How Zelda: A Link to the Past became the height of gaming perfection
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992)
Have you ever found yourself the centre of attention, with your clamouring fans all guessing as to what you were about to do next? You’ve thrown out a few whimsical anecdotes, witty one-liners or even some attention-grabbing dance moves, and now all eyes are on you. But where do you go from there? How do you improve on your strong start?
You’ve simply got to take what’s worked for you before, roll with it, improve upon it as much as you can, and slam dunk it into everyone’s face, whether they’re haters or congratulators. That’s the best way to keep the frothing masses entertained.
Not that a company like Nintendo would ever have to be told that. You may sometimes question their decision-making, we’ve all done that. But they’ve wowed and re-wowed the crowd a thousand times before, even when the know-nothings would be scratching their heads, ready to open their ill-informed mouths about how the company hated money and that they were finished.
Take Mario, for instance. When the seminal Super Mario Bros. was followed up by a sort of goofy, offbeat sequel in Mario 2, budding Mario watchers were left bemused. And then came Super Mario Bros. 3 to remove any doubt that Mario might have lost his big-hitter status – and if that wasn’t enough, Super Mario World dropped some further excrement in the mouths of those who would be quick to judge.
It’s still going on to this day. Just when Smash Bros was in danger of becoming a little stale and never coming out with a title that could touch Melee, Nintendo brought out Smash Bros Ultimate. Same with Mario Kart, you wonder how that series could get better – and now we’ve got Mario Kart 8. Actually, we’ve had that one for quite a long time now, but you’re crazy if you don’t think they’ll improve on that game someday, somehow.
And yet people still throw their arms in the air and express doubt over Nintendo’s abilities. Shows what some people know, eh? Well, word of mouth still stands for a lot in gaming, so it’s definitely not a bad idea for game companies to listen to popular opinion, so that they can see which way the money and critical acclaim is going to fall.
Which all makes the build-up to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past’s release in 1991/92 very interesting indeed, if you’ve got cowpat for brains. Both of its NES predecessors sold and reviewed very well, but we know now that Zelda II was quite a departure. It still serves as that wild mare, one who feeds separately from any other horse in the series.
In any case, I’m sure the majority of players who played both the first two games of the now blister-poppingly popular Zelda series were hoping for sequels more like the original top-down adventure, rather than the unforgiving side-scrolling Zelda II, right?
They had their prayers answered when shots of A Link to the Past surfaced; as embarrassingly corny as this is to say, I’ll bet it looked just like the colourful, grand adventure that the lads at Nintendo envisaged back when they were making the original Legend of Zelda.
Actually I know this to be a stone cold fact, because Shigsy had told me so on the phone when he was developing A Link to the Past, over thirty years ago now. What a feeling that must have been for the team, eh? A bit like seeing your child morph from being able to poo unaided to becoming CEO President of the Universe overnight.
Everything is an improvement to the Zelda formula in this game, and I do mean everything. Graphics, story (meaning the amount of text as well as the grammar and spelling all round), items up for collection, length, even accessibility, the whole lot is top notch.
As per usual, you are Link, the chosen one sent on a journey to draw the legendary Master Sword and use it to defeat Agahnim. But, in one of the best plot twists in gaming (especially of that era), finally getting to Agahnim and taking him down merely starts the real plot of the game. Then, Link’s grand task is to fight through the twisted Hyrule equivalent known as the Dark World.
However, in one of the not-so-hot plot twists that Zelda games often suffer, Agahnim is merely a patsy for our old porcine friend Ganon. But that’s okay because it means, spoiler alert, you’ll get to bring the game’s proceedings to a conclusion by slicing up an overlarge blue pig and taking home the Triforce.
The dungeon count is strong with this one, it’s got to be said – you’re looking at ten full dungeons, then the final castle. And that’s ten proper dungeons, not seven dungeons with three little Ice Caverns, or that admittedly cool pirate hideout you got to visit in Skyward Sword, none of those miniature efforts – it’s ten full dungeons, with new and interesting items inside them, waiting to be found.
The sound, music and graphics mark A Link to the Past out as a quintessential 16-bit game, and one of the best on the Super Nintendo. But it’s probably this huge increase in the number of items that heralds the biggest improvement that this game possesses. Not every item is double useful, but they’re all there for you to track down and collect.
And that’s the beauty of this game, really – there’s always something new and interesting to do, whether that be going after optional items, collecting Heart Pieces, playing mini-games, farming rupees, upgrading items and their capacities, it’s all there in front of you. And the game becomes fairly non-linear once you reach the Dark World, which adds immensely to this game’s mightily strong replay value.
You tend to develop a shopping list of three or four things that you can do once you’ve got yourself another dungeon item – and by God, will you want to get out there and do them. It’s an engine that most other games really struggle to race; even something as sprawling, vibrant and modern as Grand Theft Auto or Assassin’s Creed doesn’t keep you this interested. And it’s difficult to explain, but A Link to the Past absolutely nails this motivation and compels you to keep exploring newly opened areas.
Honestly, about the only criticism I could legitimately try to make of this game is that there could have been a little more music. But the sensational Dark World theme by itself is enough to force even an irascible beacon of negativity like me to shut my mouth.
In fact, just about any naysayer will find something in this game, even just some moment, that’ll inevitably shut them up and stop them flapping their gums. We’ve all seen how the similarly rated Ocarina of Time has come in for a bit of flak these days, following the near-universal critical acclaim it received on release. So it was an overrated game all along, eh? Fancy that.
Whatever about the N64 Zelda though, I can’t say I’ve ever even seen any kind of similar hate campaign targeting A Link to the Past. That tells its own story, because it’s not as if this game is underrated - it gets positive press every day of the week, even if Ocarina of Time and Breath of the Wild still win the lion’s share of the Zelda polls these days.
Well, being truthful, there are a few other Super Nintendo games that I do prefer to A Link to the Past, like Secret of Mana and Puzzle Bobble (you heard me). But objectively speaking? This game is the best there’s ever been, and probably the best there ever will be. The absolute best. Nothing tops this.
5 December 2023