Reviews With Music

The third Legend of Zelda, released way back in 1991 for the Super Nintendo, is like a fine wine. It only gets better with age, and thoroughly enjoying its perfection will get many of us drunk on nostalgia, guaranteed.

Returning to this game decades after I last played it, the thing that strikes me the most is just how challenging it is. It’s not difficult, exactly, but it offers an incredible amount of depth with it’s intricate level design. While most of the game seemingly amounts to little more than going places, finding items, and killing bosses…there’s a degree of skill required to the way you approach enemies. If you just mindlessly attack and blaze your way through the game, you will die…..a lot.

While being able to walk in more than four directions is a huge factor in distilling the difficulty of the game from the original, it still poses a challenge. The length of the game alone is revolutionary, with the ability to travel to two completely different, but interlinked worlds, creating an experience that was unprecedented for its time. The dark world, a twisted reflection of Hyrule, is genuinely unnerving……with much stronger enemies, insidious dungeons, and nary a friendly face in sight. But ya know, in the light world there’s like a total of what…..15 villagers scattered about the world? Not exactly teeming with population density, why the heck is Hyrule so desolate?? I guess that adds to the feeling of isolation and of being the sole adventurer in a strange, unfriendly world. Truly, the exploration elements in this game are impressive to this day and that’s one of the major reasons why it has remained on so many gamers “Best Games” list.

The Legend of Zelda, a Link to the Past, is a rarity. There’s absolutely nothing about this game that I even remotely dislike. Sure, it may be relatively quaint by today’s standards, but the journey is unforgettable and the feeling of discovery, exhilarating. It’s an incredible achievement in videogame history, one of the quintessential masterpieces for every gaming library, and easily my favorite Zelda game of all time.

Rating: A+