40 years have passed since the original Zelda game was released on the NES, and Nintendo went all out for the anniversary with a slew of Zelda goodness for fans. From world-touring concerts to Lego sets to a subtle Nintendo museum restaurant and beyond, Link’s 40th anniversary looks like it will put Mario’s celebration last year to shame.

Coming out of the recent Nintendo Direct, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the hottest topic right now for fans of green-capped heroic adventures in Hyrule. The game is set to enchant a whole new generation once more, with a remake coming this November.

Adding to that, The Legend of Zelda movie, releasing next April, will attract an entirely new audience. To say that right now is a great time to be a Zelda fan or the perfect time for first-timers to jump into the franchise would be an understatement. But for this Zelda fan, Ocarina of Time was never the best in the series. Yes, I know many list makers consider it the greatest game of all time, and it still sits atop the Metacritic charts with a score of 99. I just never clicked with the N64 version (maybe I was too young), and I never fully finished it on the 3DS.

I am not saying Ocarina is not good. You can almost smell the greatness from a screenshot, and you can be damn sure I will be all in on the remake on day one. The reason I don’t think it’s the best is that I had already played a Zelda game before it came out that, for me, is hard to top.

And no, it is not A Link to the Past.

It is The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.

Forget Ocarina’s 3D spectacle. A monochrome Game Boy screen in 1993 proved the series never actually needed its most famous tropes to succeed. With no Hyrule, no Zelda, no Triforce, and no Ganon to fight, Link’s Awakening stands the test of time better than almost any other entry.

Monochrome and 8-bit it may be, but this little cartridge delivers an emotional punch that standard high fantasy epics rarely match. The bittersweet realization of what waking the Wind Fish actually means for Koholint Island permeates the adventure with a strange melancholy, giving it emotional weight unmatched anywhere else in the franchise.

That core design is why the game never fell by the wayside. When DX hit the Game Boy Color, the new color-based dungeons fit right in. Even the 2019 Switch remake proved that Koholint Island’s puzzle-box layout didn’t need a mechanical overhaul to work today. The original blueprint was just that good.

Koholint Island thrives on its weirdness and pacing, which is exactly what sets it apart from Ocarina of Time. As a kid playing the N64 epic, the vast stretches of Hyrule often felt way too spaced out between the actual moments of fun. Its length meant I rarely felt like I was making progress.

Link’s Awakening was the complete opposite. The overarching quest to gather the eight Instruments of the Sirens gave the adventure a tight, rhythmic structure. Every screen was densely packed with secrets, and the dungeons demanded puzzle-solving without ever overstaying their welcome.

The narrative completely abandoned the typical Zelda formula. While Ocarina delivered the standard tale of a chosen hero saving the day, this handheld title went in a different direction. You were not rescuing a princess or a kingdom. You were just trying to wake a sleeping deity, even if it meant erasing the very world you had grown to love.

That world was populated by a cast of weirdos. You were constantly stumbling into oddball humor, from a convoluted trading sequence kicking off with a Yoshi doll to taking a Chain Chomp for a walk. Then there is the unforgettable lesson every player learned when the local shopkeeper vaporized you with an energy beam for stealing. Tying all this eccentricity together was a soundtrack that defied the hardware. Hearing Tal Tal Heights pumping through a tinny handheld speaker was a revelation, and those chiptune tracks still live rent-free in my head today.

But as much as I adore Koholint, this anniversary celebration is about looking forward.

When November rolls around and the Ocarina of Time remake drops, I will be right there with everyone else. I hope it captures the magic of the original without tarnishing its legacy. I am eager to finally sit down and play the game through to the very end. Having only made it about halfway through the 3DS remaster all those years ago, I am finally ready to experience firsthand what made the Hero of Time so iconic to the rest of the world.