Link's Awakening Part 2: Let's talk about slime.

I'm now three dungeons into this game, and I can genuinely say that I haven't had this much fun with a game for a while. It's not exactly Halo: Reach, and it doesn't have the complexity of Twilight Princess, but it's a game which you can honestly pick up just about any time, play for ten minutes, and put down. That's the beauty of games designed for the Gameboy - in a very real way, they're designed for car trips and not for marathons, so they have to be 100% entertaining all the time.

Even Link likes plush toys.

Some features which I've noticed (and enjoy) about this game are the inclusion of lots of features which later made it into Ocarina of Time. For example, there's an extensive trading quest which you can complete (starting with a Yoshi doll, which you win from a crane machine game - huh) and "magic seashells," of which you find twenty and in return receive a better sword; this "find and gather" quest was repeated in Ocarina of Time as the Golden Skulltula hunt. There's even an ocarina which you can learn various songs with (although mostly they're just for fun, not practical purposes.)

Secret Seashell

There's also about 5000 references to the Mario series in this game. TheScottishAlien suggested that this was because Link's Awakening was Nintendo's flagship Gameboy game, and so it was important to them to blend as many of their popular franchises together as possible. I'm inclined to agree, although wikipedia expands on this a little:

"Link's Awakening features non-player characters who help the player figure out where to go next, including Ulrira, a shy old man who communicates to Link exclusively by telephone. Other characters Link meets on his quest include cameo characters from other Nintendo titles, such as Yoshi, Kirby, Dr. Wright (renamed as Mr. Write) from the Super Nintendo version of SimCity, and exiled prince Richard from Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru.^[16][17][18] An enemy from the Mario series called Chomp was included after a game programmer implemented the ability for Link to grab the Chomp and take it for a walk. The inclusion of characters from other series is described by Tezuka as a result of the game being developed in an unrestrained way. Tezuka joked that these inclusions made Link's Awakening like a parody of The Legend of Zelda series.^[17] The island is also inhabited by characters who break the fourth wall; for example, little children inform the player of game mechanics such as saving, although they have no idea what this means."

The goal of this game is to wake this thing up.
It can't take itself seriously.

Link's Awakening is described as the first game in the series to "have a proper plot," in the words of Eiji Aonuma, despite the fact that it's "like a parody" of the Zelda series. I would probably consider this to be the first Zelda game which would be universally loved by modern fans of the series  - while Link to the Past was fun, it doesn't really combine all the Zelda elements of platforming, puzzles, plot and silliness quite as well as Link's Awakening does.

Anyway, on to the actual gameplay.

Link's Awakening works on a two-button system - you can equip any item (including sword and shield) to one of two buttons, A and B. This allows for tons of possible combinations, some of which allow for different abilities - for example, Pegasus Boots+Roc's Feather results in a long jump, Pegasus Boots+Sword makes Link run forward with his sword out, etc. This makes Link's Awakening much more complex in many ways than either its predecessors or successors.

Slimy eye, ew.

The "key items" of every dungeon are actually useful throughout the game - they're less gimmicky and context-specific than they were in Link to the Past. Rather than being primarily useful in one dungeon to get past one specific type of obstacle, the items which you collect in the dungeons are every bit as useful (and important) as the sword and shield that you receive at the beginning of the game.

The dungeons are well-themed, much moreso than any of the previous games. The third dungeon is opened with the "slime key" and is called the Key Cavern. The boss of the dungeon is a slime and the dungeon is full of little slime enemies, and the dungeon itself is full of locked doors and requires well over ten keys to complete it. (The dungeon layout also looks like a key.)

It's the Key Cavern. It looks like a key.
What else do you want?

This is the first Zelda game in which every single dungeon has its own little tune (all of which, so far, are very well composed,) and the puzzles are significantly more pervasive. Unlike the Link to the Past, in which the dungeon is actively trying to kill you and the enemies are just decoration, the spiky wall factor has been toned down in favor of complex rooms which require some thought to figure out how to get through. As in the original Zelda, keys are usually acquired by killing all of the enemies in a room, which can be just as challenging as trying to survive the room in the Link to the Past. Every dungeon is preceded by a small quest through a mini-dungeon of some kind, adding some interest to the game and breaking the monotony of the quest.

In short, I'm enjoying this game very much and I hope to finish it in the next week or so. Stay posted!