The Power of Colour Revealed

The extra dungeon in the DX edition of Link's Awakening is far less difficult than expected. This lack of difficulty is actually rather disappointing, since it puts the Game Boy Colour's namesake ability to good use.

In said dungeon there're some radial switch puzzles, a boss that needs to be hit consecutively enough times to turn red, and floor tiles that bounce you until they turn from green to yellow to red to nothing. But it took all of 10 minutes to finish.

This brevity and simplicity (though the puzzle concepts introduced are refreshing for a Zelda game) reminds me of the "Cave of Ordeals"-type areas in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Plus, you meet a Great Fairy at the end of the dungeon who grants you the power of colour - a red or blue tunic that increases your offensive or defensive power.

Reading in a walkthrough that zero deaths gives you a different ending, and thus the blue tunic is a better choice, I went with red since I've already bought a handful of farms on this play-through. Maybe, after I've worked my way entirely through my Games List I'll do a no death run of every Zelda game - maybe.

Rooted Inside the Deku Tree

It's a bit disappointing inside the Deku Tree. I was hoping that it'd be laid out like the first dungeon of Ocarina of Time. However, the music's a nod to that gem of a game -- it's a slower, slightly ominous remix of Saria's Song. However, the existence of the Deku Tree in the world of Rosy Rupeeland makes me wonder even more how this game fits into the Zelda timeline.

I mean, Link or Zelda haven't shown up (yet), but the Deku Tree and Lon Lon Meadow make appearances. Perhaps the seedling that lives beside the Deku tree is the one that grows into the Deku Tree from Wind Waker, or from Ocarina of Time. Aesthetically, the Deku Tree that Tingle meets is closer to the former, so maybe this game takes place in that part of the "official" timeline.

Speculations aside, this is the first non-linear dungeon. There's a puzzle here much like the one in Lord Jabu Jabu's Belly in Ocarina of Time. After you open up the ladder chutes on the first basement, three plants grow over the main chute. As far as I can figure, you need to find and defeat all three of these plants' roots/hearts to open the way forward.

What's got me stuck, though is that I need "poison to defeat poison" - I must've missed a recipe or an item, because I can't bat back the plants' poison's spit or their mushrooms' spores, and I can't brew up poison. There's the Scrap Broth, but it does nothing.

So, I never thought it would happen, but I'm stuck in Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. For now.

On Link's Weapon of Choice

Link's Awakening continues, and I continue forward. My pace has been steady, and things are going really nicely. But. I have met with a few hiccups.

As with any Zelda game (except for maybe Zelda II), I've found myself distracted by exploration. This didn't last too long, of course, but it, along with my subsequent dungeon crawling, did bring something to my attention.

Link's Awakening offers very little in the way of guaranteed basic equipment upgrades.

Obviously it's possible to get a better shield or two, and there is the hidden sword that you can get if you get enough of the Secret Seashells. But none of these things are as intricately tied into the story as they were in Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, or Skyward Sword. What I can't decide is whether or not this makes the game harder or easier.

It definitely makes them more manageable, as the sword's progress mirrors your own progress, but at the same time, being forced to use a weaker weapon is something that also forces you to strategize - to use your environment so as to best fight your foes while taking as little damage as possible.

So, perhaps tying these upgrades into points along the story (as has been the case since A Link to the Past) make it easier to progress and give the same sort of levelling feel to the later Zelda games that's common to RPGs (in both cases monsters from early areas of the game are rendered impotent by your power near the end of the game).

But along with this comes the lack of challenge, the lack of depth these earlier Zelda games still offer to this day. They'll always be video games, but there's something more visceral about learning how to get Link to use the sword well than about just having Link use a better sword.

Twilight Princess sort of remedied this with the sword techs, but even then, they aren't all essential, and so many are just, in reality, shortcuts. Not really power boosts.

A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time are similar - sword power-ups are part of the story, but even more power is given to those players who seek it out (these games' best weapons, the Golden Sword and Biggoron Sword are hidden away). There's a reason why these two games are still on a lot of top game lists over a decade (almost two in A Link to the Past's case) after their release.

So how does Link's Awakening manage the sword power up problem? With item drops. Acorns give defense for a short time, and pieces of what look like the triforce boost offense.

These items are effective since more often than not they'll help you mow through enemies when you most need to. But are they as good as a solid armour or sword upgrade?

To figure that out I'll just have to keep playing.