It takes 5 min to reach the first dungeon in Zelda 3DS

Five minutes and three seconds, to be precise—that's how long it just took me to get to the tutorial dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, which comes out for 3DS on November 22.

Using my iPhone stopwatch app, I started recording the second I hit "new game." Including the opening cut-scene, with no detours, it took me three minutes to get my sword, and five minutes to hit the first dungeon.

The dungeon itself took two minutes to beat.

For comparison, via this Gamasutra article, it takes 70 minutes to reach the first dungeon inSkyward Sword. It takes 20 minutes to hit the first dungeon in Ocarina of Time. And it takes 2 minutes to get to the castle basement in Link to the Past, the predecessor to Link Between Worlds.

In other words, this game is more like those older Zeldas—the Link's Awakenings, the Link to the Pasts of the world—than it is like the newer, slower, tutorial-packed Skyward Sword andTwilight Princess. Thanks to the item rental system, this game feels totally different, too. I'm a few hours in, and I'm totally charmed so far.

Stay tuned for our full review of Link Between Worlds, which is coming in the near future.

KOTAKU

A return to classic 2D Zelda... November 22 can't come fast enough!

Finally a good Zelda after all the crap on Wii and DS.

Is Twilight Princess included in 'Wii crap?' Because while I agree the others were underwhelming, Twilight Princess was so good.

Being able to complete a dungeon in 2 minutes is a good thing?

Mmm, that doesn´t sound like a dungeon. It took him 2 minutes to beat.

It sounds like the castle basement in ALTTP. Which is fine by me.

@PurpleMan5000: tutorial dungeon, sure.

No Zelda game has been crap. (CDI games don ´t exist).

The DS games had their annoying moments, very annoying dare I say, but saying those were crap is such a big hyperbole.

I really liked both of the DS games, and Skyward Sword was among the best in the series. Twilight Princess was kind of boring, imo, but it was still a great video game.

I consider twilight princess as a gamecube game so no that game wasn't crap.

Skyward Sword and the DS games were very underachieving.

That's probably how long the other dungeons are too. Thanks for nothing, Nintendo. :(

Meh, this game shouldn't be using the ALTTP name, because that's all it is doing.

It's so sad, to see Nintendo put no effort into this game.

Like you put no effort in reading the thread title ?

I'm not really excited for this for some reason and I'm a huge Zelda fan.

I by the way LOVED Phantom Hourglass, its the best handheld Zelda by far

Hype!!! I cannot wait for this new masterpiece.

I am hoping to pick a 3DS XL up on Black Friday if my girl doesn't give me too much of a hassle. We'll see.

To be fair, I never said they were crap, I said they were underwhelming.

Phantom Hourglass is one of my favorite DS games, incidentally, however I know that the general consensus is that it was lacking.

It's going to get a 6.

PH was one of the greatest DS games.

I don't hate this SS,twilight, and WW are all guilty of those 45 min to an hour text heavy tutorials. Teach me the basics quickly, and let me interact with the characters at my own leisure.

@HaRmLeSS_RaGe: The ****? This game looks to be much more sophisticated compared to what most call the greatest Zelda alttp. I can't say this is copying everything about it at all aside from map aesthetics and some items.

Alttp imo was great, but it's dungeons were probably as impressive as one dungeon in this game, pardon the hyperbole. It was also older but that just kind of proves my point that these aren't the same. At all.