Facts and notables
* It’s possible to steal from the store in the town, but doing so will automatically change your in-game name to THIEF. This cannot be reversed, so you’ll have to endure being called THIEF the whole game if you want to get the boomerang easily. You also cannot enter the store after that point without being automatically killed by the shop keeper.
* If you manage to complete the game without dying, the ending scene of the game features Marin flying in the sky instead of your garden variety seagull.
* The color dungeon in the DX version gives you a new tunic which either doubles your defense or attack power.
* The underground sections of the dungeons contain goombas and piranha plants from Zelda’s sister series, Super Mario Bros.
* The characters Marin and Tarin would later be used with very similar likenesses in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Personal Reflection
My first experience with the game was my personal copy of DX, bought the day it came out. I wasn’t yet incredibly familiar with the Zelda franchise at that point - my first real Zelda game wound up being Majora’s Mask – but I thoroughly enjoyed myself from what I can recall. The game later got eaten by my brother’s dog, so who knows what other amounts of fun I could’ve had with it in those days? I never did beat it back then, now that I think about it. How sad.
I recently picked up the excellent emulator service at Console Classix, so I’ve been re-going through this fine game a few times. A fine game doesn’t lose its touch with age, and LA is just as intriguing as it was all those years back in 1998. Get yourself a copy of it if you haven’t tried out any of the Game Boy entries in the Zelda canon, or if you especially enjoyed the Oracle series. You won’t regret it. And if you do, you must be a big grump or something.
Review courtesy of Digital Press.
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