Chapter 12: The Windfish Egg

So we journey into the Windfish's egg.  Thanks to the magnifying glass which allowed us to read the book back in Mabe Village, this is the easiest dungeon ever: we simply follow the directions through the enemyless corridors to a pit, where Dethl, the ultimate nightmare awaits us.  This boss takes several forms, but he is painstakingly easy.  Especially his final form, which simply takes one boomerang shot to the eye (that was disappointing).  Then we are escorted up some long stairs which seem to touch the heavens...where the owl reveals that he is part of the Wind Fish's soul, and he was in charge of guarding this island.  The nightmares came and in their desire for permanency, caused chaos.  That's a pretty good plot...seems very matrix.  But now we play the song of awakening and before our eyes, the island of Koholint, and all the people on it, vanish.  (Very VERY sad ending).  Link awakens on what is left of his raft, and smiles as he looks up to see the Windfish flying above.  Now I guess he's on his own to get back to Hyrule on the two logs on which he sits (nicely done ending for limited graphics though).  Since I didn't have to continue, Marin floated around my "The End" screen in seagull form...I guess her wish was granted.  At least we're ending on a somewhat happy note : )

Overall, this game was very entertaining.  It kept lots of classic Zelda things while adding some dimensions, even if the storyline was a bit limited and the metaphor could go over many gamer's heads.  For the limited Game Boy control scheme, you have a lot of options available to you and this paves the path to many fun puzzles.  One of the limitations of this game is its slow progression, although this is the fastest run I have ever played of any Zelda, ever (as you can see by the time posts on this blog, I pretty much ran over this game).  Replay value is moderate: I would replay it, but I also don't want to really do so knowing everything I do about Koholint now.  Big disappointment in the ending; but not all endings can be happy, and the whole thing is sensible in the end.

Link's Awakening Overall: B