About a year ago, I received The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for Nintendo 3DS. I started the game and got about three dungeons deep, then I played a lot of Mario Kart 7, and then I also received Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, and then before I knew it Super Smash Bros. was out and I absolutely had to unlock all the characters and stages and custom moves if I wanted to be able to keep up with the guys at work. Long story short, I'm pretty bad at finishing what I start, I guess.
Last week, I picked up A Link Between Worlds again, and gave a big push to finally finish it, something which I accomplished on Sunday. I'm not sure if I'll be able to find enough words for it, but damn, this game is amazing.
If you have ever been remotely into The Legend of Zelda, or if you have good memories of the SNES classic A Link to the Past, then you must play this game. It's a brand new classic. It's got all the ingredients that made the greatest entries in the series what they are, and then it adds a shitload more stuff on top to make it better. It has the exact same world as ALTTP, and then it throws in a broken version, similar in spirit but different from the Dark World, into the mix. It takes the more open exploration from the original Legend of Zelda, and then it makes it even more open-ended. The first LoZ allowed you to find the dungeons at your own pace, but there was a certain order that had to be maintained. Certain dungeons had to be finished first so you could get the weapon inside of them to be able to enter the next one. A Link Between Worlds even ditches that idea. You have a bunch of dungeons to finish, and you do them whenever you feel like it. You're missing an item? Just go see the shady guy squatting your house and buy it. A Link Between Worlds is teaching you something which would make you a terrible human being in real life, but which works wonderfully in video games: if there's a problem somewhere, just thrown some money at it.
Speaking of money, you'll never run out of rupees in this game. If some previous LoZ games made money pretty sparse, this one goes all out in the opposite direction. I finished the game with a full wallet at 9999 rupees, and it wasn't because I was being cheap. The game just wants to make sure you are able to do whatever you want, when you want it. The potions cost money. The weapons cost money. The quest items cost money. You would think that throwing money at you like that would destroy the whole system, making the entire game a simple manner of grinding for rupees and then breezing through the game. You would be wrong! The challenge in A Link Between World comes from the many dungeons (there are at least a dozen, plus another dozen mini-dungeons), as well as from the side quests. Many characters will ask for your help. You will need to recover some gigantic hermit crab's kids. You will need to hunt for pieces of heart. You will need to help blacksmiths, miners and bees enthusiasts. There is just so much to do.
And yet, the game is over so fast. Once you get into the flow of the game, once you find your rhythm, the game becomes engrossing to the point of obsession. I probably neglected my girlfriend this past week, but thankfully, she was so busy with university that she barely noticed. The fact that the game does not hold your hand through everything as past Zelda games usually did means that it leaves you wanting more. It makes you curious. Even as you put the game down, you keep thinking new solutions for puzzles you have yet to solve. The game makes you want to know what happens if you explore just a little further. It teases you with rewards, such as with the Treacherous Tower. Sure, you beat it on easy and intermediate, but "why don't you try advanced?", asks the tower's guardian. "I bet the reward would be immense!".
The game itself, its mechanics, are superb as usual. Everything has a purpose, and while some dungeons may appear devilish in their execution, everything is logical. If you are like me, you'll spend more time than necessary on some puzzles, and you'll think to yourself "this dungeon is messed up, it's all over the place", and then the solution will hit you in the face harder than a ton of bricks. How could I have not seen this before? The dungeons' design are a lot more free-form than in other Zelda games. You could possibly finish a dungeon without finding the compass which shows all the treasure chests on your map. Hell, you could finish a dungeon without finding the treasure hidden inside. It happened to me. Only later in the game, when I felt that something was missing, did I go back in each and every dungeon to open every chest I had neglected. The game doesn't punish you for such mistakes, but things certainly become easier once you find everything.
The story of the game, strangely, is the only thing which I found to be lacking. It is not a bad story at all. It is actually quite touching and well thought-out. Without going into spoilers, the Kingdom of Hyrule has a mirror world in another dimension called "Lorule" (cringe face) which has lost its triforce a long time ago. An evil guy named Yuga has thus invaded Hyrule, kidnapped the princess and her part of the triforce, and fled back to Lorule. It is now Link's mission to travel between the two dimensions and save EVERYTHING. The worlds, the princess, the triforce. It is a fine story in itself. My only problem is that it felt very similar, like a mix of A Link to the Past and Twilight Princess. The dichotomy of Hyrule versus a similar world has been explored many times before. While the characters introduced in A Link Between Worlds are all new and fascinating in their own right (Ravio the shady squatter particularly), I can't help but associate their plight to other games I have played before. Thankfully, despite the resemblance, the game mostly uses the reheated story as a setup to introduce a new gameplay mechanic.
The new idea in this game is that Link can now flatten himself into a painting, and move along walls and through cracks to solve puzzles. It opens up a multitude of possibilities when it comes to both solving puzzles and exploring the world. Places that seem out of reach can be attained with some clever transformations. It injects the game with some interesting riddles, especially when it comes to reaching side quest items out in plain sights, but seemingly impossible to get.
Once the game is over, you are offered to start a new game, this one on a setting they call "Hero Difficulty". It is the same game, but the enemies are tougher. The items and dungeons are in the same places, the puzzles are the same, which would technically make a second playthrough much easier. However, the game is so much fun and so addictive that I just might do it, as soon as I finish the Master Quest in Ocarina of Time (I told you I was bad at finishing what I started).
Overall, I am not quite sure yet where I would put A Link Between Worlds in my official ranking of the Zelda series. The experience is still too fresh in my mind. I need to give it a bit of time so I can start feeling nostalgic about it, the same way I do about Ocarina of Time or The Wind Waker. However, I can tell you that it will most probably be in the top 5. I can also tell you that as a standalone game, separate from all of the other Zelda products, it is a masterpiece, and one of the best portable adventures available.
All I am saying is, no matter how you look at it, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is a tremendous game.
FINAL SCORE:
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