Introduction

This review was requested by Hive account@rawdawg. If you have games you'd like me to give an in-depth look at, shout it out in the comments. I will never just write an empty post; if I review a game, it means I will always play it and finish it before making a post.

This is going to be one of those hard reviews. What's there to say about A Link to the Past that hasn't been repeated a thousand times before?

To add to the challenge, A Link to the Past isn't even among my favorite games, nor is the Zelda franchise as a whole. I definitely appreciate the games - and the franchise - for what they are and what they mean to the gaming industry, but if I were to list my favorite games, no Zelda game would probably make the cut.

That doesn't mean I can't enjoy them, and revisiting this game for this review was definitely fun.

Especially after going through and enduring the pain and suffering that was Mega Man X6, it was nice to enjoy something that's more relaxed and doesn't rely on unfair enemy spamming and clockwork timing.

Anyways. To avoid nasty X6 flashbacks, let's get back to Zelda.

Released on the SNES in 1991 in Japan, A Link to the Past was the third entry in the Zelda series, the two previous installments being on the NES.

Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link changed the gameplay from the original one by introducing sidescrolling segments, but A Link to the Past uses the same top-down view than the original Zelda did.

A funny piece of trivia here is that Zelda 2 was my introduction to the Zelda series, and it's actually a game that I personally don't hate as much as everybody else does. It has its issues, it's hard to get a good grasp of, but I think it's quite the underrated game and I will definitely give it a review one day in the future.

I never owned A Link to the Past, but I did borrow it from a friend of mine since our family never had a lot of money, so buying games every week was not an option, and back in the day I was always interested in playing new games just for the sake of playing new games. So since I did enjoy Zelda 2, I was, of course, interested in testing Zelda on the new 16-bit SNES - even though Zelda 2 may not have been among my favorite games.

A Link to the Past is a classic JRPG, which stands for Japanese Roleplaying Game.

The player takes on the role of Link, a young boy living with his uncle in the region of Hyrule, set to rescue Princess Zelda, held captive in a castle dungeon. It's a simple boy saves girl story on the surface, but there's much more to it once you dive in.

The Zelda games are pretty much self-contained stories for a large part, and forming a clear timeline for the games is impossible, though many have tried.

I did find myself enjoying the story even as a kid, and the Zelda games were one of the first ones to really include a story that the player could find himself getting lost in. It's simple, but we were five years old.

Up until the Zelda series, games had largely been based on skill, so it was new and fresh at the time for a game to offer storytelling in the same vein as movies or books.

We're talking late 80s and early 90s here, so we were far, far away from the cinematic games of today.

And I'm someone who actively dislikes the games of today pretending to be movies with a bit of gameplay thrown into the mix, but at the same time does enjoy a good story, just as long as it's wrapped into the gameplay, and not the other way around with the gameplay being hidden within an interactive movie.

But without further a due, let's have a look at how the game actually plays.

Gameplay

As noted, A Link to the Past is a top-down RPG, consisting of collecting items, defeating enemies, learning new skills and, most of all, exploring.

Game developer Shigeru Miyamoto has said that the idea for the Legend Zelda came from his childhood; he would spend endless hours as a kid exploring his surroundings, and really wanted to bring the experiences he had as a child into a game.

And it truly does remind me of a different time back when I myself was a kid. The world was different then, or at least seemed to be. Parents today are scared to death to let their kids out of their sight, but back then we could be gone in the woods for a whole day.

We also didn't have portable game devices, smartphones or social media to keep ourselves occupied, so we climbed trees. I kinda miss that sometimes.

A Link to the Past definitely took me back to that time, so it was a great experience just exploring the beautiful region of Hyrule.

I spent a lot of time just exploring, forgetting about the actual gameplay, and I didn't think the game could really accomplish that, but it did.

The overarching gameplay mechanic in A Link to the Past is that of the Light World and the Dark World. Without giving too much of it away, after the initial rescue of Princess Zelda, Link is transported to the Dark World, which is sort of like an evil doppelganger world of the real Hyrule. For a game released in 1991, it's quite amazing and captivating and makes it a joy to explore the same surroundings for an additional time just to discover the evil of the Dark World. After getting the ability to travel between these two worlds at will, the game really gets going and never really lets up until the end credits roll.

Unlike so many games these days, A Link to the Past doesn't treat you like you're mentally disabled, meaning that it doesn't hold your hand all the time, it leaves the adventuring to you.

And that's how it's supposed to be done.

I swear, if A Link to the Past was released today, there would be board meetings where different types of executives worried that the game is too hard, too confusing and too big for a kid to play. Oh, my God, what if they get lost. Oh, my God, what if they don't know what to do at any given second throughout the game.

There would be a text box appearing every two steps saying "Link! You need to use the blah blah with the thing and then do that other thing, and watch out for this and that! Actually, let's do an unskippable, automated tutorial that lasts for 15 minutes that shows you exactly what you need to do."

No wonder kids these days are idiots, they're being treated like idiots.

Anyway.

A Link to the Past is an adventure. You find out for yourself; you explore on your own; you try, fail, discover and search at your own pace. And that's what creates the immersion. Even though it's an early 90s 16-bit game, the immersion is so much stronger here than it is with a modern cinematic game. Save for a few massive exposition dumps, such as the one that occurs right after you're sent to the Dark World for the first time, you're on this adventure as Link, not just controlling a character.

It's obvious Nintendo had a bigger story in mind than what the SNES allowed for, but it's not like it breaks the immersion.

The controls are really solid and responsive, Link does what you tell him to do, you don't get cheated by the way the game handles. The game in general never felt unfair, which was breath of fresh air after, like I said, enduring Mega Man X6 recently.

A Link to the Past is not a hard game, but it's not too easy, either. It strikes a nice balance. Obviously, the advent of the Super Nintendo happened at a time when Nintendo had gotten a lot more popular, so they needed to please the masses and probably didn't want to risk turning people away with a game of Ninja Gaiden-esque difficulty curve.

But it's still a good example of how a game can be accessible and approachable without being a hand-holdy borefest.

I'm not a big fan of big open world maps and things of that nature, so it's pretty interesting that I would find so much enjoyment in A Link to the Past, given the game's heavy emphasis on exploration, but the world of Hyrule is just the right size where you can get lost, but you're not overwhelmed.

It's not like GTA 5 where you have so much to do, it gets hard to decide and you end up just putting the game away.

A Link to the Past also makes perfect use of its world size. And what I mean by that is that it's not just a big map with a bunch of boring, empty spaces, it seems like every area in the game has its own charm and unique touch to it, and that, I'm sure, plays a big part in the appeal of the exploration.

There's very little, if any, negative to really say about the gameplay, even though I'm trying to be objective and come up with criticisms. Some people may find the exploration aspect boring, but as a person who usually is that very guy, I had a great time in Hyrule, so the game clearly does have appeal to those of us who usually are not into these sorts of games.

Now, I would pick up Mega Man before picking up Zelda, personally, but that's just the kind of gamer I am. But, like I said, even as an outsider, revisiting the 16-bit Hyrule was a great experience.

Graphics

It's funny how the old SNES games never age graphically, yet the generation that followed it includes some of the ugliest games ever made.

A Link to the Past takes full advantage of the SNES color palette, clearly enjoying the added freedom that the SNES hardware provides, as opposed to the NES on which the previous two titles were on.

I'd even argue that the previous two Zelda games were quite unattractive even for NES standards, but A Link to the Past brings the goods in spades.

You're going to be required to get used to the color green a lot, but if you can get past that, what you're left with it is a thoroughly enjoyable visual experience.

The sprites look good, the environments are timeless, nothing ever looks unattractive or out of place. The animations are fluid, and the game is just a joy to look at, even by today's standards, I'd argue.

Remember: this game came out in 1991.

And it still manages to look good in 2018. That speaks volumes.

The SNES graphics, in general, have aged like wine, like I said, but A Link to the Past is definitely one of the more memorable games graphically, from an era that generally looked awesome graphically. The textures, in particular, beat out many of their contemporaries.

It's the attractive, simple style of the NES, but with the added SNES power to give it more long-lasting appeal.

The artistic aptitude of the early 90s Nintendo team shows. You just never get sick of looking at a game like this. It looks that good. Yes, some of the appreciation stems from my deeper understanding of how the SNES works as a console, and what the limitations were that needed to be worked around, but even ignoring that it was a game that kept me playing just to enjoy it visually.

Hyrule is colorful, lush, beautiful, and, most of all, alive.

Sound

Just like the graphics, the soundtrack is just pure bliss. And I mean, it's that good. The game is worth experiencing just for that alone.

People who have read my reviews know that I'm a soundtrack guy, and A Link to the Past did not disappoint. Every tune fits the situation, the world, the area, everything. It's adventurous, grand, simple and childish enough to stay innocent, but big enough to make the world seem epic.

Especially in a game like this, the soundtrack plays a huge role in keeping the player entertained, instead of bored, when exploring. There have been so many games I've played where the repetitive and dull tunes have annoyed me while I've been stuck in a particular area, looked for a secret, or just generally been trying to figure out what to do next.

So, it's needless to say how much the great music lifts the overall experience.

There are a lot of strings, and I can see how they could get too repetitive for someone, especially during a long session of gaming, but I'd still argue the compositions are varied enough to stay likable even during a marathon session.

I also need to point something that I, embarrassingly, only now realized, after all these damn years:

The Fairy Fountain theme is the Waterland theme from Super Mario Bros. 3, more specifically a remix of it. I've thought it sounded familiar several times before whenever I've run into it, but I haven't been able to put my finger on it.

Jesus Christ, that's pretty embarrassing, but in the interest of being honest. It's just never really hit me until last night as I was playing and working on this review.

The soundtrack is worth listening to even outside of playing, and I found it a soothing listen while trying to get sleep, as both I and my girlfriend have sleep issues, and always try to find relaxing music to fall asleep to.

So, if you're looking for something like that, give A Link to the Past's soundtrack a try.

Overall

A Link to the Past plays great, looks great, sounds great, is great.

In a nutshell.

It's a classic. It's a game every gamer should at least try so they know what people are talking about. I enjoyed it from start to finish, I fell in love with it, I completely understood the overwhelming love for this game.

You could even say that this is the only Zelda game ever made since pretty much every Zelda that came after this one just repeated the same formula with a few added bells and whistles.

The original Zelda came up with the formula, Zelda 2 was an experiment away from that formula, and then A Link to the Past perfected the formula.

When asked about their favorite Zelda game, most people will no doubt say Ocarina of Time, but one could argue that the Ocarina of Time is almost like a remake of A Link to the Past. A spiritual successor, at the very least.

A fun piece of trivia is that the situation with A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time is very similar to that of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake on the MSX console, and Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation, considering that Metal Gear Solid can be considered a remake of Metal Gear 2 in the 3D era, and Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear Solid came out in 1990 and 1998, respectively - whereas A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time came out in 1991 and 1998 respectively.

So, 1998 was a year when two genre-defining games were made that were remade versions of earlier 2D games in the same franchise.

If you're a fan of RPGs, the Zelda series, or games in general, definitely check out A Link to the Past if it's managed to slip by you for all these years.

Probably the best way to easily experience the game in 2018 is with the SNES Classic.

Feel free to suggest games for me to play and review. Whether it's a good game that you really like or a really bad game you can think of and want me to suffer through, let me know and I'll see what I can do.