Although there are many shops throughout the Zelda series, it’s actually quite rare for the items sold in shops to be required to complete main game objectives. One of the few exceptions is the rather notorious Town Tool shop in Mabe Village of Links Awakening. The Town Tool shop sells the Deluxe Shovel for 200 Rupees and, once the Shovel has been bought, the Bow for a hefty 980 Rupees. Both items are required to eventually beat the game, making those ludicrous price tags all the more daunting. However, there just happens to be a sneaky way to get around that price tag, earning the Town Tool Shop and it’s Shopkeeper quite a bit of attention among Zelda fans.
The Town Tool Shopkeeper keeps a very close eye on his customers, watching them as they walk around the store. Unfortunately, he’s not the fastest as turning around, so if you walk in a circle around him, you’ll just barely be able to sneak out the door with whatever shop item you are carrying. The game quickly informs you that you’ve stolen the item, and asks if you’re proud of yourself. If you make the mistake of going back inside the shop, you’lll be greeted by an enraged shopkeeper and, shortly after, a Game Over screen. Your filename will also be replaced with the name THIEF, forever branding your save file as that of a criminal.
In the Links Awakening remake for Nintendo Switch, the shopkeeper has a special enraged animation for use when he kills the player after stealing. Considering how tempting it is to get that 980 Rupee Bow for free, there’s likely many players who’ve been slain by this shopkeeper. Although stealing from the shopkeeper is not neccessary, both expensive items are neccessary to beat the game. The Deluxe Shovel is needed to dig up the Slime Key, needed before the third dungeon, which isn’t too hard to achieve, but eventually you’ll have to gather the huge amount 980 for the Bow so you can best Turtle Rock at the end of the game.
Personally, the Town Tool Shopkeeper killing the player is one of my favorite moments in Link’s Awakening. It’s pretty rare for an NPC to attack Link, let alone kill him in one shot, and it’s even rarer for a file’s name to be entirely overwritten. I actually ran into this one on my own, with no prior knowledge of the event. Safe to say, I was pretty shocked when I walked back into the shop. Easily one of the most unqiue events in the entire Zelda series, I have no doubt I’ll remember it for a very long time.
