My Top 20 Favourite Video Games Of All Time: #15

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX

(Nintendo, 1998; Game Boy Color)

This one may not be a shock to you if you read the #18 entry in this list. Within the first month of me getting a Game Boy Color, I was treated to my first ever game in the Legend of Zelda series. Link's Awakening DX- much like Wario Land II, in fact- is a colourised version of a game for the original, greyscale Game Boy. The GBC, as it happens, was my first Nintendo console. Those first few months were crucial and turned me from a Sega fan into a lifelong Nintendo fan.

Link's Awakening DX is a fantastic entry in the Zelda series and played a big part in swinging the needle in the direction of Nintendo for me. The game plays like any of the other Zelda titles that preceded, with various weapons and items at Link's disposal. One day while exploring the seas, Link's boat is destroyed and Link awakens (clever, eh?) on Koholint Island, a mysterious uncharted island where the strange locals all refer to a bizarre deity known as the Wind Fish. Link is told that if he wants to escape Koholint Island, he must awaken the Wind Fish. To do so, he has to collect eight magical musical instruments to play the lullaby of the Wind Fish.

The island is home to all manner of Zelda bad guys from Octoroks to Tektites to a clan of Moblins. Link must traverse the dungeons of Koholint, defeat numerous bosses- including many familiar faces- and get the rare weapons and items along the way. There are all kinds of great items to pick up, including the Power Bracelet, which lets you lift heavy objects, Roc's Feather, which lets Link jumps over pits and the almighty Hookshot, which can be launched at foes across the screen and drag Link across canyons.

The boss fights are all challenging and use the items found in each dungeon in ingenious fashion. You'll be leaping over Moldorm's tail with Roc's Feather, hurling the Genie's bottle until it shatters with the Power Bracelet, charging at Slime Eyes with the Pegasus Boots and yanking out Slime Eel's innards with the Hookshot, etc, etc, etc.

The music is as good as you'd expect from a leading Nintendo title, with a host of catchy tunes that'll stick in your head. The dungeon music sets the mood for each of the levels, the overworld music is a wonderfully hummable remix of the main Zelda theme tune, the boss battle music is simple, yet manages to be an earworm that you can nod your head to while defeating the evildoers.

Perhaps most vitally in a Zelda game, the map design is clever, with each of the dungeons requiring you to use your items intelligently to survive and complete them and areas of the map requiring you to do to the same in order to advance to the next area. You'll want to explore every screen to fill in all the sections on your map screen.

The DX version of Link's Awakening not only adds colour to the game (making it vibrant and beautiful to look at) but also adds a whole new dungeon that can only be played using the GBC. The dungeon's main theme is- as you may have guessed- colour and requires you to use the game's now colour screens to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. The prize for accomplishing this is a choice of new tunics that will allow Link to either double the damage he causes or halve the damage he takes.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX is a masterclass of game design. If you have any interest in good video games whatsoever, you owe it to yourself to play this, one of Nintendo's finest titles.

My Top 20 Favourite Video Games Of All Time: #18

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages
(Capcom & Nintendo, 2001; Game Boy Color)

Again, I'm slightly cheating with this one. As before, however, both games probably do deserve to be listed together as they form one larger adventure. Allow me to elaborate.

In 1998, Nintendo released the Game Boy Color. The hardware was basically the same as it was on the original Game Boy and Game Boy Pocket, but this time- as the name suggests- it could display in colour. This was the only thing that had truly been missing from the original Game Boy models, though since competitor handhelds that had colour screens had miniscule battery life, it seems Nintendo were wise enough to wait until technology allowed them to make a handheld that wouldn't require a fresh set of batteries every six hours.

When I first got my GBC, the shop only had the original, non-colour games in stock. Obviously this kind of ridiculous oversight simply wouldn't be allowed these days but I ended up buying Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, which is one of the most enjoyable platformers on the Game Boy, and Donkey Kong Land III, which is also pretty great. Shortly after that, my dad went away on a business trip to America and brought me some GBC games back including Wario Land II and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX. Awakening was the first Zelda game I'd ever played and it was absolutely astounding. I played the game through to the end and then replayed it until I'd done all I could. When I heard there were to be three more Zelda games on the GBC, I could barely wait for them.

Now, you may be thinking, "Three? But there are only two games in this article". As it happens, the original plan was to have three games in the Oracle series (or Mystical Seed as it was known at the time) and each would be named after the three Triforce: Power, Courage and Wisdom. Each of the games could be played in any order but they'd be able to link up with either or both of the other two. Capcom, who made the games, hit a snag in programming and it became unfeasible that they'd be able to get all three games out without delaying the game massively. Since the Oracle games were to be Nintendo's big finale for the GBC before the Game Boy Advance arrived to replace it, that simply wasn't an option; thus, one of the games was dropped. The two that survived retain the link-up feature, which is really what makes them so special.

As mentioned above, the games can be played in any order and both of them have a special gimmick. In Oracle of Seasons, you'll visit Holodrum where you'll be able to wave the magical Rod of Seasons and change the season. The landscape alters around you as it does in the real world, with different paths opening based on the season. You'll also get to visit the bizarre subterranean world of Subrosia, where the lovable Subrosians live- you even get the dubious honour of performing That Popular Subrosian Dance!

In Oracle of Ages, Link heads to Labrynna and gets to wield the Harp of Ages, allowing him to travel between the past and present. The landscape is greatly different in the past, as one may expect, which changes the layout of several areas.

In both versions, you'll befriend one of three animals. You'll meet them all, but one of them will be yours to call upon whenever you like. There's Dimitri the Dodongo, who'll wade through water and eat obstacles, Ricky the Kangaroo with his huge boxing punches and Moosh the Bear who can fly over gaps. These three pets are great and you'll find yourself calling on your animal buddy time and again, even when you really don't need to, purely because it's fun.

So, then, on to the matter of how the games link up. Completing one of the games gives you a password. Entering this password on the second game will let you transfer over all the magical rings you found in the first game (the only way to get a full collection) and, more importantly, it will unlock a whole host of areas otherwise inaccessible, including a Donkey Kong-style level where you have to leap over obstacles to save Zelda! This is also the only way to face the final boss of the two games. There are also tons of little details that affect gameplay if you link up. All things said, to see everything in this game, you'll have to play through a minimum of twice each.

Everything about these games is wonderful from the level design to the graphics to the music to the fantastic story. If you're playing on a Game Boy Advance, there's an extra bonus for you as two inaccessible areas open up (one per game, that is). With these games, Capcom proved they could be trusted with Nintendo's characters and that allowed something special to happen further down the line. But more on that in a later entry in this list...