Link’s Awakening was a game that everyone and their mother was raving about, and while I had initially tried to play it, I was never able to pay much attention to see things through past the first segment of the game (not even including the dungeon). With the re-release in 2019 and it’s new, bright, and vivid graphics that resemble something of Playskool, my toddler mind would be entranced enough to see the full game through.
I started up the game and it all came back to me, those few moments that I had endured in the original. My task was simple: Go get your sword on the beach. Okay. Easy enough, right? I waltzed on down to the beach, admiring all the pretty colors and refined visuals until the enemies started to attack. I couldn’t attack back just yet, but I had my trusty shield to block their rocky blasts. I arrived at the beach, not taking much damage just yet, but then I came up to the Sea Urchin.
I clicked upon a prompt when approaching them, careful not to touch the spiny creatures. It specifically told me that I shouldn’t use my bare hands, to which I responded “duh!” It was then that I rushed my way back to the village. I was falsely remembering having to get an item to deal with these critters. For some reason I kept telling myself I had to get a pair of gloves, but as I would learn the hard way, those gloves did not exist.
I ran back and forth from the village to the beach several times in search of these non-existant gloves, each time bumbling into enemies as I carelessly forced Link to flounce about the screen. I even had the idea to push one of the beach Leevers into the urchin, which was not an easy task. Because of this carelessness, I failed to realize that I only had a quarter heart left.
Finally, I put the pieces together that my shield was the item I needed all along. Now that I knew how I was supposed to move the Sea Urchins out of the way, that is when an Octorock caught me off guard and killed me. I died. I wasn’t even five minutes into the game, and I died.
Now, granted, I’m not the most graceful gamer. I have done plenty of stupid things before that have gotten Link and countless other characters in big trouble, but this was a new record. I always thought my accidental fall off of the first tower in Breath of the Wild would be my most embarrassing slip-up at the beginning of a game, but I have to say, this one definitely takes the cake.
