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Gaming, In My Opinion
“Help me! Please help me! I am a prisoner in the castle dungeon. My name is Zelda…” With these words the greatest 2D adventure ever began.
This is history itself; the real hum-dinger of Nintendo’s greatest adventure series is now alive, kicking and portable! A Link to the Past truly kick-started the series back in 1991, with an incredible plot following events that would later be known as the epic Ocarina of Time. From one rainy night, you travel up mountains, through forests and deserts, and across lakes, tackling the most ingenious and devious dungeons known to gaming until you face incredible bosses. There are so many incredible things about this game, I don’t know where to begin! Dungeons are accessed in a much more linear fashion, yes, but in a game this good, do you really give a toss? In each dungeon, you solve puzzles, find a new toy to play with (a weapon, that is) and fight a huge monster in order to retrieve an artefact/ save a damsel. In between, you have to seek out the next dungeon (they’re clearly marked on the map, but the route isn’t!), but like any other Zelda game you won’t do that straight away. As you discover another area of Hyrule, you feel compelled to explore every nook and cranny before moving on. Be it a cave, or a hole in the ground, or a tantalising glimpse of a Piece of Heart, you’ll do everything possible before continuing your mission. Some things, however, can’t be reached. Once you have reached the Dark World, using the handy magic mirror transports you back to the same spot in Hyrule, and since the lay of the land in the Dark World is subtly different to that of the Light World, this enables you to access more of those teasing caves. The game has been resurrected incredibly, every bit as breathtaking as it was upon first release. The only technical refinement needed was to give Link as voice. Our hero can now “hup!” and “Hyah!” with the same voice as that of his younger N64-bound descendant - being a child of the N64 era, it brought a tear to my eye (how sad is that?) And that’s just the main game. Developed by Capcom (creators of the incredible Oracle series), they’ve managed to squeeze a huge multiplayer quest in. You heard - MULTIPLAYER ZELDA; you co-operate with your Zelda-loving buddies to tackle dungeons then cut them into little pieces to steal rupees! It’s the stuff dreams are made of…although you will need friends who have BOUGHT the game. If you owned ALTTP on the SNES you may or may not want it again. If you dust your 16-bit wonder off regularly and scour the land for those missing heart pieces, you may not want to bother. However, if you were unfortunate enough to miss the SNES era (yes, that include me!), you must buy this game. If you know 1-3 other people with copies, buy this game…and tell me their address. If you’ve just bought a GBA or SP, buy this game to start you off. If ,like my 21-year-old cousin,, you are craving for portable nostalgia (even though she already HAS the game on her SNES), buy this game. You know what, just buy this game!! VISUALS: Second to none, and yet cloned pixel for pixel from the SNES. 10/10 SOUNDS: The best of Zelda music? Plus Link’s little “hup!” of N64 fame? Need I say more. 10/10 PLAYABILITY: Accessible to anyone but hard enough for hardcore Zelda fans - even those who have completed it before. 9/10 LIFESPAN: A wealth of subquests beneath a staggering main quest that will keep you gripped for at least a month. And a multiplayer quest? 10/10 VERDICT: THIS is what gaming is all about- loosing sleep and valuable daylight hours to a Nintendo legend. 99% |