Zelda Replay Part IV: Link’s Awakening DX
VGChartz's Evan Norris: "It would be safe to classify Link's Awakening as an oddity of the series. The handheld title, which began its life on Game Boy and was updated as Link's Awakening DX for Game Boy Color, is one of the few mainline games that excludes staples like Ganon, Zelda, and Hyrule, and the most brazen in terms of cameos from outside gaming franchises — in this case Super Mario, Kirby, SimCity, and Kaeru no Tameni Kane ha Naru. Moreover, it includes a roster of eccentric characters and a surreal setting that both go beyond the typical Zelda milieu.
Yet for all its irregularities, Link's Awakening achieves greatness mostly for the way it conforms to, and riffs on, traditional Zelda mechanics. Ultimately, the game feels like a logical extension of A Link to the Past, which makes sense since it started as a Game Boy port and involved the majority of the team that crafted the esteemed SNES game."
