By now, I’ve pretty firmly bought into (my own) dogma that states the following:
- Mario is better in 2D.
- Zelda is better in 3D.
I am not alone in thinking this. It’s not a consensus view or anything, but I feel pretty good about it.
However, that also doesn’t mean that neither property can’t flourish within the either’s domain.
The best possible case to be made in this regard, that each series CAN do well in a different format, is probably “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past,” a game that builds upon its predecessors’ achievements in logical, beneficial ways and ultimately establishes a true pattern that its successors would take and run with in establishing the franchise in its next logical landing point with an over-the-shoulder perspective.
Can the formula be taken any further than this within the classic, overhead “2D” perspective?
No, not really. This is about as good as it gets.
Some might argue that other games in the Zelda canon have done a slightly better job than this one at providing a fun, engaging, beautiful gaming experience within that 2D limitation. And that’s cool! Tastes differ. But I think few would argue that this game doesn’t do those same things exceedingly well in its own right.
Put another way: We might quibble that other 2D Zeldas are slightly better than this one, but to say this one isn’t great itself is probably folly (and we should all throw rocks at that person).
And – let’s not undersell this – this game was innovative as hell. It created the template for the next two decades, not only for classic 2D Zelda experiences, but for the new 3D ones as well.
Taken in that context, “A Link to the Past” is not only a great game, it also absolutely established (rescued?) Zelda’s future, and for that it should be celebrated among the very best games in the history of the industry.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past at a glance:
Genre: Action/adventure
Released: 1992
Platform: SNES
Entertainment Weekly’s best game of all-time
The original “The Legend Of Zelda” was a pioneering title in many respects, and also a little rough around the edges in many others.
Landing in the summer of 1987 on the NES, the very first game in the series established the basic lore from the get-go – you’re Link, and you’re trying to rescue Zelda, in a place called Hyrule, against a foe named Ganon – while also introducing a style of game larger audiences mostly hadn’t experienced before.
Well, at least not in this detail.
A little title called “Adventure” had truly blazed the trail some years earlier by providing gamers a hunt-and-search quest, across multiple screens, with the player looking down at the action from an overhead perspective.
Sound familiar?
Similar to many so-called “dungeon crawlers” – and featuring actual dungeons to boot – the first Zelda game built upon those principles from Adventure, crafting a more graphically impressive quest that demanded a battery save option (a true rarity in those days) due to the adventure’s length.
A person really couldn’t get through this game in a single sitting.
Zelda was also very action-oriented, much more so than predecessors like “Adventure,” with each screen filled with enemies trying to kill you. Adventure had a few dragons and that dang bat, but games of its generation often provided more significant breaks in the action to gather oneself.
Some of the enemies in Zelda were more adept at killing you than others, but the actual kick in the teeth was that they’d respawn when you left the screen and come back. So in effect, the game never really let you take a moment and breathe, or at least, not until you had cleared an area of enemies.
But as we’ve established, that was a requirement on every single screen … so, respites were brief indeed, and they always, ALWAYS reset.
When it actually was (temporarily) safe, Link could examine the terrain and try to find ways to open up new paths, a super common one being hidden entrances to caverns, which Link could find via bombs, dragging things around, and so forth.
I don’t want to get too far into the weeds on all of this, because honestly, it’s more than likely going to be ground we’ll cover again when the original game makes the countdown itself (a distinct possibility for “Adventure” as well).
But what I do think the main takeaway here is how from the very beginning, Zelda games leaned into action … but the only way to actually progress and eventually defeat them was through puzzle-solving.
Both aspects of the game mattered.
When “A Link to the Past,” rolled around in 1992, it was to an eager audience on the Super Nintendo. The first Zelda sequel, “The Adventure of Link,” had been a radical departure into the world of RPG-like stat building and side-scrolling platforming, and it, like the original game, had certain limitations baked in, being a product of the NES era and all.
Zelda 2 sold well enough and plenty of people liked it, but it’s fairly safe to say that in general, people were itching for a “return to form” for Zelda with the third game.
“A Link to the Past” was released in the United States a couple of years into the SNES’s life cycle … plenty of time to build anticipation for what the new hardware could achieve where Zelda was concerned (and plenty of time to perfect those new hardware tricks). And predictably, given the game’s overarching quality, it received rave reviews upon release.
But above and beyond the cosmetic improvements – a beautiful, sprite-based (almost timeless) art style and a deeper, more affecting soundtrack – the game did things with the above-mentioned aspects – action and puzzle-solving – that really set it apart from its predecessors and established the template for the franchise going forward.
This was on display from the opening moments of the game, wherein Link was introduced to his world and abilities gradually in a hand-holding tutorial section of the game, a staple of future installments.
Link is told the princess must be saved. His uncle leaves, and then Link is given no choice but to follow after him – through a harrowing lightning storm – while unlocking new abilities and understanding of his environment along the way.
Kudos to Nintendo for managing to make this “training wheels” section of the game tense despite its limitations – the music and visuals were a key part of this – but introducing a tutorial area to familiarize the gamer with his or her surroundings was absolutely something that Zelda was long overdue for, and it would become even more of a necessity as the games would become more and more complicated over time.
For instance, can you imagine Ocarina of Time without the Kokiri Forest and Deku Tree? Breath of the Wild without the Great Plateau?
You need a way to ease yourself into the deep end. (Heck, Super Mario Bros. understood that a half decade earlier.)
That previous oversight having been corrected, Link to the Past also didn’t restrict the teaching moments to the beginning of the game, as the designers worked to point the gamer toward solutions throughout the experience.
Puzzle-solving in the earlier games was cryptic and downright baffling.
Whereas the gamer could learn that certain parts of their environment were destructible, that wasn’t an implicit concept from the outset. It could take quite a while for someone to accidentally figure that out. And moreover, even with that knowledge, the proposition of figuring out where to use this power (e.g. blowing up a wall with a bomb or burning a bush with a candle to reveal a secret passageway) was … rather randomly implemented.
You never knew where a hidden cave might be located. There wasn’t a logic to it.
A Link to the Past sought to create visual cues, so that the guesswork of lighting things on fire indiscriminately no longer was necessary. Cracks in a wall would indicate where a bomb might bear fruit. And certain structures would reveal themselves as being accepting of the hookshot … meaning after a small amount of experimentation, one wouldn’t have to waste time shooting it at everything hoping for the best.
Once again, that’s an innovation. The entire game was designed with this mindset, of aiding the player, present.*
* We must concede, however, that they never bothered to explain why Link suddenly had pink hair in this game. Some mysteries are meant to remain unsolved.
Personally, as a person without an unlimited amount of time available to bomb walls endlessly forever and ever … I happen to appreciate this. I did when I was younger, and I do even more now.
One might worry that the exploration aspect of Zelda – one of its core elements – would suffer through this sometimes figurative and other times literal placing of markers on the player’s map. Yet, exploration is still encouraged through the accumulation of optional items and upgrades.
For better or worse, the “pieces of heart” dynamic was introduced here, wherein Link has to acquire several pieces of heart in order to boost his health meter. This allowed the developers to hide more items of value around the map, leading to more secrets and more exploration. This of course made it harder to boost your character’s health … but that dopamine hit when you did was still there, and it was still potent.
The thing is, nearly all of this is optional. Those health meter boosts are optional, as are several of the other hidden items one can gain through exploration. In essence, the quest is as long as you want to make it. And should you choose to engage with the exploration, it’s not randomized or nonsensical in its approach. You can discover things in a logical way, making these sorts of mini or side quests easier to complete.
The dopamine surge comes quickly and easily.
Time saving through design isn’t limited to secret passages and environmental interactions, though, as the new world map (accessible during the game – another new addition) is distinctive throughout. Different parts of Hyrule look different from each other, reducing the likelihood of ever getting lost and engaging in another timesuck in simply trying to figure out where you are (Also, did I mention there’s now a map? Maps matter.).
The “oh look, brown terrain with trees and maybe some water” design of the previous games has been replaced with lush, vibrant environments that vary significantly from area to area. Again, the point here is utilizing the new hardware to create a more aesthetically pleasing look, but doing so in a way that reduces confusion.
This is also the first Zelda game that firmly entrenched the dynamics of how dungeons in the series should work, specifically that they too, are used as teaching opportunities.
In previous Zelda titles, one could explore a dungeon to find an obtainable item that may or may not be necessary to complete the game, but by and large, those items had little to do with completion of that specific dungeon.
That script is flipped in Link to the Past, as the dungeons contain items that are necessary to complete that specific dungeon, forcing the player to become familiar with each new item as it is acquired. Said item’s usefulness will vary throughout the rest of the game, but a lack of familiarity or understanding will not prevent the player from using it, since you are required to learn about it right away.
Previous games: “Oh neat, a staff that freezes things.”
This game: “How the fuck do I beat this dungeon … I wonder if this new-fangled freezy staff will help … Ohhhhhhhhhh.”
In newer games like “Breath of the Wild” and “Tears of the Kingdom,” the special item is replaced with a special ability, but the concept is the same. Link gains a new ability within a dungeon that is key to him defeating that dungeon, which then becomes an ability he can utilize throughout the rest of the game.
That is a Zelda STAPLE. And that all started here, in “A Link to the Past.”
Furthermore, it’s a small thing, but I think it’s probably also worth mentioning that the dungeons here are more fully realized as being distinct from one another as well. Again, this cuts down on the “getting lost” factor, but it also staves off boredom through variety, which is an important thing for a game that is longer than its predecessors.
Link to the Past features 12 dungeons to complete this go around (previous games had nine and seven, respectively) across a much larger map that is eventually doubled(!!!) in size, and so one might justifiably wonder if this thing ever begins to feel a little bloated and/or boring.
The variety in terrain and dungeons helps. As does the dopamine surge for finding all of those cool/beneficial items. I mentioned an improved soundtrack earlier, which always helps matters too.
Also, thankfully, Link’s movements are improved over previous outings as well.
Link has the ability to connect with his attacks even when he isn’t perfectly aligned with the enemies. In fact, it’s often beneficial for him to be slightly crookedly aligned to avoid longer weapons like spears.
But beyond that even, he has a wicked spin attack that works really, profoundly well at clearing enemies, a host of fun new special weapons to utilize, and most critically of all, a dash attack that gives him the ability to not only clear away dangers, destroy brush and tall grass to reveal health and other items, and uncover secrets through ramming into more solid objects, but it also simply gets him from Point A to Point B much, much faster. That’s no small thing in a bigger game like this one.
The net effect is that you enjoy playing as Link enough to not get tired of coming back.
Better puzzles. Better action.
I had precious little experience with Zelda prior to circling back to this game on the GameBoy Advance in the early 2000s. I’d dabbled with the original two games before, and I had played Ocarina from start to finish (and been dazzled by it). But I’d never so much as seen a demo of Link to the Past.
Playing it for the first time, I was taken in by its relative brevity compared to Ocarina, thinking that was a decided advantage for the 2D adventure over its sequel.
That remains a point in the game’s favor, as it’s a breezy, quick play, with little in the way of wasted time or action. Most of the puzzles are easy to reason out, and it progresses at a pleasant pace.
What I find irritating are the occasional puzzles that don’t have easy answers: they are jarring because they are so infrequent. And in a similar way, when the action beats are unfulfilling (e.g. missed attacks or silly platforming requirements that result in your death), it’s so unusual as to be reflexively annoying.
The bar is set so high that the imperfections are that much more unforgivable, in a way.
But I also come back to my original thesis, which is that Zelda is simply better in 3D. I state this emphatically and easily for the sole reason that the series is more immersive when presented in that way.
Exploration is all well and good when it’s a little detached, gazing down at it from above like a god or puppetmeister. But it’s even better when you’re able to live and breathe in the environment, put yourself in the hero’s shoes, and get more emotionally invested in the characters and the world they inhabit.*
* Contrast this game with “Majora’s Mask,” a game flawed throughout, yet those flaws in that case are more intrinsic to the experience. Here they distract and disappoint. There, they are more omnipresent, and yet the game is more immersive and emotional, and the flaws are therefore more forgiveable and less irksome.
Still … this is a game everyone should play.
So what makes it worth playing today?
Among Zelda games, of which there are now quite a lot, why should a person play THIS ONE?
The graphical improvements and less repetitive sound make it a much more enjoyable experience than Zelda 1 or 2, while the new play mechanics and deeper story provide what might be termed a more “modern” play. If you want to return to Zelda’s roots, this is the easiest way for a modern gamer to do so.
And beyond that, it’s an important, pivotal game in the series, one that established many of the conventions Zelda still leans on today. I think in that way, it’s recognizable to newer gamers. It’s less foreign or weird.
It’s familiar.
Comfortable.
But truly, what matters here in regards to gameplay is that finding your path is easier, and the action is more enjoyable along the way.
Zelda, as a concept, requires a person to engage in action AND puzzle solving, and “A Link to the Past” unquestionably does those two things better than its NES cousins. Moreover, it lays the groundwork for all succeeding entries in the series in such a recognizable way, that it still feels modern.
Are other 2D Zelda games better than this one? Go ahead and make your case. I’ll listen to it.
But this one – on its own merits – is an essential play.
You’ve just gotta play it.
Dave’s Score: 9/10
Check out the whole Retro Gaming Essentials list here!
How to play
- Original hardware (SNES)
- Gameboy Advance (“A Link to the Past and Four Swords”)
- Virtual Console (Wii, Wii U, 3DS)
- SNES Classic
- Nintendo Switch Online