Thirty-two years ago on Aug. 22 the Nintendo gaming franchise “The Legend of Zelda” was brought to North America.
For the first in this series of reviews, I decided to play arguably the best game in the series – “A Link to the Past” – released in November of 1991.
This is a top down 2-D open world fantasy adventure where you play as the hero Link, a boy from the land of Hyrule.
You are awoken one night by the voice of the princess Zelda, who reaches out to you telepathically for help, saying that the king’s advisor, the wizard Agahnim, has taken over the castle and its soldiers and put her in prison.
Once you free her and take her to the sanctuary through hidden tunnels from Hyrule castle, you are told you must obtain the Master Sword, the only weapon that can defeat Agahnim.
Once you obtain three pendants from around Hyrule and go into the Lost Woods, you obtain the Master Sword.
The story is pretty straight forward for being just the third game in this iconic series. Nothing too crazy, but good enough to make you want to con- tinuing playing. The real fun lies in the gameplay and unique puzzles. Every dungeon offers a different mechanic that now might seem a bit tame, but still offers plenty of challenge with satisfying boss battles at the end of each of them.
You naturally gain different weapons through your adventure that help in solving of these different puzzles and can help dispatch certain enemies scattered across Hyrule.
The music might be the best thing about this game, with the most iconic songs in the series being played to near perfection by composer Koji Kondo.
While this game is almost a decade older than me, it is still an amazing game. I had a great time in my experience with the game, with some spots giving me frustration, but it just took time in getting down what ever pattern was in front of me and moving on.
Seeing as this game is still fun and offers challenges this long since it’s release while still holding up in terms of its artis- tic style and gameplay, it’s clear to see why this is a classic.
But I would say that it might not be for everyone, just like with any other type of game.
All in all, I will rate this game a nine out of 10, a great game that rarely shows its age, never enough to make me want to stop playing with its tremendously high standard of quality. I’ll for sure be back to this game, as it is known as possibly one of the greats of its time — when I have some downtime.
Zack Kellogg can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @kellogg_zack