There are many games I can point my finger at and say “that was one of the first titles that got me into videogaming,” but there’s only one I can say truly marked a milestone for me.
The game that converted me from casual Tetris-player to hardcore gamer has to be Legend of Zelda, Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy back in 1993. I was seven years’ old and was bought the game by accident by my mother before we jumped onto a flight to see relatives in the US. I asked for Super Mario World, but some how that request was lost in translation between the generations.
So, sitting there on the plane to LAX at seven years’ of age, something clicked for me – I discovered that gaming could be deeply involving, delve into your imagination and allow you to do things that are impossible to do in real life. No plane journey since has felt as quick as that one that day, however the effects of it have made me a life-long videogame addict.
The beauty of that game in particular was the fact it didn’t only allow me to pick up massive boulders, slash monsters into shreds and scuba dive to my heart’s content, but it gave me a story to read. It was great transition between childhood books and videogaming.
The embarrassing thing is that it eventually took me three years to complete Link’s Awakening, but every one of those times I picked up the game I just loved discovering more of Koholint Island – even though often described as “small” the game world was absolutely huge in its time.
I’m not the only one who thinks the game’s environment is compelling; Eiji Aonuma, director of all the 3D Zelda games, has actually called Link’s Awakening the “quintessential isometric Zelda game”, in a 2004 interview about the evolution of the Zelda series.
The controls have drawn some criticism over time, taking a rather simplistic two-button sword-and-one-other-item approach, but with this issue aside, the range of weapons remains arguably one of the most balanced in the series to date and the pacing between obtaining each of them is spot-on.
Link’s Awakening was my first realisation that gaming could inspire my imagination, teach me new things and pass time at a rate of knots. It became my drug of choice for entertainment and escapism and I have been a complete and utter junkie since.
