I’ll confess here and now: I have never played through Link’s Awakening.

My history with Zelda games has always been patchy. I had A Link to the Past for Super Nintendo in 1997 and that was my first experience of a LoZ game. I played some Ocarina of Time but not all of it. The same is true with Majora’s Mask. I briefly owned Link’s Awakening DX for Game Boy Colour in 1999 but didn’t play it much. So, my experience with the games of the franchise in recent years has always been one of catching up.

The last LoZ game we played through was Skyward Sword for Wii, which I very much enjoyed. Link’s Awakening was next on the playthrough list, so here we are with an Adventure Log of our initial session experience that took us up to the end of the Mysterious Woods.

All screenshots were taken from the original Game Boy version via Retroarch and a snazzy GB DMG shader. And while I’m broadly aware of the general plot beats, we’re largely enjoying a blind playthrough.

Set Sail for Stormy Waters

Ganon is vanquished! Hyrule is once again at peace. But what now, cry the people, already restless as they anticipate – and fear – the next threat to their tranquillity.

Poor Link. Barely had a chance to put down his sword and shield. Now, he already frets that he cannot anticipate the next threat to Hyrule to quell their worries. And so, he sets sail on a voyage of enlightenment, much as the Avatar did in Ultima IV.

After months of voyaging, tragedy strikes! A storm rolls in, one more violent than any he has yet experienced!

Crack! A bolt of lightning strikes the ship, splintering its fragile hull and setting it ablaze. Link is tossed into the sea… darkness envelops him…

“You’re going to be alright!” A voice penetrates the unfeeling darkness. “What a relief.”

Link opens his eyes, consciousness returning. Princess Zelda? Is that you..?

Nay, Link. This is not Zelda, he learns. This is Marin who found you, washed up on the shore of a beach not in Hyrule but on a mysterious island called Koholint, where a giant spotted egg rests upon a looming mountain.

It’s here that we learn from Marin that since we washed up on the island, unfamiliar monsters started rampaging around Koholint. And so, being the adventurous sort, we set forth to investigate the island, learn more about that uncanny egg, and find our lost sword.

Welcome to Koholint Island

Mabe Village is a curious place. Leaving the home of Marin and her strangely familiar father, armed only with our shield, we were greeted by the clucking and flapping of a cucco.

While rustic homes and cuccos are familiar to ourselves and Link, what we saw a little ways away from Marin’s home is, well, rather strange.

A telephone? The wooden sign atop the door carved into a large, squat tree is a telephone.

Lifting the receiver and putting it to his ear, an elderly but enthusiastically friendly voice greets Link. “Brring! Brring! Hello! It’s me, Ulrira. Ask me anything about the island! If you get lost, give me a call! Bye! CLICK!”

It seems that Ulrira acts as something of an in-game hint system, imparting clues about what to do next and where. How curious!

It’s here that we also learn Link is something of a furniture connoisseur. The chest of drawers behind the phone catches our hero’s eye. He looks it up and down, admiring its fine workmanship, the sheen of the polish rubbed into the wood, and the sturdiness of the drawers. This is a nice chest!

What the… A Chain Chomp? What is one of those doing here? The toothy orb is chained to a post and whirls around excitedly, barking and gnashing, as Link makes his way along the pathway, bemused by all that he is seeing. Koholint is so different to Hyrule!

“Make-up! Jewels! Dresses! I want them all!”

Inside a small building is a tiny chain chomp, a veritable puppy! And much to Link’s surprise, this one talks, expressing a desire for pretty things to wear and accessorize with.

Pots can be found in abundance in Mabe Village. And yet, as an uncanny urge to pick one up and throw it against the wall grips Link, he discovers that even the emptiest of them is too heavy to lift!

Off the beaten track, Link discovers a sign where the pathway ends and a thicket of forest begins. Hmm! Mysterious Forest! Well, it’s an appropriate name, if not the most imaginative one!

Deciding to finish his exploration of the village, Link discovers that it has a library. But, curiously, there is little information to be found about the land itself, only that which would be useful to an adventurer like himself.

He is also confused by the presence of bookshelves and not chests.

Aha, an item shop! A fine spade, hearts, and a shield! Huh, might he need a replacement one? Better hold onto your shield tightly, Link. You’ve got no rupees to your name.

Yoshi? Do we know Yoshi, we are asked by a lady. This is most peculiar! All these little references to other Nintendo games and characters. Koholint was already feeling like a pretty odd place, but now even more so!

It was time to hit the beach and look for our lost sword. With the price of items in the village, I sincerely hope we find it!

“Beware of Sea Urchins!”

A-ha, so that’s what those spiny creatures are! Link rubs his finger, wincing at the sore spot from where he reached out and touched one. If only he had read the sign before! Luckily, he has his shield and can employ it to nudge the sedate spikes out of the way.

Ah, our sword! There it is! Link grins as the gleam catches his eye. There, amid the wreckage of what had once been his ship, he spies his trusty blade.

“Hoot! Hoot!”

The flapping of wings and owlish hooting greeted Link as he sheathed his sword. To his continued amazement, a feathered messenger of heroic fate flew down to meet him.

“So you are the lad who owns the sword – a courageous lad has come to wake the Wind Fish!”

We learn from your new friend that something called the ‘Wind Fish’ sleeps inside the egg. Only by waking it can you hope to leave the island and return to Hyrule.

Well, that’s quite the state of affairs! But we are given some guidance on how to take the first step on your new quest to wake the Wind Fish: go north to the Mysterious Forest.

Mysterious Mischief

Why does this always happen, Link? Why can’t you resist teasing the cuccos with your sword? As he made his way through the outskirts of the forest, he couldn’t resist giving the lone cucco there a poke… or seven.

“SQUAWWWWK! CUCCO! CUCCO!”

An avalanche of angry feathers washed over Link, the swarm of feathered fiends rushing to enact chicken-ey vengeance upon he who would tease a cucco one too many times. He wisely fled the scene of his crime.

What a pretty melody! Eyeing up the feather-covered and well-pecked Link, Marin sang him a peaceful song to soothe his nerves: The Ballad of the Wind Fish.

After getting some sword practice in and chopping down brushes to raise some shopping money, two more things in the village caught his eye: a fishing competition held by one of Mabe’s residents and a game of chance!

While Link had poor luck with the fishing, catching nothing and letting his lure be carried away, he was more fortunate with the crane game. He walked out with a cloth bag full of strange, glittering powder. Magic powder, or so the crane operator claimed.

The uncanny owl greets Link at the entrance to the woods proper, welcoming him most politely. In the woods is a key, the owl hooted, one that will allow access to Tail Cave and the first of eight instruments that, when played in harmony, will awaken the Wind Fish.

Wuh oh. Link falls afoul of trickster magic! The racoon lounging a little ways in shamelessly proclaims that our hero will never find his way through the woods so long as he’s around to cause mischief! And it’s true; Link finds himself endlessly lost in a looping stretch of forest as he ignores the giggling creature and presses onward. The racoon did let something slip, however: his nose is very sensitive!

“Achoo!”

Link raises an eyebrow. He had been adjusting his belt when a little of the magic powder spilt out of the pouch. The racoon’s nose had immediately twitched as it glimmered in the air, caught by the breeze. Then it sneezed not once, not twice, but thrice!

A-ha! Link grinned as he reached for his pouch, unclipping it from his belt and opening it. The racoon watched him nervously, wiping its still-twitching nose.

“ACHHHOOOOO!”

The racoon’s powerful sneeze as Link threw a generous pinch of dust over him was followed by an unexpected turn of events: he transformed into Tarin!

Marin’s father admits that he hadn’t been able to resist biting into a juicy toadstool while picking mushrooms in the woods. This led to him being transformed into a raccoon! Somewhat ashamed of his conduct, he hurries back home, leaving the way forward clear.

Gah! The key was so close! Link rolled his eyes as he walked just a short way along the now mischief-free forest path and spied a chest in a clump of bushes. Could this be…?

Ah, yes! It’s the key we need to access Tail Cave and take our first proper step on the quest to wake the Wind Fish and return home.

Concluding Thoughts

I’ll end this Adventure Log here as I don’t wish to spoil too much for those who haven’t played Link’s Awakening. We’ve enjoyed a second, longer session with the game and it has continued to be a wonderful and whimsical adventure, fast becoming one of my favourite games in the franchise. We do have a couple of niggles about how information in the game is presented that may leave some people (as we were a couple of times!) confused and wandering around, uncertain about what to do next, but they do not overshadow the game’s overall quality and polish.

I may do an ‘after-action report’ on the game overall once we’re through it, but for now, I’m already anticipating the next phase of our adventures on Koholint Island to see what other uncanny encounters it throws at us.