Link’s Awakening is a very musical game. Containing many unique variations on classic Zelda themes, I personally believe that it has some of the best musical moments in the entire series, despite the limited audial capabilities of the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. Here on Medli’s Melodies, we’ve written about many Link’s Awakening covers and remixes, and the featured artist in this column has been promoted on our site multiple times for his incredible Zelda music – including his contributions to this year’s Cadence of Hyrule.
But this cover is a more recent one, one that truly grasped at my heart when I first heard it, before I even knew the context of the original piece: “The Ballad of the Wind Fish,” played on a metal guitar.
Jules Conroy, also known as FamilyJules, is a talented content creator with a score of video game covers in his ledger, mostly metal guitar adaptations. I’ve never been a tremendous fan of metal, but hearing so many familiar tunes from games that I love rent into metal guitar solos, including tracks from Octopath Traveler, Persona 5, and Fire Emblem, convinced me to delve further into FamilyJules’s library.
By the time I first time I heard this track, I had barely begun my journey into Link’s Awakening DX on the 3DS, in preparation for the soon-arriving Nintendo Switch remake. I had no knowledge of the song’s role in the story, or even what it sounded like in its simple 8-bit glory; it didn’t matter. Conroy’s guitar solo was so poignant, carrying such powerful emotion, that it touched me even though I had no context. Now, having beaten both the DX version and the remake of Link’s Awakening, the pure bitter-sweetness of Conroy’s cover washes over me like a gentle tide. Marin would certainly be proud to hear her song performed so stunningly.
One of the hearted comments on FamilyJules’s official music video hits the mark perfectly: “The Wind Fish would be so lucky to wake up to this.” FamilyJules’s rendition of Marin’s ballad remains, to this day, one of my favorite video game covers of all time.
