The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past

No, that is not a pun I made up myself, that is the actual subtitle.

You know what? I'm not going to write a very long review of this, cos my entire opinion can be summed up in any of these sentences:

This is one of the best games ever created.

This game is pure perfection.

I have absolutely NOTHING to bitch about. Try as I might, I cannot find a single fault with this game. It's as solid as rock. One of the most balanced, well-thought out, varied, exciting, brilliant, intuitive, ingenious, clever, epic, deep, rewarding games of all time.

You know what sucks? That they made two terrible prequels before arriving at this point. It's like they finally started thinking:"wait! why are we making sucky games again? Let's try a good one this time!" And then they made this.
Never played this? Go out and buy a SuperNintendo with this game right NOW.
Okay, maybe it'll be easier to get a GBA with the rerelease of this game, but then at least buy a Gamecube with a GBA player so you can play it on the big screen.

EVERYTHING about this game makes sense. Fantastic dungeons with cool boss fights, cleverly varied puzzles, TWO huge gaming worlds, and lots of secrets and hidden stuff. What on earth would you want more? THERE IS NOTHING MORE. Play this or die like the sad lonely loser that you are.

In short: you are Link, and you have to save Princess Zelda as usual. Zelda is being held captive though, in the Dark World, created by the evil Ganon when he got his hands on the Triforce. Link however, lives in the Light World, so he's going to need to do some travelling back and forth to complete his quest succesfully, which immediately constitutes one of the finest points of this game.
There have been other games in the course of history that use some kind of alternative world system, be it a real parallel world like Chrono Cross, or the same world at another point in time like Ocarina of Time, or in fact Chrono Trigger.
Contrary to the first two though, this game offers on the fly warping back and forth. You don't have to go to some central point to warp from one world to the other, no, when you're in the Dark World you can go to the Light one at any time and any place you wish. Every single point has its direct and immediate equivalent in the Light World, which leads to some interesting puzzles and loads of secrets.

Never EVER has a system like this worked so brilliantly. Later games offer us no such freedom in travelling, they only restrict us, but this is true parallel world....ism...uh....stuff.
I'm amazed this idea has not been copied a million times, like most of Nintendo's ideas, probably because noone has been able to pull it off so magnificently.

So I'm not going to talk about this anymore, since I'm wasting YOUR valuable time. You should be playing this right now. GO, DAMN YOU!

Needless to say, this game gets full score: a 10, magna cum laude.
A landmark in Gaming History.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:53 AM