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Classic Game of the Week  The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
- By Eric Tajchman

Nintendo has always been a pioneer into new and different forms of innovative ideas. Starting in arcades and branching out into the home console market, Nintendo has been an industry leader in most ventures they journey into. But what can Nintendo accomplish now that they appear to have over 90% of the only gaming market? Create a new gaming market. Enter the Game Boy.



Nintendo had dabbled in portable gaming long before the Game Boy. In fact, over 6 years before the release of the first monochrome Game Boy back in 1989, Nintendo had marketed a set of handheld games about the size of a pocket calculator called the Game & Watch, created by the late Gunpei Yokoi. The Game & Watch collection included translations of simple games featuring some of Nintendo’s popular characters of the time, such as Mario and Donkey Kong. However, this product marked Nintendo’s first venture into the home consumer market, and because of a lack of experience in such a field as well as other factors, the Game & Watch gallery was a failure for Nintendo.



But Gunpei Yokoi was a man of determination. In his eyes he saw portable gaming as a viable, lucrative, untapped market. In 1989, using his forty-five man R&D1 division of Nintendo, he and his team worked to create a game machine that combined the generality and the interchangeable cartridge-based media of the NES and the portability of the Game & Watch. What they created would become the most successful and highest-selling system ever created. Dubbed the Game Boy, the system was praised by many as the future of gaming. In fact, even a Sony R&D team was scolded by their superiors for not coming up with the idea first. Indeed, when the Game Boy was finally released in Japan and America, it was an instant hit, sought by kids and adults alike.



Yokoi sought to secure the top Nintendo mascots for the system to help promoted the handheld even more. Mario, Donkey Kong, and Yokoi’s own creation, Metroid, appeared on the Game Boy and only served to boaster the already staggering sales of the system. However, it wasn’t until after Nintendo’s next console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, was released in America that Shigeru Miyamoto’s own epic adventure, Zelda, made its Game Boy debut in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.



In Link’s Awakening, our pointy-eared hero set off in search of enlightenment across the sea. Upon his return voyage, his ship encountered a dangerous squall, and his ship was destroyed, leaving Link adrift on the ship’s debris. Waking from unconsciousness, he finds himself in a bed on a mysterious island called Koholint Island. The island is very different from others in that a large egg sits atop its highest peak. Caring for him is a girl named Marin who looks suspiciously like Princess Zelda. After talking to Marin about the island and its various perplexities, Link sets off to solve the mystery of the island and to find a way to return to his own land.



However, Link’s Awakening was much different than the others in terms. For one, Gunpei Yokoi was a primary figure in the game’s creation along with Shigeru Miyamoto. Yokoi designed the interface, which was different from previous Zelda titles, so that the game would work flawlessly on the Game Boy’s control scheme. Also, the Game Boy version features many items that cannot be found in other games, both past and present. The Roc Feather is one example, and allowed Link to jump. With the feather, you could jump over short chasms, capture floating objects, and with the Pegasus Boots hurdle yourself across long distances.



The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was released in America in 1992, shortly after the release of the SNES version of Zelda, A Link to the Past. The game sold over 4 million copies across the world, and was also put into Nintendo’s coveted Player’s Choice category. Though the original game may be hard to come by now, Nintendo did re-release the game when the Game Boy Color launched in 1998. The game was entitled The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX and featured color graphics and an extra dungeon not found in the original. The game remains a classic in the series, and should be played by any fan of Zelda, old or new.

- 3.24.1998