14 thoughts on “GameSpite Quarterly 2, #5: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past”

1. In the ‘positive adjectives beginning with ‘su’ that one can apply to A Link To The Past’ category, I’m particularly fond of ‘sublime’.

2. I’m on board with everything said in essay. I also tried several times to get into the original Zelda, but it never grabbed me. Link to the Past, though, is fun in game form, and I adore it more than I should.

3. Spot-on. I’m not a fan of the series in general, but this, along with Link’s Awakening, are super. I can’t say anything new about it, but for some reason, the music really stands out. Love it.

   Anyone ever read the Nintendo Power comic based on LTTP? No? Blessed thou art.

4. I had a hard time getting into LTTP, precisely because I was into the original so much. Still… it is the Goldfinger of Zelda games, establishing the template for which almost all subsequent Zelda games are based.

5. Very few games will EVER be as good as this one.

6. While I don’t hold it in as quite high a regard as many other people do, LttP was a big improvement over the original.

7. When I was in 3rd grade, me and my best friend played this game for months and months. We finally made it to the last dungeon, almost all the way through, and then his uncle took his copy of the game back from my friend. It was another 10 years before I would actually beat this game.

8. But that comic featured Navi six years before she appeared in a game! It’s as if Miyamoto was using the comic to telegraph the future!

   As for LttP, I played through the NES Zelda back when it was new and I still found LttP to be a lot more enjoyable to replay.

9. How do you guys feel about the pacing of the Zelda series? I feel LttP was the last game to progress quickly enough. Everything after, even Link’s Awakening, felt too tedious to me.

10. Admittedly, I didn’t play the NES version of Zelda until well after I had played Link to the Past et al., but I never had fond feelings towards the original Zelda or its immediate sequel. Usually, when I try to play an adventure game from the NES era, it feels like a lot of aimless wandering until you find whatever the right spot is, if you can identify it at all. I love pretty much any Zelda on the SNES, the Game Boy, or anything after those.

11. @Dean, I actually felt that LA and subsequent games running on the same engine typically had a better sense of progression due to overworld layout and whathaveyou.

12. This was the first game I ever got into. A true classic.

    I agree with everything Andy wrote in the article. For those of us who played this game before the original, you can really never go back. It’s just like the contrast between Super Mario Bros./Super Mario World and Metroid/ Super Metroid: if you played the superior versions first (as I did), the originals are just painful in comparison.

13. I bought my SNES used, and near the end of its natural life. It came with 4 games, and LttP was my 3rd favorite of those four games. Of course, since the other three were Lufia, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy 3, I can’t be blamed too terribly much for not being bowled over by LttP when I first got it.

    What sets LttP apart from most other Zelda clones (and Zelda games!), in my mind, is the fact that all (most?) of the sub weapons are actually usable. How much fun is a Hook Shot when you gotta hit tiny little targets all the time? LttP and Crystalis are probably my two favorite Zelda-ish games because all the equipment you keep getting isn’t just there for one-and-done gimmicks.

14. If it weren’t for Link’s Awakening, this would top my list of Zelda games. But this is admittedly awesome stuff.

    And yes, I DID read the Nintendo Power comics back in the day. I still have those issues, even! That was one of the highlights of that year’s run. Back when NP was awesome. They really lost their way in the N64 era, and have only just now really found respectability again.

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