This obscure Zelda title asked Expedition 33’s big existential question first, in a much darker way

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 didn’t win any awards for best plot twist, likely because they don’t exist. So we’ll have to talk about it because it deserves it, yes, but also because of how it reminds me of a game I’d expect to have nothing in common with it. Deep spoilers follow for both games.

Dreaming of fish

I’m talking about Link’s Awakening from 1993, the first Zelda game to come out for the Game Boy. It takes place in Koholint Island, one of the few locations outside of Hyrule seen in the entire series, and with good reason. It’s a really neat place, filled with likeable inhabitants, but over the course of the game, appearances of characters such as Yoshi, Kirby, and even some from Sim City hint at how this place is the strangest place ever visited in the series.

Still, no matter, as Link just needs to go back home anyway. To do so, he has to wake a mystical creature named the Wind Fish. Before doing so, however, Link discovers that the reason for all the wackiness is not a regular pre-Smash Bros. attempt at a multiverse, but rather that he’s not experiencing his waking reality. The dream of this fish fabricated the entire island, and incidentally absorbed Link as he crashed into it.

Most of Expedition 33 also doesn’t take place in its world’s base reality. Though its real world also features fantastical elements, such as people of various artistic backgrounds possessing magical powers, it’s much closer to our 19th-century Paris than to the overly magical world we see surrounding the city of Lumiere. Learning that likely came as a shock during your playthrough. Even tougher, probably, was learning after you’d have to choose between staying in that reality at the expense of your own family and of your own health, or escaping, but in a manner that would kill every living being in that small world.

Similarly, Link’s Awakening requires Link to wake the Wind Fish from his slumber to be set free, even though that will also abruptly end that small pocket of reality, immediately ending all life on it. Worse yet, that game never gives players the choice to spare anyone.

Choices matter (and hurt)

Under normal circumstances, players would be able to excuse their actions, arguing that it was possibly all just a dream and that nobody was really harmed, since they never really existed in the first place. But the Zelda game’s secret ending shows that one of the “fish’s creations” actually managed to somehow break through and be materialized into this world after the destruction of their own. So, even though the secret ending is there to leave players on a more hopeful note, it actually confirms that a load of people and fun creatures actually died because Link would only get good at sailing in Wind Waker.

I don’t know whether Expedition 33 was inspired by Link’s Awakening, but it doesn’t really matter. What earns E33’s plot a place among the greats is not really the surprise value or the originality. Most who are gushing about E33 were already familiar with The Matrix, The Truman Show, or even Dream-Zanarkand in Final Fantasy X. What truly makes the big reveal at the end of E33’s second act is the emotional weight it puts on our backs and has us carrying until the end.

That’s not the case with Link’s Awakening, which spends absolutely no time disentangling the complexities put forth by the game’s own plot. Link’s Awakening carelessly plays the whole dream scenario as just a cool idea, one that gets way too dark for a Zelda title upon even surface-level inquiry. Whatever the case may be, it’s always cool to see another thing that E33 did better than the big guys.

The original version of Link’s Awakening only ever came out for the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and the Virtual Console, but you can now also play the Switch version. Alternatively, you can also play this game called Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on your PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, or PC.