Backstory: As I was growing up, my interest in video games truly began right around the time that my older brother received his Super Nintendo Entertainment System as a gift for Christmas one year. He had an NES prior to that, but the SNES replaced it shortly after I was born and it was the console that I grew up with. Most of my time spent with the SNES involved watching my dad or brother play games, but occasionally I was allowed to give them a try, and my favorite game for that system was always The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The first time I ever played it I was only three years old; yes, I played A Link to the Past before I even knew how to read. However, that didn't matter to me. Something about wandering around the large open map of Hyrule, exploring unknown areas, fighting monsters, and discovering secrets made a lasting impression on me and to this day, I can still go back and play that game and feel the sense of excitement and wonder that captured my heart and imagination at such a young age. In many ways I consider A Link to the Past to be the reason why I still love video games as an adult, and in my mind it will always remain the one essential must-play entry in the Zelda franchise that every video game fan should experience.
Review: What can be said about The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past that hasn't already been said? Nintendo's one and only Zelda title on the SNES is a masterpiece, a game that takes Shigeru Miyamoto's green pajama-clad hero Link out of the 8-bit era and throws him into a beautifully crafted 16-bit world that feels alive with adventure. This entry takes everything that made the original Zelda title for the NES great and improves upon it in such a way that A Link to the Past feels like a vastly more enjoyable upgrade to an already wonderful game.
A Link to the Past begins much differently than someone who had just played the original Legend of Zelda would expect. Forgoing the "take this sword and explore" approach of the first game, Link is tasked with following his uncle out on a dark, stormy night to the basement of a castle crawling with intimidating-looking guards only to discover that his uncle was injured while on a rescue mission. With his customary stoicism and silence, Link takes up his uncle's sword and continues on through the depths of the castle seeking out the titular Princess Zelda to save her from her captors. A jailbreak, a few skirmishes, and a long trek through several secret underground tunnels later, and the princess is seemingly saved while Link is tasked with seeking out an old sage named Sahasrahla (I don't know how to pronounce it either) in order to find guidance on how to obtain the Master Sword and defeat the evil wizard Agahnim before he breaks an ancient seal and releases the series baddie, Ganon. And this is just the tutorial.
From there, the main story will take the player on a grand adventure, back and forth between the two worlds of Hyrule and the much more sinister Dark World, which is a near copy of Hyrule that was corrupted by Ganon in days past when he abused the power of the Triforce to drain the land of any benevolence it once possessed. The journey takes Link through roughly a dozen dungeons that are all expertly crafted and full of puzzles, traps, and powerful magical loot that all power the hero up for the final edge-of-your-seat battle. The two worlds feel truly alive, full of NPCs to talk to, secrets to uncover, and monsters to slay, all making A Link to the Past's story and world-building the crown jewel of the game. This is possibly Nintendo's best work of the time, and nearly twenty-five years later, they have rarely achieved such phenomenal work in crafting a world in any of their spectacular games that they have in A Link to the Past.
In addition to the excellent structure and flow of the game, it's just damn fun to play. Link has a lot more tricks up his sleeve this time around than in either of his previous games, and from returning gadgets like bombs and a trusty boomerang, to series newcomers like the hookshot and magic hammer, Link's arsenal to dispose of monsters and bosses consists of a wide variety of items that all have their own distinct feel and gameplay utility. The game also makes sure to let no item go unused, as each will play a key role in some portion of the game to solve a tricky puzzle or make it through a challenging boss battle. Collecting each item feels rewarding in its own right, and players will find themselves wanting to revisit each area previously explored in order to see how their new item might aid in the discovery of a new secret area or the destruction of a formerly hard-to-kill enemy.
Furthermore, when the player isn't several floors deep in a dungeon, the overworld in A Link to the Past provides an extraordinary amount of content to discover. From secret tunnels, to Pieces of Heart, the to ever-elusive Glass Bottles, there always seems to be more than meets the eye in each area of both Hyrule's and the Dark World's main playable areas, and to those who are willing to experiment and take risks, those efforts are generally rewarded quite well. The only downside to this is that to find each and every secret, you will have to do a lot of backtracking, and I do mean a lot. I feel like I've seen each area of both Hyrule and the Dark World a thousand times, and even though most times it doesn't bother me in the least, it can definitely feel like a slog when walking from one end of the map to the other multiple times.
The sound design and graphical accomplishments of A Link to the Past are also quite astonishing, and while hearing some of the same musical numbers (as superbly crafted as they may be) and sound clips over and over may wear on the ears after a while, the gorgeous 2D 16-bit graphics are nearly flawless and the game remains beautiful to this day. In fact, I much prefer looking at A Link to the Past's 2D sprite art than the 3D worlds of the N64 titles Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time because as great as those games may be, time has not been kind to their rudimentary polygonal appearance. What's also incredible is how Nintendo crafted a 2D game in A Link to the Past that more often than not feels like a three-dimensional experience, as each space has a superb feeling of depth, and multi-tiered castles and dungeons that require jumping down holes or climbing stairs and ladders to access their various levels eliminate the player's sense that the whole world in the game is actually flat.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past achieves so much and does so many things well that it's really difficult to say anything negative about it. I've thought long and hard about the things I've disliked about my multiple playthroughs of it, and despite some minor annoyances like backtracking and a few overly difficult bosses (which are entirely subjective gripes), I think that it's overall one of the best examples of a perfect video game. It submerges the player into a truly marvelous world that allows them to explore freely and overcome obstacles that feel like true accomplishments. In an age where beautiful HD graphics and enormous, expansive worlds that feel desolate reign supreme, A Link to the Past just goes to show that a game that appears simple at first glance can contain within it an indescribable amount of depth and content.
Why you should play: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past stands as one of the greatest video games of all time, and missing out on it would be doing yourself a disservice as a fan of the medium. It has everything a fan could want: an excellent story, fun and engaging gameplay, and a beautiful setting to truly immerse yourself and get lost in.
Why you shouldn't play: I feel as if this game truly has something that can appeal to everyone, however while it appears charming and simple, by no means is it easy. The puzzles may frustrate some people, and unlike later Zelda entries, there isn't a whole lot of hand-holding to be found in this one. There are some parts of the game that may be tackled in many different orders with little to no direction given, and that may turn some people off.