being A Link Between Worlds, mostly because of its classic non-linear design and it being an homage to A Link to the Past), so I didn't exactly have confidence that Nintendo would hit such a home run with a new Zelda. Even watching streams and gameplay footage, it all looked kind of boring to me. Still, when the opportunity presented itself to borrow a coworker's Switch for a few weeks (thank you Dom), I couldn't pass on the chance to play it and see for myself.

I'm pleased to say that Breath of the Wild is indeed one of the best Zelda games that I've played in a long time. Although it deviates from the typical "Zelda formula" we've grown accustomed to lately, the open-world exploration feels reminiscent of older games in the series (specifically the original Legend of Zelda, and to a lesser extent A Link to the Past), but on a much bigger and more sophisticated scale. It's also one of the better open-world games to have come out recently, with a world that feels mysteriously intriguing and therefore genuinely interesting to explore; other open-world designers could learn a few lessons from Nintendo. I certainly enjoyed Breath of the Wild, but unlike seemingly every other person in the world, I didn't love it -- it's not my new favorite Zelda game (it might not even crack my top five), and I've enjoyed other open-world games better. And even despite liking the game, it has some major issues that seriously disappointed me.

A Link to the Past Between Worlds - Review

A Link to the Past is one of my favorite Zelda games (second only to Majora's Mask), so it should seem only natural that I'd be excited to return to the Hyrule I spent so much time in as a kid. But when Nintendo first announced The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, their quasi-sequel to ALTTP set in the same world and featuring the same top-down gameplay, I was a little skeptical. It seemed to me like it had the potential to be just a cheap, gimmicky, nostalgia-based cash grab that might even put the legacy of the original game to shame.

Imagine my surprise when A Link Between Worlds turned out to be one of the best Zelda games I've played in the past decade.

With the exception of Link's Awakening, I've had a difficult time getting into any of the handheld Zelda games. I've played each and every one of them, but always got bored, lost interest, and stalled out before ever completing them. I basically stopped considering them part of the main series and stopped caring. A Link Between Worlds is the first handheld Zelda game I've actually finished since Link's Awakening, which says a lot in and of itself, but even compared to the console games, it's the most fun I've had playing a Zelda game since Majora's Mask.

Ocarina of Time Sucks

Before getting any further into this article, please note the date that this was published, and use that to inform yourself as you read through the following text.

Of all the popular games I'd never played, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was probably my most onerous omission. I tried playing it once when I was younger, but got stuck somewhere in the Deku Tree (I think in that room where you get the slingshot -- I couldn't figure out how the hell to get out of that room), quit out of frustration, and never went back. When I mentioned this to a friend recently, he immediately thrust a GameCube disc into my hands and told me to play it.

Now that I've finally played through it, I have to say I don't get what the big deal was all about. This game is so crude and primitive that it was a struggle for me to find any enjoyment in it, and many aspects of its design are just downright bad. How did this game leave such a big legacy behind? Is this really what people have wanted every subsequent Zelda game to be like? Because I gotta tell you, the newer Zeldas are a hell of a lot better than this one, and even the ones that came before it were better. More of my thoughts on this overrated game in the full article.

First Impressions of Zelda: Skyward Sword

I had the opportunity recently to play about an hour's worth of Skyrim Sword, which was all it took for me to conclude that the newest Zelda game completely sucks. Well, I'd need much more time to come to that conclusion, really, but there were a couple of things that failed to impress me with the game's introduction sequence.

First on the list of stupid things I noticed is that this town in the sky is called "Skyloft." Seriously? They couldn't come up with a more original name than Skyloft? We already know from the game's title and every other detail of this game's release that it's set in the sky, does the starting town really need to be called Skyloft? For a society that treats living on islands in the sky as the mundane norm, you'd think they would have a less ostentatious name. It'd be like if I called my house "Brickdwelling"---it's not a name, it's just a dumb description of what it is.

More of my nitpicking awaits in the full article, after the jump.

Twilight Princess Sucks

Except for the Zelda games on the CD-i that no one ever played, Twilight Princess is the the worst Zelda game ever. The series has always been innovative, introducing new gameplay mechanics and presenting everything with an interesting premise and high production values. But TP is a half-assed effort that doesn't capture any of the unique qualities the series is known for. It's a lame re-hash of the same things we've already seen and done before, and most of its original content is just not good. Even though it's still above average, it's completely underwhelming for a Zelda game. Continue reading for the break-down of why Twilight Princess sucks.

Majora's Mask is Better Than Ocarina of Time

Majora's Mask has the unfortunate luck of being the younger brother to one of the most beloved, classic games of all time. Ocarina of Time gets all the love and attention, from GameCube re-releases, Master Quest re-makes, and 3DS releases, while MM sits alone in the corner, an under-appreciated gem. Which is sad, because MM is the better game, and deserves at least a little bit of attention. So let's break it down point-by-point to examine why Majora's Mask is better than Ocarina of Time.