The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

nathandouglasdavis Oct 27, 2020

5

I think it's just the older style of artwork, but the way the hair was drawn (with its side puff) made me think of Yu Yu Hakusho. I wasn't very impressed with the artwork though. It felt pretty mediocre and sloppy. And the monsters look awkward with the animal heads on human bodies or with their derpy horns. After Link arrives on Koholint Island, fe runs into an owl who tells fem fe's the Messenger of Awakening whose destiny it is to wake up the Wind Fish. Like most Zelda stories, the premise involves Link going to multiple dungeons to gather a series of items which will solve whatever's going on once brought together. In this case, the items are eight musical instruments scattered around the island's eight dungeons. There are also some keys gained along the way that open doors into the dungeons themselves or into the final rooms of the dungeons. I liked the inclusion of the ghost and thought that was a neat way to introduce the special sword (that can fire off long-range slashes), and the Bowwow thing was also an acceptable side quest. Most of the fighting was glossed over, which was probably for the best. The story instead seemed to focus on Link's interactions with Marin, the nature of the island, and how that leads to an ethically difficult decision for Link. Over the course of the series, fe had three different reasons for why fe was fighting: to return home, to bring peace back to the island, and to liberate the island from its situation. I was decently entertained throughout.

angelsreviews Dec 22, 2013

5

This manga was based on a not so popular game (at least not as well known as others in the series) called Link’s Awakening based on the Game Boy version of the game. For reference, I have only watched a playthrough of the game myself so I wasn’t really going in blind on the game, although I haven’t played it. Sadly, the manga lacks much next to the game, where it gives insight into parts that were quieted down, the main story seemed to suffer greatly by just how short and fast passed it was. In order to talk about this manga, I must get into many of the main pieces of the story and also have to spoil a few things since they are major parts in the storyline. I do apologize for this but as it is based off a game, I feel I have no way of not doing this. We start out with Link in the storm, just as the game starts out and everything goes good up to the point where he is going to the forest and such. It seems that they decided to scratch off many of the side quests that made the game even better then just a linear piece such as Tarin turning into a raccoon or the secret sea shell quest to find them all for the upgrade of the sword. This bothered me for it changed the story, making the quests that would of taken most of the game seem like they were not worth it. And yet, even with the quests being taken out, you would think that they would have spent more time with the temples then as they are the second part of the game that took up the most of it. The answer is no. The barely touch it! It’s a couple images of him jumping over stuff, fighting stuff that looks like blobs and then the boss fight that he has only a little bit of time. What do they do have then? Link walking around and talking to a little fairy character named Felicia who isn’t even in the game at all!! There the manga lacks in a lot of things, there are a couple things that they do have well. They explain more about who the ghost is that you help is as well as why he died away from his home. They also explain what Link feels as he learns about the secret of the island and what he goes through knowing exactly how things would happen. Sadly, the way they make the owl sound is almost like he is an enemy himself. I didn’t really like that because they do not make him feel like a voice of reason. The artwork, while mostly well done, does lack a lot in my mind. The characters just seem very bland and I could not recognize some of them as I should. There are times when the characters seem to have ‘jagged cheeks’ where when looking at a 3/4th view, the cheek looks like it has its own nose. The eyes are way too big for the face at times and make the character look really dopy or like the eyes are up on the forehead. They will even slightly curve to put them up on the forehead at times it feels. I would of liked it if they had made the characters look slightly closer to the game because the game had rather good graphics for its time. On the cover, it feels that they can’t decide the color of Link’s clothing is. <input id="mac_address" type="hidden" value="">