Glitch Run

A Glitch Run is, as the name suggests, a playthrough of Link's Awakening in which the game has been deliberately modified to hide mistakes and improve its appearance. All playthroughs of the game other than MeccaPrime's are glitch runs. Things typically edited out include map transitions, sprite lag, level geometry, and many unappealing sprites, maps, and music tracks.

Because of the ubiquity of glitch runs, most people believe that Link's Awakening was a brilliantly designed, fun and polished masterpiece rather than the ungainly and tortured work of dark genius that it really is. Glitch runs make the game appear to have a nicely balanced difficulty curve, fair puzzles and challenging enemy combat. They also extend the apparent length of the game; the game's hour or so of run time has been artificially extended to as much as ten times its true length.

MeccaPrime deserves credit for being the first to play this game straight from beginning to end, with no glitching or other fakery, even if he is a big ol' dummy for missing almost the entire story.