Daily Debate: What Does the Zelda Released Closest to Your Birth Year Mean to You?

Posted on September 05 2024 by Kora Burton

29 years ago, The Legend of Kora (no, not that one!) was born. On this occasion, I’ve been reflecting on the game that came out closest to my birth year: 1993’s The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. It’s a game I’d actually like to get to know better.

It would be well into the 2000s before I would even become aware of the existence of Link’s Awakening, when a family member lent me the cartridge that I would pop a little awkwardly into my Game Boy SP. But as soon as I jumped into the game, I was enthralled. Shipwreck stories are immediately appealing to me as I’ve always been easily swept up in tales of sailing and swashbuckling. Something about the green monochrome palette captured my attention and made it feel like there was another magical layer of otherworldly intrigue and danger to Koholint Island. I still wasn’t very familiar at all with the Zelda series (the only other title I had played yet at that time was Adventure of Link, and poorly), so seeing iconography more familiar to me from the Mario franchise, such as BowWow the Chain Chomp, the Yoshi doll in the crane machine game, and Tarin, the spitting image of Mario himself, made it easier for me to connect and jump into the story — I didn’t get far enough to see the Goombas, though. The time quickly came when I had to hand the cartridge back once the family visit was over, and that was that for a time.

More recently I’ve picked up Link’s Awakening (2019), which is truly adorable and addictively playable. By watching speedruns of Link’s Awakening and the DX version during marathons and streams, however, I’ve gotten a better sense of the original game’s continuing charms, how relatively lighthearted and warm the title’s presence is, and how the motif of gathering musical instruments to wake the Wind Fish from its dream gives the whole story a meditative, emotional power that stays with you well after the game system has been turned off. My friends who regularly run various versions of the game seem to love it to its core, and when people care about a game in all its iterations that much, it’s impossible not to feel drawn toward it.

So, many years later, I think it’s time for me to revisit the original game in full, and perhaps see reflections of myself in the story and characters as I journey toward Tal Tal Heights in full green monochrome glory. After all, being born so close together, we must have some cool things in common!

What about you? Does the Zelda game released closest to your birth year mean anything to you? Do you find yourself gravitating towards that title more or less than others in the series? What Zelda titles do you revisit each time we revolve around the sun? Let me know your thoughts down below!