LogFAQs > #951178336

#13. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES, 1992)



This was the first Zelda game I played, and this has always felt like what Zelda should be. I missed out on the NES games when they were still new, but when I got my SNES, it was the Link to the Past bundle. I wasn't overly excited for this game or anything, but it was the included game with my new system, so of course I played it.

So, LTTP came with this Top Secrets guide in the box, and it gave various hints about dungeons in the game. It was probably a great idea, because there are a lot of places kids probably would get stuck in this game. Anyways, I was at school, telling kids I had this game now, and some kid told me it was a hard game or something, and I said, It's okay, the game came with this page of hints to help me through the tough puzzles. And then one of my friends said, Oh that thing? I just threw that away. I didn't need it. So when I got home, I threw the Top Secrets hint page away, because I was gonna get through the game without it too!

I probably could've used those hints, because I know it took me quite a while to get through the game. I think I ended up asking other kids for hints anyways down the line. I also drew up maps of dungeons with notes for treasures. But maybe all this extra struggling immersed me more in the Zelda experience, and is why I have such fond memories for the game.

Once I was able to beat Link to the Past, I ended up playing through it a lot. It has a lot of common elements with games I really like: It's well paced from start to finish; There are quick movement options, from the pegasus boots to the whirlpools to the flute; There are secrets to be found everywhere to reward exploring, some with important items, some with helpful items, and some with just unique characters or experiences. Also, the game still holds challenge even when you know what you're doing. Mothula is a special kind of jerk, for example. The game can be played trying to collect everything, trying for as little as possible, trying to take some weird out of order route, whatever. It's a game you can play in numerous ways to get many experiences out of just one product.

One summer, being really into some strategy guides I had received for games, I decided to make my own strategy guides for a couple games, which included Link to the Past. I drew maps of the overworld, the dungeons, labeled all the treasures and secrets, wrote step by step instructions for each area, made boss strategies. It was a pretty detailed project. It's long since gone now, but for the years I did have it, I was pretty proud of my work.

After Ocarina of Time, I had played the five main Zelda games up to that point. Even though OoT borrowed a lot of its structure and flow from LTTP, it just felt less fun in a lot of ways, and I didn't feel like 3D was the direction I wanted Zelda to go. I ended up not playing a single new Zelda game until A Link Between Worlds came out. The strong relation to LTTP was what finally got me to give the series another go. It was a fun game with a lot of nostalgia for LTTP, but once again, I found it hard not to compare and consider how much more I liked LTTP than the other game. And I'm okay with this. I've come back to the SNES classic a hundred times, and have always found enjoyment here, and probably always will.



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