kjell1979's Full Review: The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past for Game B...
We are in a unique era of gaming. This is the era of game remakes. The 128 bit consoles are releasing renovated classics like , Rygar, and Metriod. Meanwhile ports of old classics like River City Ransom, Super Mario Brothers 3, and Double Dragon are appearing on the Gameboy Advance. This has brought mixed feelings. Some view this as a tribute to the great games some of us older gamers used to play while growing up. While others see this as a cheap marketing ploy to get us to pay more money for games we already played; in the process masking the lack of creativity and innovation in the gaming industry. Despite that, one has to acknowledge that there are games out there that are timeless and endlessly fun to play, also that there are some poor gaming souls out there who have yet to experience these classics.
One of the best games ever to be released on the Super Nintendo console was the third installment in the Legend of Zelda series called A Link to the Past. Now it's been ported to the Gameboy Advance with a few minor enhancements and accompanies a new multiplayer Zelda game called "Four Swords".
Story
The timeline of this game takes place roughly two generations before the original Legend of Zelda game. Unfortunately to make things even more confusing, the characters remain unchanged. That is you're still Link trying to rescue Zelda from Gannon. The pretense of this game isn't as straightforward. In the land of Hyrule there was a dark portal that was sealed by a group of sages to prevent its evil from spreading into their own world. However one day a sorcerer by the name of Agahnim has been sacrificing the daughters of the sages in order to break the seal. You must rescue the final maiden, Zelda, before the seal can be broken.
Gameplay
The gameplay for this game follows the same blue print as many other top down Zelda games. The premise is that there is a general overworld you traverse. The object is to go from dungeon to dungeon fighting boss monsters as well as finding its hidden treasure. The treasures usually allow you access to new parts of the overworld, or even other parts of dungeons, thus allowing you to progress throughout your quest. While the dungeons tend to hold the greatest treasures, that doesn't mean there aren't many interesting places to explore in the overworld. You can find heart container pieces allowing you to increase your maximum life (hearts). There are also other items you can use as well, whether they are well hidden or available in the many shops in the game.
A Link to the Past is a very big and engrossing game as there are two parallel overworlds (and accompanying dungeons) to explore. In addition, you can acquire many different weapons and tools to aid in your quest. There are flippers that allow you to swim in deep waters, gloves to help you move heavy objects, boots to help you run faster, butterfly nets to catch things and bottles to store them in. The currency in Hyrule is rupees. They can be used to buy items or weapons. In addition you can use your rupees to play many different minigames, most of which amount to gambling.
Treasure hunts wouldn't be much of a challenge without enemies. The enemies in A Link to the Past are very well designed. Each one has a specific style, strength and weakness. Defeating them (or simply avoiding them in some cases) takes varying skill depending on the situation. As you progress farther in the game, you'll encounter new enemies with greater strengths and less obvious weaknesses. You'll also see some older enemies grouped in ways that makes them very tricky to handle. The diversity of enemies is very large. Despite that, each one fits extremely well into the game.
Dungeons and specific parts of the overworld have many puzzles in which you must solve. Many of them involve using a tool to get by a certain barrier or challenge. In dungeons, one of the major tasks is to find keys to unlock doors to reach new rooms. Small keys open certain small-holed doors, while big keys open the bigger holed doors as well as big treasure chests. Items like maps and compasses help you navigate the dungeons better by allowing you to see the entire dungeon and where the dungeon boss resides respectively.
Graphics
A Link to the Past's graphics are simple, straightforward, and also refined. The game has a top down perspective and the world is rendered with detailed sprites. The sprites themselves are very refined and portray the world in a cartoonish sort of feel. That is, certain objects take on uniformity and certain features tend to be exaggerated. This theme is very typical of a Legend of Zelda game.
While the graphics seem relatively simplistic, they are extremely refined and contribute greatly to the enjoyment of the game. In this sense, enemies are very easy to recognize, bosses seem very formidable, and the world seems to take on a life of its own. Overall it's a well-designed game graphically. It may not live up to the standard of many of today's games, but it certainly takes advantage of the Gameboy Advance's hardware.
Sound
This game perhaps has the best music and sound I have ever heard on the Gameboy Advance yet. The music perfectly blends tracks that are strong, robust, and powerful, but they are also catchy and fit perfectly into the moment. It's rare when a game accomplishes this and when it does the music instantly becomes classic and recognizable to the majority of the gaming public.
The sound effects are equally as classic. Sword slashes, thrown pots, and mad dashes all sound perfectly rendered. The sound effects sound soft and rounded, but at the same time they don't sound muffled like other games. The sound effects are a clear overhaul from the original Legend of Zelda on the NES, but at the same time they created a new classic set of sounds that will live on with a new generation.
It's rare when a game has both music and sound that can both be called Legendary. This game pulls this off with class and grace.
Four Swords
In addition to the Link to the Past port, there's also a multiplayer Zelda game called Four Swords. The game allows you to link up to 4 players with the game and plays a new quest simultaneously. The game itself is a new incarnation to the series with its own story, graphics, sound, and gameplay. However, its root purpose is the multiplayer that brings a new dynamic to the gameplay and to the series in general.
The story behind four swords is The Wind Mage Vaati kidnaps Princess Zelda. The only way for Link to stop him is by using the Four Sword, which in turn splits Link into 4 different versions of himself. However, the only way to get to Vaati is by collecting rupees to pay the fairies for the key to Vaati's lair. Thus the premise of the game is set.
You're goal is to cooperatively collect as many rupees as you can in order to pay off the fairies. There are some interesting dynamics that transcend the monotony of collecting rupees. The person who collects the most rupees receives a badge declaring him or her the winner. While for some less competitive people, this might not mean anything not even bragging rights. However, for others this means war. The catch is this. If all characters finish with full life, their rupee totals are doubled, an excellent goal. So the temptation to backstab in order to come out in the end is very tempting, but it's also at the expense of the overall goal of the mission. To me, simply assigning a badge to the winner doesn't up the ante enough. They should have all 4 Links fight to the death after defeating Vaati, whereby handicaps are assigned based on the relative amounts of rupees collected. For instance, if you collect less rupees, you're given less power during the final free for all. But if you collect more, your power grows. It would help give the game more of a Risk-style dynamic than one where cooperation is emphasized to the very end.
Replay Value
There isn't much replay value in A Link to the Past beyond its solid gameplay. Once you find every item and secret, you've pretty much experienced it all. The saving grace is that it takes a decent amount of time to find all that there is. The solid gameplay makes playing the game again like rereading a great novel. The Four Swords game really adds lots of replay value. The catch with that is that you must have at least one other person to play with you. And they must have at least a Gameboy Advance system or Gameboy Advance player for their Gamecube as well as their own copy of the game. That is a problem that really hinders the accessibility of Four Swords. There is an additional dungeon after you've completed both A Link to the Past and Four Swords quests. However that is a small addition to what are two massive games.
Overall this game is a must own for people who have never played it before. While it doesn't have a tremendous amount of replay value single player, and multiplayer is somewhat sanctioned, the game stands up solely because of the gameplay. Unfortunately for a person like myself, this game isn't tailored too much for me. I played the original Super Nintendo version of A Link to the Past so I knew where to go and what to do. I also am not readily accessible to many other people who own a system that can play Gameboy Advance games, so playing a game like Four Swords will not occur that often. I feel though that I am in the minority here as most Gameboy Advance gamers have friends to play with. This is a great game with very few flaws.
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