In the pantheon of Zelda games, Link’s Awakening is sort of an obscure one. Seeing as it’s an obtuse handheld only game from 1993 that was never ported to consoles with a total fever dream of a plot, many modern Zelda fans missed it 25 years ago when it was first a thing. That’s why many of them were very surprised to see that bouncing around the trailer for the recently revealed Nintendo Switch remake of this classic game was a Chain Chomp straight out of Super Mario Bros.
Yes, a Chain Chomp from Mario was trying to attack Link in the new Zelda game trailer.
Wait, what?
So, this specific Chain Chomp is named BowWow. She’s the aggressively chompy pet of a local woman named Madam MeowMeow a who lives in the center of Awakening’s main town and owns a trio of Chain Chomps, two small and one large one. She lives alone and has a guest bedroom connected to her house where the Chomps sleep at night, but BowWow can most prominently be seen outside of the house barking and snapping at any passersby (namely Link) while chained to a post. At one point in the story, BowWow gets kidnapped by local Moblin thugs and Link has to rescue the weird ball-shaped tooth dog from their lair. Upon his return, MeowMeow lets you keep BowWow as a pet for a little while where he follows you around the open world, snapping at things, eating baddies, and most importantly, devouring the strange lotus flowers that grow around the swamp, allowing Link to gain passage to the game’s second temple. See? Chain Chomps aren’t all evil. Or maybe they just become friendly once they leave a Mario game and spend some time on a nice island.
Source: IGN.com Why Is a Super Mario Chain Chomp in Link's Awakening?