Link's Awakening was first released on the Game Boy in 1993. The original Game Boy had a blurry greenscale screen, while the follow-up, Game Boy Pocket, had a marginally better greyscale screen. After three technicolor adventures in Hyrule, the lack of a palette was jarring and restricting, stifling Nintendo's creative vision. 5 years later in 1998, Nintendo needed a flagship game with which to launch the Game Boy Color. No game in the console's backlog would benefit from colourisation in the same way as a Zelda game, so Link's Awakening DX was released. 

Named similarly to Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, the Game Boy Color re-release of the NES classic, Link's Awakening DX had an extra colour-themed dungeon and a Game Boy Printer link-up. The new dungeon was accessed via a clichéd loose book in the library, and the prize for completing it was a choice of tunics.

The Red tunic gave you twice the attack power, and the Blue tunic gave you twice the defence power. You could go back and change your tunic whenever you needed to change abilities.

There were also ten photos spread throughout the game that you could print off with the Game Boy Printer via an in-game Photo Shop.