There is a lonely house to the south of Hyrule Castle, perplexingly positioned atop a small hill for no apparent reason other than its fairly central location in the realm. The house has been there for at least two hundred years. It is not obviously part of Kakariko Village, to the west, nor is it, in any special way, associated with Hyrule Castle itself – although its occupants tend to end up there in times of need.
Developer: Nintendo | Released: November 2013
Available on: 3DS | Time Played: 12+ hours
Although it is easy to forget in a post-Ocarina of Time world, modern Zelda was really defined by A Link to the Past. Link’s sole SNES outing solidified the handful of tropes that the first two hinted at, and established a generous inventory of Zelda mythology. It introduced the Master Sword, and the power of the assembled Triforce to grant the wishes of its owner. It was the first to use parallel worlds as a major game mechanic. It kicked the side-scrolling, experience-grinding gameplay of The Adventure of Link to the curb, and cemented the classic top-down view as the way 2D Zelda games should be, now and forever. It started toying with actual puzzles in the dungeons in addition to challenging enemy encounters.
A Link to the Past is remembered, and rightly so, as a pinnacle of the Zelda series and of the 16-bit era. It remains fiercely playable. Of all the Zelda games, this has been the one that fans most voraciously wanted a follow-up to (despite the fact it technically has three sequels already), because it is just a fundamental classic in a way that has seldom been replicated. This is where A Link Between Worlds comes in, of course, a sequel of sorts in a series not known for its sequels, a long-awaited homecoming to a Hyrule now rendered almost quaint in its scale.
And it starts in the same blasted house.
Haven’t We Been Here Before?
The Legend of Zelda has fallen into a bit of a rut over the years. Although the games are categorically pretty great, they lose their luster with each successive title from sheer sameness. Since Ocarina of Time‘s wild success and continued critical acclaim (and Majora’s Mask‘s lukewarm reception, despite being one of the best Zelda games ever), Nintendo has been understandably hesitant to deviate far from the formula. Even through new input devices in the Wii and the DS, Zelda games increasingly feel like they’re going through the motions. They’re great, but the more you play, the less astounding the next is.
A Link Between Worlds, at a glance, is the epitome of this trend. Anyone who played A Link to the Past will recognize a startlingly large portion of the overworld – on many screens, right down to the placement of the bushes. It sounds the same. It uses a control scheme light on the touch screen, so but for using a stick to move, it feels very similar.
And it starts in that house.
Of course, it doesn’t start exactly the same; instead of awakening to find his uncle going out to die for ambiguous reasons, Link is woken up to go do his job as a delivery boy for the local blacksmith. But that delivery – a sword for the captain of the guard – takes him to the castle, and then to the Sanctuary, via a route highly reminiscent of that in the beginning sequence of A Link to the Past. It’s a new situation that manages to be very, very similar, but, to its credit, it feels more like an homage at this point.
As is usual, however, Link quickly stumbles into the middle of a crisis: a wizard named Yuga shows up and starts turning people in paintings while muttering something about how ugly he thinks this world is. Link takes it upon himself to intervene, and one thing leads to another, as it does, and soon Link is building an arsenal, slaying monsters, adventuring through ten different dungeons, and traveling to an alternate dimension.
All of which sounds pretty by the numbers as Zelda goes – especially considering how near identical the overworld is to A Link to the Past‘s. Some of the hidden items are even in the same places, and the dungeons are in the same locations, too (although the Ice Ruins and Turtle Rock are swapped for some reason). Link’s new ability to merge with the wall, graffiti-like, and move along it to reach otherwise-unreachable places is a cool ability, used well, but that is also par for the course: Zelda‘s gimmicks tend to be well-applied.
But this is the best Zelda in years.
Hys and Los
A Link Between Worlds offers a tight, fun Zelda experience, but more importantly, it blessedly tries some more radical changes to the formula. By far the most significant is the new item rental system. Thanks to a traveling businessman dressed like a pink bunny-thing who sets up shop in Link’s house, Link can rent the majority of his important arsenal from very early in the game. The bow, the bombs, the hookshot, the boomerang, and more are all available for rent for just a few hundred Rupees from basically after the first dungeon. Link can keep these items until he dies, at which point they are repossessed and must be rented again. Seasoned players will likely only have to rent items once or twice, ever, since the game ultimately isn’t that difficult – though it does add a bit of extra tension in those occasions when things do start looking bleak. Later in the game, the items can be permanently purchased.
This has a few important effects on the game. Rupees are plentiful; a short way in Link will be toting thousands with him. The dungeons no longer have a singular item hidden within around which progress is built; instead, in addition to the usual dungeon items (the compass and the big key), each dungeon has an optional bit of equipment: a fragment of ore that can be used to upgrade Link’s sword, a new tunic to reduce the damage he takes, a scroll that increases his Dark Souls-like stamina gauge on which his special items draw. These are substantial rewards, but can technically be skipped. These items are a bit better hidden (though still not terribly hard to get) within the dungeons than the major parts of Link’s inventory traditionally are.
This means that, for the first time in quite a while, a Zelda game’s dungeons can be tackled in nearly any order. Though the first dungeon is prescribed, the latter two in Hyrule can be tackled in either order, and all seven in Lorule (the new Dark World) are available from the first time Link sets foot there. Indeed, the game doesn’t even really imply an intended order. Each dungeon requires one or two particular items for many of its puzzles, but usually this item is also critical to getting to them at all, and as long as Link brings that item along he can get through the dungeon’s challenges. The downside here is that the dungeon design, while good, does feel a bit loose; some of them don’t have the complexity of traditional Zelda dungeons, particularly late-game ones, since they can be hit in any order and there is no guarantee what items Link will have with him.
Finding out how to get to the dungeons, particularly in Lorule, requires a bit of exploration. Lorule is fragmented, with huge ravines torn in the landscape, so Link can’t just go through and reach any location he pleases. Some dungeons are very tricky to reach, but since they can be done in any order, getting stuck on one dungeon-opening side quest can often mean just going after another instead for a while. This sense of freedom and exploration is something that Zelda has severely lacked in recent iterations, which have tended toward tightly designing the game’s progression according to the items Link acquires. It feels like a daring, but thoroughly refreshing, switch – if not one that goes over perfectly.
The dungeon design is never bad, but it sometimes falls short of great, and that’s perhaps a consequence of the non-linearity. Previous Zeldas that featured the ability to do dungeons out of order tended to have more combat-based dungeons than puzzle-based ones, unlike A Link Between Worlds, where puzzles are key. The system needs a bit of refinement in that regard. A Link Between Worlds could do with being a bit more difficult, too – combat is seldom boring, but it isn’t terribly challenging. The game does have an unlockable, harder Hero Mode, but Zelda vets might just wish that were available from the get-go.
The result is an excellent mix of some old school trappings with a dash of new ideas that turn on its head a part of the Zelda series that we have long taken for granted. A Link Between Worlds will likely be a divisive Zelda title as time goes on, because the changes will displease some, and it perhaps doesn’t reach the classic heights of its spiritual predecessor. But it is a breath of fresh air in a serious thoroughly in need of one.
Hey! Listen! E-mail the author at dix@tap-repeatedly.com!
I don’t quite know what to make of these Zelda games anymore, or more specifically my interest in them. My kids love playing them and watching me play them. But we all found Skyward Sword a terrible bore and more of a chore than anything.
I’m just curious what I would think of this one. We all like ALTTP – Wii Virtual Console version. Unfortunately I’m not willing to plop down the dough to find out.
Skyward Sword WAS a terrible bore.
I read this review with great interest, because – like so many – my gaming youth was heavily defined by the first two Zelda games. I think I was in about… seventh grade when the first one came along, and for those without experience in PC games, it was nothing short of world-changing. Thinking back on it, the comparative simplicity (versus some games of today) brings a smile to my face, not an eye-roll. At the time it seemed redolently complex. I like the effort to retain a Zelda flavor (Zelda Skyrim would be… no. Just no), but calling how much is too much is always dicey. Sounds like they’ve veered a little too far off course in that area, though at least I can understand why.
What’s funny – well, it was horrifying to Dix – is that despite those games meaning so much to Little Steerpike, they were also the last Zelda games I played. The Adventure of Link marks the terminus of my Zelda exposure, so I’m a little behind the times. It’s nice to read stuff like this and sort of drift back to the games of yesterday. You can still see plenty of the original gold cart in A Link Between Worlds, which is kind of amazing after 25 years.
Dix, clarify – Link. We’re not dealing with the same dude, right? Link is like the Prince of Persia, there are as many Links as there are… er… things to be linked? Or is he just desultorily rescuing the princess, again, yet simply too good-natured to wonder why he hasn’t been promoted to something other than Delivery Boy given his evident self-starting attitude and loyalty to the Hyrule mission statement?
I actually feel like this game is very classically Zelda flavored, more so than modernly, and not in a bad way – but there is definitely a divide between those who prefer Zelda in the pre-Ocarina days, and those who prefer it since.
In any case: the Zelda series does have an official, running history – Nintendo took a stand on where each game falls in the art book Hyrule Historia – and within that, the Hero and the Princess essentially resurface repeatedly, different incarnations of the same individuals. It is unclear if they actually belong to the same bloodline as their predecessors, or if it’s more like a destiny thing. I mean, it’s definitely a destiny thing. But maybe also more.
Anyway, SOME Zelda games are direct sequels to others, with the most well-known being Majora’s Mask, which was the (last?) adventure of Link, the Hero of Time, after returning to his native time at the end of Ocarina. A Link to the Past had, officially, three direct sequels: Game Boy’s Link’s Awakening and Game Boy Color’s Oracle duology, which were that Link’s journey through the world after saving Hyrule. A Link Between Worlds belongs to this timeline, but is a few hundred years later – the events of ALttP are vaguely referenced here and there, but this is a new individual (as is Zelda, and everyone else with recurrent names, like Impa). Presumably, the “original” Link (who is chronologically the last) of the NES games is also the same individual in both games.
Nintendo’s official timeline is a little crazy, actually. Some games have a clear place in the timeline because of their events: Ocarina of Time deals with the rise of Ganon in the first place, so clearly precedes the original game and A Link to the Past. The Wind Waker is long after Hyrule has sunk into the ocean, and so must follow the other games by some absurd amount of time. Skyward Sword is a distant prequel which establishes the origins of such things as the Master Sword. Other titles are more ambiguous. It’s been a long-standing hobby amongst internet fandom to try to put together a timeline based on the internal evidence, but historically Nintendo seemed fairly disinterested in making one themselves.
Until lately. And it’s…weird.
After the titles that establish Hyrule’s history – Skyward Sword and The Minish Cap – Ocarina of Time trundles in to do its time-travel thing. And, reasonably, Nintendo decided that both the Adult Timeline (where Link defeats Ganondorf after his seven-year reign) and the Child Timeline (to which Link returns, and in so doing prevents Ganondorf from ever rising to power) would create their own histories. Splitting some of the later games between them seems fine and all, especially considering the state of Ganondorf in some of those later games (because he’s always the same guy, unlike Link and Zelda). The perplexing thing is the third branch, created if Link LOSES in Ocarina of Time, and including basically all the games that came out before Ocarina. This seems a little unnecessary to me, but it does adapt the fact that A Link to the Past established that a war was fought to defeat Ganon and seal him away – something I suppose wouldn’t have been necessary if Link had done his job right.
CLARIFIED.
Oh, also, Majora’s Mask would be a better terminus to anyone’s Zelda exposure, since it takes place in a land called Termina. Because death.
Zelda Toot was the last new Zelda game I played before this. Nintendo’s lack of JRPGs in the N64 era, and weird controllers for Gamecube, Wii and WeeOoo basically mean I have little desire to play those systems.
Despite being one of those people who want a “mature” Zelda, and have little interest in hewing to the same old (really, I would be very interested a genderswap Zelda game or one looking and controlling like the Dark Souls or new Tombraider where the puzzle is the terrain) I thought the new Zelda was fantastic with special attention being paid to the remix of the music.
Very much a good mix of old with some new touches, but I think absent the nostalgia factor it would feel lacking.
@SSJPabs, did you ever play Majora’s Mask? It’s a polarizing game, of course, but I think it’s really the “mature” Zelda everyone wanted and then no one (well, not enough people, anyway) liked.
Hi Dix, sorry for the delayed comment, I’ve been on a sort of internet vacation for the last couple of weeks!
I briefly played A Link To The Past on the Gameboy many years ago and played The Wind Waker more recently (and enjoyed it a lot save for the wind manipulation which was fun at first but got more and more annoying as the game wore on. I think I was close to the end too), but if I was to play one or two Zeldas now, what would you recommend? I’ve always wanted to play Majora’s Mask as it seems to have a very different air about it. It looks more intimate and involving in the minutiae rather than the usual big picture heroics.
Which Zelda to play may largely depend on the person. I think Majora’s Mask is probably the most compelling game in the series, and as you rightly observe, a bit more intimate than many of the others. It also tends to be thematically more mature, ironically, since a lot of Zelda fans still clamor for the “mature” Zelda they’ve been expecting since that Gamecube tech demo, where “mature” actually meant “good not cel-shaded graphics” and not actually “complex themes about grief.” Some people find the three-day cycle really frustrating, but I find it compelling and awesome.
Beyond that, I think Twilight Princess is a really good fundamental 3D Zelda that won’t feel as dated as Ocarina of Time would now. I played it on Wii, but I suspect it’s a little better on Gamecube if you have the choice.
If you were to play two Zeldas (or were more interested in the “classic” 2D style in the first place), I would recommend Link’s Awakening above all other 2D Zeldas, followed by A Link to the Past.
Oh hang on, it was Link’s Awakening that I dabbled with on Gameboy, not A Link to the Past. Advice duly noted Dix, thanks!
I figured you meant the A Link to the Past port on the GBA, but yes, Link’s Awakening would be the one on classic Game Boy. I believe the Oracle duology were Game Boy Color only.
I think of A Link to the Past as a perfection of a formula that all Zelda games since have been based on (except maybe Majora’s Mask). I’ve played it through a dozen times, and am always surprised by how playable it remains decades after its release. The world was so imaginative and begged the player to explore every corner. The gameplay and puzzles and dungeons absolutely solid.
I’m disappointed to see this new one not using pixel art since the original looked so great. I feel like they could have built on that and made something very beautiful. I guess they needed to use these ugly, low-poly 3D models to work some 3D gimmick into the game for the system though.
Really, it just makes me want to play A Link to the Past again though.