A Link to the Future
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is a game filled to the brim with joy. It is a refreshing new take on a series that has started to show its age, but still holding in high esteem what made the series great to begin with. My main complaint with the past few Zelda games has been the length, not that I have a problem playing long games, but Zelda games so rarely justify their length in gameplay variety or narrative, instead padding out the latter halves of games with mindless fetch quests and enormous dungeons to trudge through. Instead, A Link Between Worlds trims the fat, and reduces the game down to world exploration and dungeons, which can be approached in mostly any order, and keeps the length down to a fast paced twenty hours as opposed to a thirty-five hour slog.
A Link Between Worlds has a few new mechanics that add a surprising amount of depth. Nintendo pushed the wall painting merge mechanic hard with the marketing of the game, starting with its reveal, and it looked too boring and gimmicky to make an interesting core mechanic to a game. However, oddly enough its justified completely in the narrative, and it adds an entirely new dimension to the dungeons. Instead of obsessing over the floor to figure out how to proceed, now you need to look just as closely at the walls. It doesn’t sound like much, but it dramatically changes how you approach each dungeon.
Secondly, A Link Between Worlds lets you rent or buy most items in the game from the get-go. Within the first two hours of the game, Link’s house gets transformed into a bizarre item store that has most of the classic Zelda items for rent or purchase. For a paltry sum of rupees, you can rent an item, and it stays in your inventory until you fall in battle. For a large sum of rupees you can purchase the item forever. There are benefits to doing either. If you rent, you will save hundreds of rupees, but there is always that fear of dying in battle, which, during boss battles in particular, adds a Dark Soulsian level of excitement. If you purchase, you spend a hefty sum of money but you later unlock the ability to upgrade the items, and the knowledge that those items will be with you forever is satisfying in its own way. I only purchased two items, the bombs and hookshot, during my play through. I had plenty of money by the end to buy everything because there is no limit to the rupees you can have on hand, but I enjoyed the danger of dying too much and the upgrades were not helpful enough to justify the time spent collecting the creatures necessary to actually make the upgrades. Dungeons in A Link Between Worlds are designed to be quick but still filled with puzzles. I only got stuck in one of the later dungeons, but the other dungeons had a very appropriate level of difficulty, both in the combat and puzzles. Most of them require the deft use of wall merging, and it usually helps to have a few specific items with you, most notably the bombs. If an item is required for the completion of a dungeon, it will be required to enter, so if you have trouble, you at least have the peace of mind that all the tools required are in Link’s item bag. Instead of finding the special item in the dungeon that makes all the puzzles doable like in past Zelda games, hidden away in sometimes easily missable areas are upgrade items that increases Link’s power. Examples include the Blue and Red Mail which reduce damage received and Master Ore which can be used to increase the power of Link’s blade. The special items make it critical to explore every nook and cranny, and they usually add an extra level of difficulty past merely reaching the boss chamber.
Combat is incredibly fast and fluid in A Link Between Worlds. Having all the combat items available to Link at the beginning of the game allows the player to customize their own play style, instead of trudging through the game just to get to the one item that is actually fun to use. You can defeat most enemies with just Link’s sword, swiping away fast and hard, but I found that using the hook shot to stun or disarm my foes was even more rewarding, also I found it helpful to always carry bombs with me to quickly take out large groups of enemies. Luckily, items like the bow and bombs do not have an ammo count, as you can use them as much as Link’s stamina bar allows. Because the combat is so much faster than it has been in the past, the bosses require much more speed and precision to defeat, instead of being large puzzles that must be solved three times consecutively.
The world in A Link Between Worlds is just as fun to explore as the dungeons. Early in the game, Link meets a witch who lets him fast travel to each save point previously visited which allows the player to run around the far reaches of the map because it’s as easy as a button press to get back to civilization. After completing the initial dungeons, an entire new world, Lorule, is opened. In Lorule, Link gains access to seven of the final eight dungeons to be completed in any order, but to reach them you have to explore both worlds, using the rifts that connect them to your advantage. In order for a narrative to drag, it needs to be front and center long enough to get boring, and I will say that the plot of A Link Between Worlds is exceedingly dull. Thankfully, however, the game bucks another Nintendo trend in that it never gets overly talky, and the plot stays comfortably in the background for the entire game, so it never interrupts the kinetic energy of the gameplay. The story follows Link, a young blacksmith apprentice, on his journey to become the “Hero of Legend" in order to rescue Princess Zelda and the Seven Sages who have been trapped in paintings and kidnapped. The biggest compliment I can give it in general is that it propels the action forward and concludes satisfactorily.
Technically speaking the game looks and runs great on the 3DS. At a crisp 60 fps, Link controls better than ever. Unfortunately, the game is lacking any interesting aesthetic style, but the way Nintendo uses verticality brings a whole new way of approaching the dungeons. Each dungeon has floors, and you can often hop between them, or at the very least see where you came from. The 3D visuals work great with the 3D of the 3DS turned on or off, although having the 3D turned up will help in a few otherwise frustrating platforming segments.
The music of the Zelda franchise has always been a highpoint for me. In its grandeur and adventure soaked themes, it has set the epic tone for the series. A Link Between Worlds does not disappoint in this area. In fact for fans of the series, A Link to the Past in particular, there is a lot of fun to be had listening to the old themes played in new ways. The rest of the audio works well too, but is appropriately overshadowed by the excellent score. Thankfully, I never heard any of the distracting grunts or sighs that often plague games without voice acting.
A Link Between Worlds’ swift combat and fun bite sized puzzle design comes together to make what is definitely the best handheld Zelda game since Link’s Awakening, and it stands easily with the very best of its console brethren. It offers enough changes to the formula to make it an incredible game for those who have been burned by the past few Zelda releases, but while still having a great reverence for the games of old.
