Unlinke most The Legend of Zelda games, Link's Awakening's history is outside of the Hyrule kingdom. No location or character of the other games appear, aside the presence of the main hero Link and a mention to the princess Zelda. The game takes place in a completely new region, the Koholint island.
After the events of A Link to the Past, the hero Link travels by boat to other countries to become stronger. When he is going back to Hyrule, a storm destroys his boat, and Link loses consciousness. Marin, a girl living on Koholint, takes him to her house. When Link wakes up, he meets Marin and her father, Tarin. Marin is fascinated by Link and by the world outside Koholint, and she tells Link that if she were a seagull, she would travel beyond her island.
Links goes out to find his sword and when he finds it, an owl tells him that if he wants to go back home, he must wake up the Wind Fish, the guardian of the island that sleeps in an egg at the top of the island. For this he needs the eight Instruments of the Sirens. Link explores dungeons to find these instruments. When he searches the seventh instrument, at the Ancient Ruins, he finds a texts that tells the reality about the Koholint isle: it is a dream world that only exists in the dream of the Wind Fish.
After finding all eight instruments, Link goes to the top of the island: mount Tamaranch. There he plays the 'Ballad of the Windfish' with the instruments. This breaks the egg; Link then goes into the egg. Here, he fights against the last monster. When he wins the battle, the owl reveals that he is a part of the Wind Fish's spirit, and the Wind Fish confirms that this world was only a dream.
Link plays the ballad of the Wind Fish a second time, and the Wind Fish finally wakes up; Koholint and its inhabitants disappear, everything of this dream disappears. Link wakes up in the ocean, on a piece of wood (his boat was destroyed). The Wind Fish flies above him. After the credits, if the player did not lose any life during the game, we see a seagull flying away and Marin's face appears (she, the seagull, finally is outside of her island).
↑Dornbush, Jonathon (February 13, 2019). "The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Remake for Nintendo Switch Announced". IGN. Archived from the original on February 17, 2019. Retrieved February 17, 2019. Link's Awakening on Switch retains a top-down camera style but set in a world realized in fully 3D animation. Characters are 3D models, and the art style is new to the series.