Way back in 1993 when "Link's Awakening" originally launched, it looked like a Game Boy version of "The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past" — the Super Nintendo game many consider to be the best "Zelda" game ever made.
In 2019, the art style of "Link's Awakening" offers a glimpse into what could be another totally new avenue for "Zelda" games. Frankly speaking, it's outrageously pretty and vibrant.
There's a glow to everything, and a handmade look that's reminiscent of the most recent "Yoshi" and "Kirby" games.
In many ways, "Link's Awakening" is a spiritual successor, or sister product, to "A Link to the Past." It's a top-down "Zelda" game with a similar level of depth of exploration, puzzle solving, and dungeon crawling as its Super Nintendo inspiration.
That's part of what makes "Link's Awakening" a classic — it was a side project created in the first golden age of "Zelda" games. Due to the fact that it was on the original Game Boy, it remains far less popular than major console entries like "A Link to the Past" and "Ocarina of Time."
There's a nautical theme to "Link's Awakening" that helps it stand out from the pack, and the game's focus is on collecting musical instruments.
Similarly, the game's music is appropriately whimsical. There's a real sense of charm and lightness to "Link's Awakening" that its contemporaries lacked.
More than just characters, there are whole areas in "Link's Awakening" that are outright two-dimensional, sidescrolling affairs with Goombas and all. It's assuredly a product of the time period, as "Legend of Zelda" games were still new — this is the first handheld one ever made — and a familiar Mario character or two didn't hurt.
For years, Nintendo has made two different types of "Zelda" games: Home console "Zelda" games, like 2017's "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," and portable console "Zelda" games, like 2007's "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass."
The home console games are considered the "main" series games, and only come out every five to 10 years. The portable games are considered side stories, and come out slightly more often. They're all important games for Nintendo, of course, but they're comparatively very different approaches to the massively important "Legend of Zelda" franchise.
With the Nintendo Switch, which functions both as a home console and a handheld, the delineation between home console and portable console has ended. Look no further than the recent announcement of "Pokémon Sword" and "Pokémon Shield" for evidence of that fact: The Pokémon series has always been a portable franchise, but no longer.
With "Link's Awakening" coming to the Switch, there's another piece of major evidence that the barrier between home and portable console no longer exists for Nintendo.
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