Zelda Retrospective: The Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds Review

Despite its overwhelming critical success, Skyward Sword saw a very firm rift in the Zelda fanbase. The messaging, though, was clear: there would be no critical consensus among fans and the game has still not dragged itself out of the realm of mediocrity. Things weren't looking so hot for Nintendo as a whole, who realized to their great horror that branding their new home console with an almost identical name to their existing hardware--and completely failing with its marketing--meant that the fate of their existing franchises was dire. Do they continue to release games on the console despite knowing it was on its way to fail entirely, or waste resources on games that their dedicated base might never see? On the flipside, the handheld 3DS was seeing a new surge of popularity after a similarly rocky launch--and with that popularity, Nintendo decided to revive a Zelda game which had been shelved for years. In 2013, with faith in the series at an all-time low, a new entry descended onto the unwashed masses: the world was finally given the official sequel to the masterpiece A Link to the Past.

Review: The Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds

If Skyward Sword was Nintendo's arrogant failure to shake up the Zelda series unnecessarily, A Link Between Worlds would serve as both an apology and a desperate return to basics. With two years since the last game and four since the previous handheld Zelda, A Link Between Worlds had been highly anticipated not only because of the promise of a return to the classic Zelda format but also because an irregular amount of time had passed since the last traditionally-controlled game in the series. I don't just mean a traditional top-down game, either: if one were to go back and look at the games prior to the release of A Link Between Worlds, a disturbing trend begins to emerge which I frankly believe signifies Nintendo as a whole during this period.

From 2011, Skyward Sword required the Wii Motion Plus in order to carry out even the smallest of tasks--in my review, I heavily criticized its forced implementation even in unnecessary aspects like picking up and throwing items. Before Skyward Sword came the two DS Zelda games, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. Despite the fact that these games could have been controlled with the console's buttons with room to spare, they're instead controlled by the stylus on the bottom touch screen of the handheld. And before that, the most widely-circulated version of Twilight Princess, the Wii port, was also controlled using the Wii Remote and forced players to shake the controller in place of a button. I should reiterate that even though I played the Gamecube version first, it's clear Nintendo wanted the Wii version to get into people's hands because they wouldn't have pushed back the game's release to coincide with the Wii's console launch.

Without including Twilight Princess, the last Zelda game created with traditional, non-gimmick control and presentation was another handheld title and a game which I now love with all my heart. Let me just remind you of this glorious beauty:

I wish I could liquify this game and inject it into my brain.

You read that correctly: with the sole exception of the rare, forgotten Gamecube port of Twilight Princess, the last traditional Zelda game before A Link Between Worlds was 2004's The Minish Cap. Aside from my unending love for the game, I feel it's necessary to discuss how Nintendo kind of went through a cycle of their own, testing out gameplay concepts which barely worked in the first place before circling around, even if unintentionally, to a game that wasn't even made by a Nintendo subsidiary.

A Link Between Worlds is nearly everything you'd want from a game following The Minish Cap, though for every improvement there's a small downside. Since the 3DS is swamped with buttons, players finally have enough buttons to control Link much in the same way as the 3D games in the series. For no reason at all the multitude of sword techniques introduced in The Minish Cap have been cut to offer an experience more closely resembling a mash-up of 3D Zelda and A Link to the Past, but in order to accomplish this the developers finally managed to give players a dedicated button for the shield while also allowing for two buttons to be used for quick-selecting items. For the first time in a handheld Zelda, the Roc's Feather and Cape items have been entirely removed and I feel that's the main reason the sword techniques were removed, but it still feels like wasted opportunity.

The other major criticism I'd give between the two is that while The Minish Cap creates a brand-new version of Hyrule for the players to explore, the Hyrule of A Link Between Worlds is literally the exact same as A Link to the Past. I don't suppose it's fair to criticize this harshly--after all, the Japanese title for the game is Triforce of the Gods 2 and sharing a world seems only natural--but it's annoying to know exactly where dungeons, villages, and caves are located. The developers had the foresight to shift some of these locations around in Hyrule, but it's not until Lorule that the game really takes on a life of its own.

Lorule fulfills a similar role to the Dark World in A Link to the Past, though a direct comparison would show just how different the two worlds really are. Lorule is actually populated with NPCs, unlike the Dark World, and every section of the world is divided by impassable canyons and sheer cliffs giving the kingdom a tense, foreboding atmosphere. The world can't be explored seamlessly, but as soon as Lorule is accessed it's possible for the player to explore almost all of it at once--given they find the fissures associated with the given area.

The fissures lead into the main gameplay hook: Link's new ability to merge into walls. I mentioned before that each major Zelda seems to carry at least two new innovations but they're not always implemented well; for instance, the wolf in Twilight Princess felt more like a crutch than an interesting gameplay mix-up. The core gameplay of A Link Between Worlds feels like a tighter Link to the Past, but the ability to merge into walls allows players to survey the usually top-down landscape using the Z-Axis--that is, the world can be explored with full attention to the 3D aspect of the environment. By scaling each area by the side, players can discover hidden cracks or secrets otherwise hidden by the perspective.

Additionally, players are given the ability to fast travel very early in the game with a nice little callback to the Oracle games, so if they choose the player can simply return to a warp point and constantly bash their head against a location until all the secrets are discovered. It's quick and allows the overworld to feel very approachable, but since it requires the player to discover fast travel through save points it gives a secondary objective to exploring every nook and cranny of the overworld.

The wall mechanic is an absolutely brilliant touch and I can't imagine playing a top-down Zelda without a similar mechanic going forward since it adds such a subtle layer to exploration. Exploration, in turn, makes its most triumphant return to the series since the likes of A Link to the Past and The Wind Waker. Unlike past games, items are no longer found in dungeons; instead, players are given the option to rent every single exploration item from Ravio, a mysterious character who forces Link to allow him to stay in Link's house. If the player falls in battle, Ravio's bird will come to collect all of the items Link has rented, and to get them back the player needs to revisit him and spend the rental fee again. This constitutes the second major innovation of the game, but I'm not quite as positive on it as I am with the wall mechanic.

Giving the player the ability to buy items otherwise found after spelunking an entire dungeon causes the items in A Link Between Worlds to feel undeserved, and part of me feels it cheapens the experience of players discovering the game world for themselves. A core component of the exploration aspects of The Legend of Zelda and A Link to the Past is solving the mystery of the item picked up in each dungeon. For example, finding the stepladder in The Legend of Zelda doesn't offer any immediate benefits, but since it appears whenever a player is near a body of whatever (which in turn will likely be in the same dungeon the raft is discovered) it's easy for a player to deduce where it can be used. This element of deductive reasoning is the key to giving the player a sense of fulfillment when using an item, and just giving away every single item with the exception of the sand rod at the very beginning of the game diminishes that sense of accomplishment.

The sand rod is the only item which becomes unlocked after finishing a specific dungeon in Lorule, and while its use is limited I'm glad that the developers decided to hold back on every surprise. This is really the only complaint I can think of when considering the item rental system because it does allow players a great deal of freedom when exploring; aside from the very first dungeon of the game and the dungeon which requires the sand rod, there's no specific order the player is required to tackle each dungeon. As a matter of fact, A Link Between Worlds goes a step even further than A Link to the Past by foregoing an order number on the world map--I do have a problem with this, but first I want to show what I mean by order numbers.

While not necessary, the dungeon order shown on the map represents the general difficulty of each dungeon.

Due to its completely open nature, the dungeons here can be approached in any order. This is reflected in its overworld, where the dungeons are not numbered. Don't give me shit, this is the best map I could find online.

It's probably clear what the problem is with allowing players to choose their destination, but in case it's not I'll just put it bluntly: throwing the player into Lorule and asking them to go where they want utterly decimates the difficulty curve. On the one hand, monsters roaming Lorule can take upwards to two or three hearts as soon as the player begins their journey, but after finding the blue mail this damage is reduced by half. Since the dungeons can be approached in any order, this means most players will make a beeline to the dungeon containing the blue mail and coast through Lorule. Each dungeon has to be balanced in a way that it won't feel the player is in over their heads, but at the same time the overworld begins more threatening than any past Zelda game.

As a remedy to the problem of the difficulty curve, the Lorule dungeons each contain items which increase Link's combat abilities. Three of the dungeons contain items which can upgrade the Master Sword while another reduces the amount of magic used by each item. Of course there are dungeons which grant a better shield and the blue mail, as well as one dungeon which allows Link to lift heavier objects. In short, the dungeons trade the ability to explore the world with outright benefits to Link's inherent abilities so the player can explore almost everything from the start of the game.

Item usage has been drastically overhauled; rather than bags for finite-use items, A Link Between Worlds ties everything to the returning magic meter--which, curiously, has been missing since The Wind Waker. As much as I'd like to find some pedantic reason to complain about this, I honestly feel like it's implemented in an intelligent way. The Ice and Fire Rods naturally consume more magic than anything else in the game while smaller objects like the Hookshot hardly affect the magic meter whatsoever. It also fits the frantic pace of the game; after entering Lorule, the player only sees a cutscene when rescuing a sage with the occasional brief appearance by Hilda, Lorule's counterpart to Zelda. As a side note, could we please have The Legend of Hilda in the future? I love her character.

All of Ravio's rental items can be bought, though rupee requirements to buy out each item is utterly ridiculous. As an example, the Rods can be bought for a staggering 1,200 rupees apiece while many of the returning Zelda items, like the bombs or Hookshot, cost 800. While I complained about the absurd prices in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, I'm overjoyed to see that rupees are thrown at the player at a pace beyond anything the Zelda series has ever seen. By merely collecting every chest in the dungeons, players will almost definitely earn enough rupees by the third Lorule dungeon to permanently buy everything in Ravio's shop.

As an added feature, items bought fully can be taken to a creature called Mother Maiamai who will upgrade the items to gain added functionality. The bow can shoot three arrows at once, for example, while the Hookshot merely gains a faster shot. While it's easy enough for players to coast through the game on rental items, upgrading items through Mother Maiamai adds so many new options for the player that it would be foolish to not make an attempt at buying each item. There's also the benefit of not being worried about losing items if the player falls in combat, but the game is not difficult enough for that to be a big concern.

Hero mode returns from Skyward Sword and the HD remake of The Wind Waker, but like Skyward Sword it requires a completed playthrough before players can access it. I deeply love that this is reminiscent of the "second quest" feature of the original Zelda, but keep in mind the second quest could be tackled from the start. Hero mode should be included in all Zelda games from this point onward, but it shouldn't be hidden behind a completion requirement.

On one hand, I'm not so keen on the Maiamai collection side quest simply because it's the core side quest throughout the entire game, Master Sword upgrades notwithstanding. Mother Maiamai begs Link to find her missing children across Hyrule and Lorule, and since they're so small it can be difficult to find them when they're hidden along the landscape. In order to make collecting easier, the map is updated with the total amount of Maiamai babies in each of the game's main sections to allow players to gather the 100 baby Maiamai using a simple layout.

On the other hand, I don't mind the idea of this kind of collectathon since it's entirely optional and there are usually enough Maiamai just lying out in the open for the player to casually upgrade no less than three or four items throughout a playthrough. The issue I have is that tying all non-dungeon content to this one side quest causes Link to feel less involved with Hyrule in general; while Lorule feels far more lived-in and populated than the Dark World of A Link to the Past, there's less involvement since none of the side quests involve helping the characters around the world. In general, side quests in A Link Between Worlds are often connected to dungeon entrances or helping characters stuck in dungeons, so in terms of side content the player has to concentrate on the Maiamai collection and search for Pieces of Heart, some of which are hidden behind generic mini-games.

The main question I really have is if Nintendo really needed to make a sequel to A Link to the Past. That game had a very conclusive ending, and even though later games would use the Master Sword it never felt like the promise of the Master Sword resting for eternity was broken since A Link to the Past is the final game in its timeline to use the blade--well, unless you're counting the linked Oracle game, but you shouldn't. A Link Between Worlds shatters that promise for no real reason, and for that alone I think the story is a bit unnecessary. That aside, it's nice to return to the world and I appreciate seeing the Link to the Past designs after the general Ocarina of Time character designs began to seep into everything else--in particular, the return of the old Zora race made me happier than I thought was possible over something so small.  I didn't think I would like the graphical style and I'm still a bit torn over it, but in general I feel like the characters have a certain toyish look which fits the perspective.

More than that, the game simply feels great to play. A Link Between Worlds is the only Zelda game using 3D graphics to run at sixty frames per second; I'd have liked the framerate to be tighter as the occasional stuttering makes the game feel worse than it should, but it's mostly stable and the overall experience feels like a breath of fresh air after so many failed attempts at changing the formula. A return to basics was what the series needed, not a bloated story desperate for the player's attention. The spirit of exploration finally returns after a decade of being a side attraction to linear, narrative-focused action games; aside from the layout of Hyrule the world feels much different, especially after the player begins exploring the fissures into Lorule and charting out all the possibilities of their adventure.

Verdict

A Link Between Worlds is the perfect return to Zelda quality after years of the franchise hitting a prolonged slump. The world feels familiar, but enough has been changed that returning players will be surprised. Yuga is a fantastic villain and the plot serves just enough twists for the story to feel fresh, though it strays too close to familiar territory a few times. My only wish is that when the sequel inevitably comes around, it features a new world and a more intricate item rental system. Renting items feels more like an experiment for the developers than anything else, and for the most part it succeeds. None of that really matters though when, for the first time since The Wind Waker, the world is just dying to be explored. The tight and responsive gameplay adds to the terrific feeling of the game, and it serves up enough surprises to satisfy fans of A Link to the Past. For the first time in a decade, A Link Between Worlds made me instantly feel hopeful for the future of the series.

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