The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening's dungeon design | Boss Keys

Hi. I'm Mark Brown, and welcome back to Boss Keys You know, despite the fact that Zelda: Link's Awakening is one of my most dearly beloved games of all time, I completely forgot just how much it brought to the Zelda franchise. Flying on a chicken? That was Link's Awakening. Trading sequence? Link's Awakening. Playing different songs on an ocarina? That was Link's Awakening. Fishing, mini-bosses, and jumping? It all goes back to this wonderful, and very green game.

Though, I'm going to be playing the Game Boy Color re-release Link's Awakening DX for this video. It's almost identical but I've put a link in the description to a complete rundown of the changes if you're interested. Link's Awakening was made by pretty much the same team as A Link to the Past, but as it was a handheld game the developers felt more free to experiment and try new things. In an interview, years later, director Takashi Tezuka said it "was like we were making a parody of Zelda".

Alongside the more bizarre choices, like cameos from Mario and Kirby, Link's Awakening also makes some fundamental and, I think, very beneficial changes to the Zelda formula - especially in the dungeons, which is what I'm looking at in this series. The compass, for example, now shows the location of treasure chests on your map and plays a chime when you enter a room containing a key. These features cut out the frustration of hunting down a lost key, and make the compass a much more valuable item to find.

These bird statues work like the Sahasrahla stones in A Link to the Past but now you must first find the stone beak to hear the hint. That's one more thing for the designers to hide. But the biggest change comes down to how the big key works. Lemme explain. In A Link to the Past, the big key is used to open the chest that contains the dungeon's item - which is a brilliant touch. It gives you a real sense of excitement as you rush back to that big chest you saw earlier, giddy with anticipation to find out what's inside.

That sometimes involves backtracking, sure, but it's meaningful and motivated backtracking. You're excited to return to the chest. But in Link's Awakening, the item is just in a normal chest, which doesn't need a key. This is basically how Zelda will work for the rest of the franchise. The chests containing key items will sometimes be bigger, but will remain unlocked. Also, that big key was used to open one door in A Link to the Past's dungeons, which would normally reveal the second half of the palace. So, in Misery Mire, the big key gives you access to this more linear, second basement area. And in Thieves' Town, the big key lets you leave this maze-like opening section to explore the rest of the dungeon.

In Link's Awakening, and - again - pretty much every game since, the big key - now called the nightmare key - specifically opens the door to the boss's lair. But, don't be fooled into thinking that this make's Link's Awakening's dungeons less interesting. Far from it! Because instead of opening up a second half of a dungeon, Link's Awakening opens up a second phase. And it does this using the dungeon's key item. In all of the dungeons except for Eagle's Tower- which we'll come to - the rooms are littered with obstacles that you can't bypass.

Like holes in the floor in Tail Cave, heavy pots in Bottle Grotto, and deep water in Angler's Tunnel. Then, when you get the key item - the Roc's Feather that lets you jump over those holes, the power bracelet that lets you lift those pots, or the flippers that let you swim in that deep water - the dungeon changes in an instant. All those places you couldn't access before are now open to you. And that rush of anticipation we saw with that big chest returns. You're excited to go back to those areas and see where they lead. Maybe not quite as excited as you were when you knew you were about to get a new item. But still. It's that motivated backtracking.

Though, with a difference. Because, the big key only opens one locked door, but an item like the fire rod or Pegasus boots lets you bypass lots of obstacles. That means the entire dungeon is recontextualised, like it's a mini Metroidvania. This gives you more to think about and remember as you explore. And it gives each dungeon a nice sense of progression. In every dungeon except Eagle's Tower - it's coming! - you first work to find the item. Which then gives you access to the nightmare key. Which then lets you take on the boss. That formula might be strained by Zelda game number ... 16? Or however many we're up to now. But it's good for Link's Awakening.

There are some instances in A Link to the Past where you need to backtrack with your newly equipped item to bypass an obstacle but they're few and far between. Take the hook shot in Swamp Palace: you need to use it precisely twice, in the same room, to finish the dungeon. That same item in Catfish's Maw in Link's Awakening is used to collect two small keys, get the nightmare key, reach the boss, and access a bunch of optional items.

This focus on items also extends to the bosses. Only a few of the bosses in A Link to the Past were weak to the item hidden in that dungeon, and Arrghus is the only boss that requires you to use the dungeon's key item. In Link's Awakening, almost every dungeon has a boss or mini-boss that is defeated with the key item. This Game Boy game once again lets you carry a handful of small keys, and you get to decide which doors to unlock - giving you some real choice in how you proceed through the dungeon.

But unlike A Link to the Past, this game does not mess around. Even in the very first dungeon you can carry three keys in your pocket at once, and in the second dungeon you can choose between three doors from the word go. Now, so far in my analysis I've found that when you're presented with multiple locked doors, you can always find the same number of keys - or more - elsewhere in the dungeon. But in the dungeon Key Cavern you will find yourself in a room with four locked doors, and only one key in your hand. Ultimately, three of the doors lead to single rooms - two of which are completely pointless and the other is optional. But it's a fun way of making the dungeon look more complex than it really is.

You'll get your key back in all three rooms but the clever clogs out there might realise that if you leave these doors to last you'll actually run out of keys. To stop this from happening, for those who feel the need to go in every single room, Key Cavern has nine keys for eight locks. Cheeky. Some stray thoughts before I get on to Eagle's Tower. These card suit enemies are cool but these horse head things are super annoying. It's cute how all the dungeon maps look like things, and it leads to a good puzzle involving the "eyes" of the Face Shrine.

I like this puzzle where you can only see this cracked, bombable wall by standing up on this high platform. And the bonus Color Dungeon is nothing to write home about. Okay so Eagle's Tower is really good. It's the only Link's Awakening dungeon on multiple floors but it makes really good use of this fact. It has a bit where you drop down from one floor to the other like in the Tower of Hera. And, oh yeah, the fourth floor falls down and crashes into the third.

To do this you must pick up this giant metal ball and throw it at these four pillars. Which is easier said than done because you can't take the ball downstairs or jump while holding it. It's a different type of key: one that makes you think about how to move it. So to get it around the dungeon you have to throw it, then go around and get it. It forces you to be smart about where you take the ball, and to figure out how you'll get both the ball and Link to the same space. This dungeon, and Turtle Rock which follows afterwards, also uses a lot of one-way doors and paths so you can't just wander around the dungeon freely. You need to understand the space and make deliberate choices in your navigation.

My only disappointment with Eagle's Tower is that you never need to visit the third floor so you could quite easily miss out on the fact that one part of the dungeon gets radically changed because of your actions. So, as we can see, a dungeon in Link's Awakening is all about keys and locks. Small keys are many keys, for many locks. The nightmare key is one key for one lock. And then the item is one key for many locks. You can even add in the crystal switches - those orbs that raise or lower all the blocks in the dungeon - which are like many keys for one, giant lock. And then you have the ball which is a key for four locks but it's heavy and, well, you get the idea.

This gives Nintendo a lot to work with to create some truly devious and non-linear dungeons for us to play. I think Link's Awakening marks a high point in Zelda's dungeon design and, well, we'll have to wait and see where it goes next... Thanks for watching. Next time on Boss Keys we're going 3D, we're going back and forth through time, and we're entering... the Water Temple. You can subscribe to the channel so you don't miss an episode and you can support the show's production at Patreon.