The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

It's been ten years since the last Zelda game that I thoroughly enjoyed (Minish Cap) was released. While I respect Nintendo for trying to shake up the formula with weird controls in the last few games, the ones I played left a sour taste in my mouth. I wasn't able to finish Skyward Sword, and Phantom Hourglass had me so bored partway through it that I returned the game without much hesitation. When they announced a sequel to Link to the Past was coming, I didn't think it could do much better. Clearly Nintendo didn't care about their longtime fans and wanted to have the series innovate for the sake of innovation while ignoring glaring issues with the series.  Fortunately, they have proven me wrong this time, and the result is not just a great Zelda game, but one of my new personal favorites.

A Link Between Worlds could be your first 2D Zelda game and I think it would be satisfactory, but it's really a love letter to fans of Link to the Past.  The game takes place in the same version of Hyrule, Dark World and all, but mixes things up.  Some new paths exist between areas, some places have new set pieces, but it's all the same world.  I don't have a problem with this form of recycling, and it's a great way to continue the story of a series and stay true the original.  There are a lot of cute references to the past game: returning characters like Blind the Thief and Sarshalakadingdong, improved ideas from the first game's dungeons, moments put in to trick people who played the first game, and my favorite, a similar fast travel system.  The remixed music, while not totally an improvement, did hit the right buttons and blended well with newer songs added for dungeons and such.  It's impressive that the same enemies from a game made in 1991 still hold up and are interesting with just a few fresh moves added to them. Link Between Worlds feels easier than its father, partially because Link swings the sword faster, but it still plays just as nicely.

This game was promoted as and is indeed nonlinear: Link can beat all of the Lorule dungeons in any order and rents the items needed to progress.  On a bit of a downer note, this makes the dungeons get easier as you go since nothing gained in one is required for another (with one exception), but the upside is worth the trade-off.  You can play the game how I did: explore all of Lorule entirely before entering a single dungeon. You can play the dungeons in the classic order if you want to.  You can roll a die and do them at random as long as you do the Thieves' Hideout before the Sand Temple.  Each dungeon does give you a different reward (better armor, ore for upgrading the sword, and a few other things) so one player's experience may be slightly different from another's.  I loved this approach, which is of course reminiscent of Zelda 1 and 3, and am glad that Nintendo didn't make yet another strictly linear Zelda game.  It's a series that benefits greatly from the player being free to explore and make his own journey.  They even cut down on the text for once, which is a major improvement.

So, do I just want Nintendo to remake old games and avoid trying new things?  At this point, I'm not sure what to say.  I feel like their games have a history of being disappointing when drastic changes happen. Super Mario Sunshine, Skyward Sword, Pokemon Gen 3, and several other games are evidence enough. It's easy to just make changes or add new elements to a series, but it's much more difficult to get them right, especially on the first try.  On the other hand, it's possible to make a game that feels a lot like its predecessor, make a few tweaks and add just a couple of interesting ideas, and have it come out all the better.  A Link Between Worlds is a good example of a game that is strong because it is refining older ideas, and it's certainly a game I'll be replaying before I even consider several of the earlier entries.  If you are a fan or even a former fan of the Zelda franchise, you should play this game.  It's short, fun, and recaptures something the series had lost along the way: that sense of reward in exploration.

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