A New Awakening.
The Legend of Zelda franchise is held in pretty high regard in just about every aspect. While the diehard fans toil endlessly to connect its interwoven plot lines, they may be missing one of the most significant stories ever told in a video game. But that, in a way, is part of the charm and genius of "Link's Awakening," its twists and allegories are not presented flatly or straightforward. It has a vagueness that both engages the player's mind, as well as leave open the window of interpretation. This also leads the game to standing as one of the best examples of video games as an art form. But before all that, let's take a look at how it got made in the first place. Shortly after completion of "A Link to the Past," Nintendo knew that the Game Boy was long overdue for an iteration of the franchise. What is most peculiar is that this would be one of Miyamoto's most hands-off involvement in a Zelda title. It would be simple to either borrow a previous game's story, or shoehorn the plot into the game at the last minute, but something different and very special happened instead. A young man working for Nintendo named Yoshiaki Koizumi had recently worked on "A Link to the Past." His first job was to create the backstory for the manual of the game. Koizumi came from a film school background, and as such had much more of an interest in storyline when it came to games than Miyamoto. Koizumi filled the pages of the book with all kinds of details never mentioned in the game. The creation of Hyrule, the Imprisoning War, the head of a tribe of thieves named Ganondorf, etc. The series now had a fully fleshed-out backstory, more than just a pig wants power and a princess. With "Link's Awakening," Koizumi was given full control over more than just the manual backstory. The entire game scenario and concept were all his idea. More than any other game, "Link's Awakening" has the distinct honor of being almost entirely written out by the man responsible for the console series' main canon. Despite this, it remains the only title without the appearance of Zelda at all, and not even a mention of Ganondorf, the Triforce, or the master sword. Free of all that, Koizumi managed to make a game that has a story and characters that resonate 15 years after its release.
"Are You the Dreamer or Merely Part of Someone's Dream?"The basic plot of the title is that Link has been shipwrecked at sea while trying to return home to Hyrule. He is washed ashore on Koholint Island and is saved by one of its inhabitants Marin. Upon recovering Link is shortly told that the only way to leave the island is to wake the Windfish, a creature asleep inside a giant egg atop the tallest mountain. The easiest way to write off the story and any consequences of it is to say "It was all just a dream anyway." This ignores just how powerful this "dream" is. The Windfish is not simply a whale with wings. It is a sentient being capable of powers that can't be explained.
"Human, Monster, Sea, Sky.... A scene on the lid of a sleeper's eye."It was more than just the island itself that was a dream, the entire world itself had become the dream of the Windfish. Link couldn't leave the island, because there was no more to the world outside of it. This was also a world where Link could get hurt, this was a world where Link could very easily die. In essence, it was not Link that was trapped in a dream, but that the Windfish had created a different reality altogether, "The True Dream World," as he calls it at the end. The Windfish is never mentioned again in the Zelda mythos, but the power to create a world of people, monsters, and a whole island to inhabit would likely place him in the category of a deity, and not just a talking whale.
"Castaway, You should know the truth!"With the island established as a fully functioning world, complete with its own laws of physics and gravity, it also brings up a much more important issue with the morality of your quest. Each of the inhabitants of the Island has a distinct personality. More than that, they each have their own hopes and dreams. This, of course, is especially true of Marin, who wishes to fly across the world and sing to all kinds of different people. However, Marin's wish is deeper than just that. She wishes to be with Link forever, to leave Koholint with Link and see the world together. Without needing to become overly dramatic, or mushy, the game very cleverly reveals that Marin loves you. She even saved your life when you washed upon the beach after the shipwreck, something no one had ever done in a game previously. Your gratitude for all this is oblivion. You kill her and every human that ever existed on the island. You are no longer the savior of Hyrule, the chosen hero, you are, quite frankly, the destroyer of worlds here. Of course, it's easy to rationalize that this world was never real to begin with. But at what cost was your freedom from the dream exactly? You had a tropical island to live on, you had a extended family, you had a girl that both saved your life and wanted to be with you forever. Yet in order to complete the game, you must pay the price of "reality" by destroying everything.
The choices we make.For a few years now, the argument has raged as to whether video games can be seen as art or not. The most compelling argument against games being art is that art is a passive action, while games are a reactive action. With art you simply look at the creation of an artist and interpret from it what you will. With a video game you are constantly changing, bending, and constructing the experience around you. Video games are also meant to be played a specific way, you get from point A to B, you complete this series of tasks, you win this amount of awards. These actions have specifically programmed cause and effect mechanics from the developer. For some, the very notion of user creativity is the basis of defining art. Bioware and Lionhead Studios in particular have tried for many years to open the doors of choice to the player beyond the linear standard. In a "Fable" game, you can choose to be good or bad. While the game does do a good job of making your character look evil, and making the NPC interaction varied, it all results in the same two-to-three way street at the end of the game. Neither title is so much making a statement as it is letting you interact in an A.I.-driven moral sandbox. This presents both a blessing and a curse to narrative structure. It puts you in direct control of the outcome of the story. The downside is that endings either become very broad or remove any artistic merit by being so different from each other that any poignancy is lost in their choose-your-own-adventure structure. With "Link's Awakening", the ending is unavoidable. However, it manages to leave it open for artistic interpretation while making the player still question the morality of their actions within the game.
"Windfish In name alone, for it is neither."With "Link's Awakening," the consequences of your actions reach out beyond the scope of the game. Without ever stating it, the title turns you into the villain. You may not know it, or even believe it, but what separates the hero from the villain, particularly inside a video game? The hero is usually the one saving the world, or perhaps conquering it. The ending of "Link's Awakening" leaves you with nothing less than total and complete destruction of the entire game world itself. This is not an avoidable consequence either. The only way to complete the title and see the end credits is to go through with awakening the Windfish from its slumber. The real beauty of the narrative is that you are given warnings without blatantly stating the cause of your actions. Upon entering the Southern Shrine you encounter a carving in a wall that warns of the affects of awakening the Windfish. After defeating boss monsters, they will usually spend their last words questioning your actions. Finally, when you enter the egg atop Mt. Tamarach, the nightmares reveal that their plan is to keep the Windfish asleep forever, maintaining their existence. The last words of Dethl sound like less of a curse to you for foiling their plans and more of a cry of sorrow over the impending end of their world.
" This island is going to disappear... our world is going to disappear...our world...our...world..."This poses an interesting alternative to the typical gameplay structure and narrative. While not a fan of text within games, Miyamoto was a pioneer of storytelling in video games with "Donkey Kong." Instead of a endless cycle of levels, the game had a definitive goal as well as an introduction and ending. Certain games have experimented with twisting the ending of the games. The first "Legacy of Kain" title allowed you to either let the humans live, or take over the world. A similar sequence can be found in the first "Fable" game. Throwing twists at the player is nothing new within storytelling in video games, however there is a certain, almost unwritten rule about game endings. It would seem that creating an ending whereby the player almost feels punished for their actions would naturally result in player dissatisfaction with the title. Plenty of games have cliffhanger endings, with the intent to continue onward in a sequel, but here the story is very clearly over, leaving both the player and Link to ponder their actions alone in the middle of the ocean.
"You give up a few things... Chasing a dream."
While probably never the intention of Koizumi or any other developer, "Link's Awakening" could also be viewed metaphorically to life itself. In Link's quest to return home, he has to sacrifice far more then he would ever imagine to accomplish it. In a way this is a familiar story to many people who have sought to achieve fame or fortune, and sometimes neither. In order to chase down a dream, one will usually have to make more sacrifices than they could imagine. How often are our families and loved ones forgotten amongst reckless pursuits on the believed notion it will bring happiness and freedom? When you look back, you may find yourself stranded on a log in the middle of the ocean, metaphorically speaking, of course, unlike Link whose destiny literally ends up there.
Any game capable of this level of depth, done in a way that is this subtle, is a major accomplishment, but the fact this was done on a monochrome screen without color, and on a processor weaker than that of the NES, is a monumental achievement and speaks volumes of the under appreciated genius that Yoshiaki Koizumi really is. While Miyamoto may not see the importance of text within games, Nintendo, and the world, is all the more rich to have such a man still working on games in this day and age. Next time you want to use "Bioshock" or "Shadow of the Colossus" in your argument for games as art, remember, the greatest example of it might lie in a simple grey cartridge for Game Boy. Though it may never truly be remembered for it, "Link's Awakening" might just have the greatest story ever told in a video game.
