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Link to the Past
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The shop, where you can rent equipment at any time.
It was 1992, and the SNES had just come out. The Legend of Zelda for the NES was a huge hit, evoking thoughts of an epic quest to save the princess. It's gameplay was easy to learn, it's combat simple yet satisfying, and its dungeon design (While just a bit questionable) was fantastic. It was a great game, and one that has since paved the way for open-world action games. But that was in 1986, and this was 1992 (the greatest year in history). The stakes had been raised, we were now in the 16bit era, and the new Zelda game needed to impress.
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has been referred to as the best Zelda in the franchise, high praise considering the caliber of most Zelda titles. It's world was wide, yet required progress to move through. It's enemies were challenging and yet simple. It's dungeons were filled with brain teasing puzzles and dangerous traps. Link to the Past became the new gold standard for action adventure games, and it's ideas have become the foundation for innumerable games even today. It was a simple, yet grand epic adventure about defeating evil and rescuing the princess. It was the stuff of legends.
Link to the past wasn't the last top-down Zelda, thanks to a few gameboy titles. It is a style that's fallen by the wayside, with all of the most recent Zeldas being 3D adventures. Not only is Link between Worlds a call-back to this old style of Zelda, it's a call-back to the very feeling these games, particularly Link to the Past gave us.
Fat or Flat
The setup is... well it's a Zelda game, so the setup is you need to fucking save the titular princess. Everything in LbW is based on LttP, down to the overworld map and quest structure. You find three THINGS, then shit goes tits up, then you need to find 8 EVEN BETTER THINGS and face the final boss. It's a regular pattern that should be familiar to any Zelda fan.
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Link's house, instantly familiar.
The setup is... well it's a Zelda game, so the setup is you need to fucking save the titular princess. Everything in LbW is based on LttP, down to the overworld map and quest structure. You find three THINGS, then shit goes tits up, then you need to find 8 EVEN BETTER THINGS and face the final boss. It's a regular pattern that should be familiar to any Zelda fan.
The gimmick this time is how the game is structured. There are two things that set LbW apart from other Zelda games. The first thing you'll notice is that you don't gain new items in dungeons anymore, at least not most of the time. Occasionally you'll get an armor upgrade or something like that, but never any weapons or equipment. This time around you'll need to rent items from a store, conveniently located in your own house, and you can rent any item at any time. This means that, with enough ruppies, you can have all of the items pretty much from the start of the game. The catch is, unless you fork out a tonne of ruppies to buy the item, everything is taken away on death. The base game is easy enough, but on the New Game+ mode this becomes a real challenge.
The other new gimmick, and the main draw of the game, is the ability to become a 2D image by merging with flat surfaces. This becomes how LbW approaches a lot of it's puzzles, and seemingly every dungeon invents new ways to play around with this idea. It's interesting and well implemented, with just enough balancing to not make it tiresome.
From the Top Down
Despite playing from a top-down perspective, LbW has a great art style to it. This is a 3D game, and the 3D features of it are one of the best available on the 3Ds. As a rule I don't use the 3D on my 3Ds, but when I did try it out I found it looked really good and made certain areas of the world pop.
Even without 3D turned on LbW is a good looking game, even if it does skew cartooney. It's no Wind Waker, that's for sure, but it does nearly stray into Minish Cap territory. Most of all, it looks like a newer, cleaner version of A Link to the Past, which is clearly what they were going for. The lighting is good, graphics are clean and crisp, and character models and animations all look good.
Trying to call a Legend of Zelda game the "best in the franchise" is as fruitless as trying to pick between different types of Vodka, whichever one you like the most is guaranteed to give you a good time. I won't call LbW the best Zelda game, in many ways it's not, but what I will call it is a lovingly handcraft homage to one of the best adventure games of my childhood, and another knockout entry into one of my favorite series. Link between Worlds is easily one of the best 3Ds games available, and a must have for fans of Zelda.
The other new gimmick, and the main draw of the game, is the ability to become a 2D image by merging with flat surfaces. This becomes how LbW approaches a lot of it's puzzles, and seemingly every dungeon invents new ways to play around with this idea. It's interesting and well implemented, with just enough balancing to not make it tiresome.
From the Top Down
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You'll need to wall-merge to overcome various challenges.
Despite playing from a top-down perspective, LbW has a great art style to it. This is a 3D game, and the 3D features of it are one of the best available on the 3Ds. As a rule I don't use the 3D on my 3Ds, but when I did try it out I found it looked really good and made certain areas of the world pop.
Even without 3D turned on LbW is a good looking game, even if it does skew cartooney. It's no Wind Waker, that's for sure, but it does nearly stray into Minish Cap territory. Most of all, it looks like a newer, cleaner version of A Link to the Past, which is clearly what they were going for. The lighting is good, graphics are clean and crisp, and character models and animations all look good.
Trying to call a Legend of Zelda game the "best in the franchise" is as fruitless as trying to pick between different types of Vodka, whichever one you like the most is guaranteed to give you a good time. I won't call LbW the best Zelda game, in many ways it's not, but what I will call it is a lovingly handcraft homage to one of the best adventure games of my childhood, and another knockout entry into one of my favorite series. Link between Worlds is easily one of the best 3Ds games available, and a must have for fans of Zelda.
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