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Zelda Link's Awakening Figurines guide: how to get and place every Mario crossover figurine

Alex Donaldson avatar
Guide by Alex Donaldson Assistant Editor
Published on

While The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening is an incredibly faithful remake to the 1993 original, there are some all-new additions - like a string of Mario figurines Link can collect.

These Nintendo-brand figurines take the various Mario cameos in Link's Awakening to the next level. Most of the cameos are found within the dungeons of Koholint Island, and even then it's mostly in the side-scrolling segments - but new to this version of the game is the ability to collect little action figures of classic Mario and Nintendo enemies, then placing them in the homes of the residents of the island. Think of it as a little gift to the island.

There are ten Link's Awakening figurines in all, and once unlocked you'll need to place them all in a specific location to process to the next figurine, forcing the next one to spawn. Here's how it works:

Link's Awakening Figurines: how to find and place them

Luckily, unlike some collectibles there's no overly complex method to getting your hands on the various Link's Awakening figurines. Each figure will be available through the Trendy Game - that's the Crane Game you'll find in the east of Mabe Village. The way it works is that you can only carry one figurine at a time, so the next won't spawn in as a Trendy Game prize until you've off-loaded the previous one.

Each figure once obtained must be placed on a specific pedestal in one of Mabe Village's houses. Doing so will remove it from your inventory and move this quest onto the next phase. At that point, the next time you enter the Trendy Game, another figurine will be available as a prize. You can then grab it by playing the game, then return it to its pedastal - and so on and so forth until all ten are returned. If you have no figure in your inventory and don't see another as a prize in the trendy game, try continuing with the Link's Awakening main story and dungeons - it appears some figures won't spawn until after you've visited and completed certain dungeons.

Here's the full figurine list for Link's Awakening, and where they ultimately belong:

  • CiaoCiao figurine: the figure of the little BowWow found in Madame MeowMeow's house will always be the first to appear. Its pedestal is on the table in Madam MeowMeow's house, appropriately.
  • Goomba figurine: the figure of Mario's mortal level one enemy, the Goomba, will spawn in the Trendy Game soon after. It belongs on a pedestal in the very back of Marin's house, where you woke up at the start of Link's island adventure.
  • Spiny figurine: Spiny are one of the few enemies that shows up in classic top-down Zelda screens in this game. Grab it from the Crane Game when it appears and then put this figurine into the labeled pedestal on the right-hand side of Papahl's home, the two-door house in the north of Mabe.
  • Cheep Cheep figurine: these annoying fish enemies from Mario belong in old man Ulria's house - that's the house to the left of the phone booth house in Mabe Village. Put it on one of the pedestals in there.
  • Boo figurine: another enemy that shows up in traditional Zelda screens, Boo's figurine is another in Papahl's double-doored house in the north of Mabe. Put it on the circular table in the middle of the room.
  • Blooper figurine: be warned - the Blooper is a real pain to grab from the Crane Game. Once you have it, it belongs in Old Man Ulria's house with the Cheep Cheep - he must have a thing for water-based enemies.
  • Piranha Plant figurine: now a Smash Bros. star, Piranha Plant is another nightmare to grab with the crane. This also belongs in Marin's house - between this and the Goomba, she has a collection of Mario's oldest baddies.
  • Shy Guy figurine: once you manage to nab the Shy Guy Figurine from the Trendy Game, take it back to Papahl's house, the double-doored house to the north of Mabe Village. Its pedestal sits in the far right hand corner of the house.
  • Pokey figurine: Pokey only has a small Link's Awakening cameo in the island's small desert area, but it's a huge figurine - life-sized. This one's figure pedestal is also in Papahl's house - this time in the top left of the room.
  • BowWow figurine: our old friend BowWow, who we used to get into the Bottle Grotto dungeon, is the final figurine to collect. Grab it and place it on the final pedestal in Madam MeowMeow's house to complete the set.

As a reward for placing all the Link's Awakening figurines, you'll get a lifetime discount on the Trendy Game... which isn't all that useful! But you will get that sweet, sweet completionist peace of mind.

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