Link's Awakening How is LA Dark or Moody?

[Ventus]

I was reading an article over at ZeldaInformer this morning and this guy Jonathon Vega came out saying MM was overrated, that everything that its praised for had been done by Link's Awakening many years before. Ignoring that, I saw that he wrote that LA had been moody, dark, and emotional long before MM had:

About the game's mood, people still hold that Majora is the only game that has gone for a dark, sad approach in its narrative; however, when they do that, they ignore Link's Awakening, a game that everything MM did, did it first, and (IMHO) did it better.

Which is whack, because I always considered LA to be a happyhappyfun-land.

Can someone explain to me how Link's Awakening is dark and/or moody? Haven't played the game in forever so maybe my memory is just betraying me.

 

[Big Octo]

Huh, I've never seen the game as dark or moody myself either. The ending may have been a bit of a downer, but that's about it. The innocent citizens of the island aren't being faced with an impending doom, and death and sadness isn't very present on the island. I don't know what this guy is on about, but I've never viewed Link's Awakening as a dark game.

 

[ihateghirahim]

I'm spoiling the whole game

LA is builds a mysterious and dark game to be sure. You start off on a ship, and your wrecked in a storm. You are found by a young girl, and you're taken in by her and her father. You have to quest to save wake up the Wind Fish, and an owl guides you through it. Over the course of the game, several things occur: You get to know Marin (the girl). She talks about how much she wants to become a seagull and fly to the lands beyond, and she is always singing a certain song. They really build her up as cute and sympathetic.

The questing is more or less standard for a 2D game. Although, with each dungeon you learn, bit by bit, that the island of Koholint is actually a dream; which a creature called the Wind Fish is having. You also learn that you must wake him up to escape the dream, but the island and everyone on it will be destroyed. The creatures you fight, the Nightmares, are trying to protect themselves and their home. I believe one even remarks that Link is the bad guy.

Eventually you gather the eight magical instruments. If you talk to the townspeople after recovering them, they will have some weird dialogue. You ask one (don't worry, Link has no actual dialogue) how long they've lived there, and he responds he can't wrap his mind around the concept of "when". One little boy doesn't understand how there can be lands outside of the islands. I'll be honest, I found it all creepy the first time I saw it.

Then you defeat the last nightmare, and get ready to wake up the Wind Fish. It is revealed that the owl who guided you is actually the Wind Fish incarnate. You activate the instruments, and boy did it make me sad. The song they play is the same one Marin was singing throughout the game, and you hear it as you watch everyone and everything disappear. It is disheartening. Then you wake up on a log in the ocean, and you see the Wind Fish overhead. The End. Although if you beat the game without dying, you will see either Marin floating over the end screen singing her song (original version) or a picture of Marin followed by a shot of a seagull flying away (DX version, I think it's to suggest Marin is the seagull and she got her wish)

I gotta say, it's pretty dark and mysterious for an 8-bit game. It's pretty dark, but it's probably limited from getting credit for this due to it's obscurity and the fact that you still have a typical eight dungeon quest. I think it's still a great game and a great sequel to Alttp.

 

[West0pher]

I came into this thread to write a post exactly like ihateghirahim's, but he obviously beat me to it... and wrote it much better than I probably could have. Despite the sad ending, it was a very happy game until you learned the truth behind the Wind Fish's dream.

 

[Salem]

First of all, almost every game can be deemed "overrated" by someone, doesn't necessarily make it so.

Second, I saw LA as both happy AND "dark" at the same time, arguably MM is the same, it has the funny moments and the dark moments.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

while majoras mask is an awesome game,i probably wouldn't be too quick to disagree w/ someone if they called it overrated,especially recently
and while awakening has that moody theme w/ everything in the island basically needed to be sacrificed to save the wind fish and to wake up,how the game looks in itself is rather cheery

Which is whack, because I always considered LA to be a happyhappyfun-land.

ok thats way too far