Tony from Hard4Games describes it really well. The bunny hood is now more than just a quality of life feature, it has utility. Another (welcome) side effect of having so few hearts means that those 2 empty bottles you get are much more valuable for storing cow and nut(!) milk. Deku sticks, on the other hand, are more useless than ever since your sword makes fire now (more on that later) though there is literally one puzzle solved by a deku stick. Having to do tough fights with only 4 or 5 hearts makes deku nuts an essential combat tool. I never used bombchus in past games other than to grab a couple heart pieces, but in this game, it prospers as a secondary weapon and problem solving device. Having such a limited inventory really helps the items you do have finally find their time to shine.
It is easy to get sick of deku babas, skultullas, and bats pretty quickly as the enemy variety is sparse, but this game really shines with it's boss encounters. There are no fairies, so don't expect to just mash B.
I didn't die though, not because I'm a pro speedrunner, but because the game gives you just enough options and keeps you on your toes at all times. Further, some of these puzzles are only solved with a meta-understanding of OoT's game logic, and the game is more than happy to throw curveballs at you such as putting a big unreachable chest in plain view and filling it with a single deku stick, encouraging you to realize once you've opened it that you still haven't solved the puzzle and to look beyond the surface.Ĭombat is TOUGH. Some puzzles can only be solved if you're the type of player to check EVERY nook and cranny and experiment with different gameplay interactions. The soundtrack is haunting and catchy with familiar leitmotifs tied into the new tunes appropriately.Īs far as puzzles and combat encounters, this game EXPECTS the player to have played OoT and MM 100 times over the past 20 years. It's eerie and lonely which is fitting considering Link has never been out on his own without a fairy. I love how the map is laid out as a journey from A to B to C, but with each zone easily connecting from the tree stump in the middle without it feeling like a hub. It's brevity was perfect, it felt like DLC for a 20 year old game. If you have that Zelda itch, I recommend checking it out if you can.įirst off, be sure to save the fantastic soundtrack to your favorite YouTube playlist: The dungeon item is completely new and had some nice applications in the dungeon, but I thought its use in the boss fight was great. The boss was ok (nothing spectacular, but again, its new and needed to be created, so kudos). Which sucked because the boss fight already felt extremely cramped with very little space to move. Couldn't figure out why I was getting hit so much, until I realized that the "fence" around the outside could hurt me.
My only real complaint was the boss arena.
I would have preferred a full length Zelda game, but hey, this can't be easy to do (I certainly can't do it), so the team gets kudos for putting this together. Some ROM hacks are very good, some are eh, and some suck. Its meant to be a mini adventure linking OoT to MM. As others have said, it uses the OoT and MM resources, which isn't a bad thing. Got a bit stuck in the dungeon but once I had my AHA moment, it was smooth sailing.
A Link to the Past introduced elements to the series that are still commonplace today, such as multi-level dungeons, new weapons and items as well as the Master Sword and the concept of an alternate or parallel world.Just finished playing it too. A Link to the Past uses a 3/4 top-down perspective similar to that of the original The Legend of Zelda, dropping the side scrolling elements of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The plot of A Link to the Past focuses on Link as he travels on a journey to save Hyrule, defeat Ganon and rescue the seven descendants of the Sages.
It is the third installment in The Legend of Zelda series, developed solely by Shigeru Miyamoto and his team. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, known in Japan as The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce of the Gods (ゼルダの伝説 神々のトライフォース, Zeruda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Toraifōsu) in Japan, is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.