Ballad of the Wind Fish

Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.  This game is very near and dear to my heart for many reasons.  It was my first Legend of Zelda game and I'm pretty sure I originally borrowed it from my cousin then kept it indefinitely.  Good thing he didn't want it because it was a bit too complicated for him (amateur :) ).  It was a Game Boy game with 8-bit gray-scale graphics and only someone as old as me (?) would remember that huge gray box that we were supposed to play it on.  I would have first played this game between 5-8 years old and I have beaten it many times since.  A few fun facts for those of you with LoZ know-how: Link's Awakening was the first game to have a trading sequence, assigning different items to multiple buttons, fishing minigames, and learning special songs on the ocarina (Yes, Ocarina of Time owes a lot to Link's Awakening!).

So you may ask, dear reader, why this game matters to you.  The story!

After washing ashore Koholint Island, an owl greets Link (your character) and tells him that in order to return home, he must wake the Wind Fish resting in a giant egg in the northern mountains.  So you embark on a great quest to retrieve the 8 Siren Instruments and wake the Wind Fish.  You get to know the villagers and learn to love them, especially Marin, a young hopeful girl.  She teaches you the song of awakening, the Ballad of the Wind Fish.  After that charming moment, Marin says, "Please, don't forget this song... or me..." Then just before you acquire the sixth instrument, the game drops a bombshell.

The entire island is a dream of the Wind Fish.  By awakening the Wind Fish, you will escape the dream but the island will disappear along with the inhabitants.

Yes, dear reader, wonderful Marin will disappear.  But there are no other options.  Link must return home.

After acquiring the last of the instruments, you stand in front of the Wind Fish egg and play the Ballad of the Wind Fish.

I love this song so much that I saved right before this moment so I could hear the song any time.  This song will always inspire great emotion for me.  Thankfully, youtube makes it easy to find nowadays.

So how does the game conclude?  Once you enter the egg, you must defeat the Nightmares that have troubled the Wind Fish and play the song one last time to awaken the dreamer and yourself.  Here is the ending, if you wish to see it:

And the fate of Koholint Island and Marin?  Well as one astute youtube commenter stated:
"No he doesn't lose them; and they don't disappear.
The island Koholint was a dream of the Wind Fish and when it disappeared it didn't vanish.
It just switched places.
From the Wind Fish's dream to the heart of Link and everyone who played the game.
And as long as somebody remembers, Koholint will never vanish." -iGourry

Here is a piano arrangement I found of the Ballad of the Wind Fish:

 

This is an orchestrated medley of several Legend of Zelda songs.  Towards the end is a section for Ballad of the Wind Fish: