Link’s Awakening has received two major revisions. The most recent is the update for the Switch, which reworks the whole game, and I’ll get to that next. First up is Link’s Awakening DX, a Game Boy Color rerelease of the original. I’ve already briefly touched on some of the points that changed back in my original comments, but this time I’m going to take a real look at them.
The biggest change, of course, is the addition of color to the world. This is mostly a cosmetic difference, so to really show it off, an extra dungeon was added to the game, hidden in the graveyard. It doesn’t have any set place in the game’s dungeon order, and only needs the Power Bracelet (and Link to not have a companion – BowWow, Marin, or the rooster) to enter. The Pegasus Boots let Link knock a book down in the library that explains how to get in, but for someone who knows the trick or looks it up online, it doesn’t actually lock you out. The only item that’s required to defeat the dungeon is the Magic Powder, needed for one of the minibosses. The music for this dungeon is a remix of the original NES game’s dungeon music.
Pretty much every room in the dungeon is color-themed in some way. The entrance has a pair of Stalfos that challenge Link to identify the colors their wearing (required for access). There are a number of puzzles requiring hitting rotating statues with the sword; the hit statue and all adjacent to it spin once, and the goal is to turn them all blue. New enemies are either camouflaged to match the floor tiles where they spawn, or need to be knocked/thrown into holes surrounded by the same color as themselves. Finally, there are rooms with enemies (and Link) bouncing off floor tiles that go from green to yellow to red to gone each time they’re landed on.
There are two minibosses in this dungeon: Avalaunch, a Hinox variant that rains boulders down on Link, and a giant Buzz Blob, which Link needs to sprinkle Magic Powder on before attacking. The Nightmare is Hardhit Beetle [1], a giant Hardhat Beetle. Hardhit Beetle fits the color theme, slowly changing from blue to red as it takes damage. However, it knocks Link back, and can recover damage as well. My experience with this fight has been very frustrating, joining the ranks of poor bosses in the game. Eventually it dies, and Link visits a great fairy for his reward. This is an optional dungeon, so there’s no Instrument of the Sirens, but the fairy awards Link one of two tunics. The blue tunic halves damage taken and the red tunic doubles damage dealt. The red tunic doesn’t really stack with the sword upgrade, so the blue tunic is more useful in the long run (although Link can return to change his mind, so it’s not a terrible idea to go red until completing the Seashell collection, then coming back and switching).
The second big addition to the game is the photography sidequest. A new building, the Camera Shop, got added to Tal Tal Heights, and when Link visits, the Photographer wants to take his picture. Link can go along with it or get knocked into place and have his picture taken anyway. Afterward, the Photographer will show up at key moments to take Link’s picture. There are a handful that can be missed – three that happen while Marin’s following Link around, and one in front of Kanalet Castle’s gate that becomes unavailable when the gate is opened. Getting a complete photograph collection is impossible without stealing something from the store. Stealing the bow, the only safe item to steal if you also want the Marin scene in the ending, kinda wrecks the game’s economy since there are a ton of rupees specifically so you can pay the 980 rupees for the bow. (Stealing it early also makes a few enemies – the teleporting Pairodds in Key Cavern and, when the bomb arrows are used, Avalaunch – much easier than intended.) I’m not a huge fan of this sidequest, although the one picture under the Mabe Village weathercock where Link and Marin were having a moment and Tarin obliviously crashes in is cute.
Extra hints were added to most of the dungeons (all but Angler’s Tunnel). In the original version, which had one hint per dungeon, there were Stone Slabs on the wall that were missing a piece, which was kept in a chest in the dungeon. For the remake, this was changed to owl statues that couldn’t say their hints without the Stone Beak item. The hints seem to be points where players get stuck. Some chests were shuffled to make the Stone Beak available for earlier statues without too much backtracking, and in the last three dungeons, a chest containing rupees was changed to having Secret Medicine instead. The Genie in Bottle Grotto had his fireballs slowed down to make him a little less deadly, and he says a line as a hint to pick up the bottle and throw it into the wall.
Finally, as I mentioned back in the ending of my original run, the sequence with Marin at the end has changed from a winged Marin appearing over the “The End” title to the Ballad of the Wind Fish playing as an image of Marin appears in the sky, then disappears as a seagull flies past.
Next: [Right Joy-Con slides into place.] *click*
[1] Other names it’s gone by include D. Poon (a transliteration of the Japanese name), Giant Hardhat Beetle (a better translation of its name), and Evil Orb.
