It's finally time for me to review a Zelda game! This is far from the first game I've played in the series, that honor goes to Oracle of Ages on the Game Boy Color. I played the Game Boy Advance port of the predecessor of this game, A Link to the Past on my handheld. I loved it and now own the original Super Nintendo release, and still have my original boxes for Oracle of Ages, GBA Link to the Past, and the Minish Cap. Since I went so long without a home Nintendo console, it was only recently that I picked those up. A Link Between Worlds is the most recent original game in the long running series and was released in 2013 for the Nintendo's 3DS. It uses the world design and map of A Link to the Past as a base, and weaves a new tale in a familiar world.



The Zelda games always seem to have some identifying mechanic at their core to make each individual title stand out. Wind Waker's sailing, the Wolf Link in Twilight Princess, time jumps in Ocarina of Time, masks in Majora's Mask, and so on. In Link Between Worlds, you can turn into a painting on the wall and scoot along it, moving to floating platforms or through small cracks to get past certain rooms and into secret areas. There are also some cracks in the overworld that occur after a certain event that become your method of travel between Hyrule and the replacement to the old Dark World, Lorule. "High" and "Low," get it? Lorule is dark and its princess, Hilda, calls upon Link to help gather up the descendants of the Seven Sages to save both worlds. Of course, this calling comes after you do your basic pendant gathering, which will be familiar tor fans of the first game.

Link Between Worlds really does feel like Nintendo's version of fan service. They take something familiar and dear to a lot of their fans, and modernized it. I feel like I'm playing A Link to the Past again, but the story's different, and the wall running adds just enough to where it doesn't feel like another Game Boy Advance port! The early dungeons and some of the bosses are quite familiar as well, but some require different tactics than you used before to defeat them, since you have all kinds of fun, new toys and abilities to play with.


Something that old school Zelda fans may miss in Link Between Worlds is the way dungeons feel. You don't unlock new items within the dungeons, but instead, you rent and later buy them. You can rent most of the items early on in the game, with many stragglers unlocked by getting through a certain area of the game. This style opens the game up, so that it doesn't feel like a completely linear run through the dungeons. The early part feels a bit linear, but once the world opens up and you can get to Lorule, there are few restrictions regarding which dungeon you can go to. Sacrificing the old way of finding items in dungeons and implementing this new system actually opens the world up to different play and exploration styles!

I did not notice many weaknesses about this game. Any time I died or made a mistake, it was entirely my fault and not due to the game having a badly designed room or poor controls. Everything about this game flows well. There are parts that may take a bit of trial and error or memorization, but its never enough to significantly alter the flow of the game. Since I have a 3DS XL, I also tried out the game's 3D capabilities. At first glance, you may think that the feature is worthless in a top down Zelda, but I found that there were certain areas that felt easier and flowed better and allowed for better timing than in 2D.

What stood out to me the most in Link Between Worlds was the game's story. I felt that this game had  the darkest story with the most urgency since Majora's Mask. It doesn't go beyond the story of that game of course, but it does delve deeper into the purpose of the Sages and the Triforce's impact and power on the worlds of Hyrule and Lorule. The ending was wrapped up neatly and with good explanation in the traditional Zelda style. The journey to the ending was one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I've had with a handheld game in a long time, and I highly recommended it!

Permalink | Comments [4] | Digg This Article | Tweet