If you recently picked up a copy of Link’s Awakening, you may be wondering how long it’ll take you to beat the game. This makes sense as for many, Link’s Awakening on Nintendo Switch is their first encounter with this unique title in the Legend of Zelda series. To help put things in perspective, we’ve put together a quick guide addressing how long it’ll take you to beat Link’s Awakening.
How long to beat Link’s Awakening?
© Nintendo
Given our experience with the game, and the experiences shared by reviewers with early copies of Link’s Awakening, it’ll take most people around 9 to 12 hours to beat the game. Note that we had some previous experience with Link’s Awakening on Game Boy, so we already had a general idea of where to go and what to do, putting our completion time at a little over 9 hours in total.
Despite being a Game Boy remake, there are new things added that are worth exploring. If you’re completely unfamiliar with Link’s Awakening it could potentially take you anywhere from 12 to 16 hours to beat depending on how stumped some of the area puzzles leave you or how much exploration you want to do.
In general, Link's Awakening has a lot of walking around, collecting information, and working your way through dungeons. Speaking of which, there are technically 9 dungeons in total (8 main dungeons) in Link’s Awakening, all of which we’ve listed below.
How many dungeons in Link's Awakening?
- Color
- Bottle Grotto
- Angler’s Tunnel
- Key Cavern
- Tail Cave
- Face Shrine
- Eagles Tower
- Catfish’s Maw
- Turtle Rock
As expected, the farther you get in the game, the harder (and more time-consuming) the dungeons can become. Try to go into each one prepared by stocking up on things like Bombs, and by picking up items such as the Empty Bottle which can be turned into a Fairy Bottle and used to restore Hearts.
Overall, those familiar with the game should expect a completion time somewhere in the range of 9 to 12 hours while those unfamiliar or playing it at leisure should expect around 12 to 16 hours completion time in total.
Now that you know how long it’ll take you to beat Link’s Awakening, be sure to check out our previous guide where we explain how to get the Empty Bottle and turn it into a Fairy Bottle in Link’s Awakening!
