A Link to my Past

Life is pretty stressful right now and in the midst of that stress I wanted to play a game that was in essence perfect. Perfect balance of difficulty, exceptional world building, fun and engaging but also comfortable and familiar. A game that would not overstay its welcome and did not have achievements to check off a list. I wanted the video game equivalent of a comfy blanket to snuggle in and chill. A tall order for most games but A Link to the Past is not most games.

In a single evening I am at the Agahnim boss fight. That is how well I know my way around the beginning of this game. But from here the world opens up so much that I tend to forget little details and find new surprises with each play through. That is not to say the beginning of the game is too easy or un-engaging, far from it. But this game had to be one of the earliest titles where people beat that boss they thought was the last one and then a whole new world opened up. People always give credit to Symphony of the night for flipping the castle upside down and increasing the world’s exploration potential, and I know that other games have explored the light vs dark world motif. But no game does it more thoroughly than a Link to the Past. Having two complete maps that you can almost seamlessly travel between when you want to explore was and is unprecedented.

More than exploration, doing tasks in one world could drastically alter the other. Draining the lake in the light world to enter the southern dungeon of the dark world is an excellent example. Compare that sequence of events to something like Ocarina of Time where playing the ocarina to open a passage in the past or future required you to warp back to the castle, travel through time, and then warp or worse run back to that location to interact with said change. In A Link to the Past. Walk out of the dark world dungeon, use the mirror, walk into the aqueduct, pull lever walk back out, pop in the portal left by the mirror and bamb you are back in the dungeon. No loading screens and no hassle and that is so refreshing. The game is loaded with little scenarios like this that use the mechanics to inform puzzles that make you scratch your head to solve them creatively. Many of them do not have one set solution either.

One heart piece puzzle can be attained one of several ways. You can just farm hearts and bottles to tank the damage from the floor. Alternatively you could use the blue cain or the magic cape to avoid taking damage from the spikes. Much like Super Metroid skill is also rewarded in these situations though in A Link to the Past the skill is more related to your ability to solve problems rather than you mastering of the controls. This means the game is more approachable than Super Metroid in many ways but no less challenging from a cerebral standpoint.

What surprised me about this play-through though was how easy it was for me to complete the game. I usually do not bother with all the heart pieces or bottles when I have played it in the past. However this time when I finished the final dungeon I only had three heart pieces remaining and I knew where two of them were having already seen them previously, just out of reach. I retrieved the pieces and then promptly curb stomped Gannon and the credits rolled. It had taken me about four evenings to completely finish the game and it felt absolutely perfect. I mean every once in a while I would lament not having a dedicated set of buttons to cycle through items or some other mechanic that felt a little old fashioned to me but comparing it to Super Metroid, which I just completed recently as well, the game felt less dated in every aspect but one.

Yes I do have one complaint about a Link to the Past, a complaint I have had for years. Link’s sprite, I just don't like it, and I am not sure why. I just look at the sprite and then I look at the much more detailed sprites of games like Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger or Illusion of Gaia and think it could have been better. Even the GB games have a better Link design in my opinion. But that is only a personal preference and it has no effect on my enjoyment of the game. The rest of the sprites are excellent from NPC’s, enemies and bosses. I can not think of another element to the game's presentation I would change. The game really does feel timeless with its gameplay, presentation, music and world building that are way ahead of its time. A stone cold classic and one of the best in the series. A must play recommendation from me.