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[orthodoxy1095]

So the game discourages exploration but is also not good because it requires that you explore it to find multiple key items?

Seems pretty contradictory to me.

Also I massively disagree with the notion that it has one of the boringest overworked in a series that has the empty fields of OoT, MM, and TP.

Wouldn't that be the point? Contradictory pieces of design that cause a conflict in the user experience?

"Why I like a game less than other people."

Don't use the term "overrated" OP. It doesn't make your opinion more objective or more valuable than the concensus.

Nor is consensus necessarily a useful marker for quality.

 

[QisTopTier]

Majora's Mask sure but Ocarina of Time?

Yes, I couldn't stand the game even when it was new

The only 3d zeldas I enjoyed are WW and TP

 

[dragonzdogma]

First time I've ever heard Zelda lttp being called overrated, anyone else?

 

[Azcyatl]

———-
Conclusion
And last, I have never liked the look of the characters in this game. Link is somewhat odd-looking here; I don’t mind the pink hair, but the art style is just a little weird. Enemy sprites are even stranger. The backgrounds and music are both great, and the game mostly runs well though it has significant slowdown at times on the SNES, but the character art is just off a bit, compared to the better-looking Zelda games.

Also, i think OP just bombed his full length analysis including this personal taste phrase in the conclusion

 

[LinkNL]

Lol only the music in that game makes it allready the Best game ever.

Can you name a few games during the same console generation that where better than this game plz? Any console will do.

 

[Look! The Pie!]

Being unnecessarily verbose doesn't aid the discussion.

OP feels that there's no call for exploration, but complains about "secret" areas and items being too hard to find. Heck, most of the complaints are that the game is too hard and doesn't hold the player's hand enough or doesn't have enough cheap filler. I do agree that having only one item slot is unfortunate, though, and that the map isn't as interesting as OG TLoZ.

OoT and MM are easily the most overrated games in the series.

This.
I couldn't even bring myself to finish Majora's Mask (will probably never understand why it's so beloved), and IMO people tend to overlook many of Ocarina's flaws because it was the first 3D Zelda. A Link to the Past is one of the few games in the series I can replay over and over and still enjoy every minute of.

 

[Glitchesarecool]

OP likes Link's Awakening more and that's why LTTP isn't as good. Which is a fine opinion to have but the thread title and introduction is misleading. You're also doing a lot of comparisons to future iterations of the series which isn't exactly fair considering the developers could learn from the lessons of LTTP and improve on them.

Try to use another word other than 'overrated' for this kind of thing, find something more neutral.

Also putting up a spoiler warning for a game that came out in the 90s is really weird.

Also, i think OP just bombed his full length analysis including this personal taste phrase in the conclusion

For the most part, this thing is OP's personal taste.

 

[christaran]

Context called and says that you're factually wrong.

 

[Aeana]

Look, guys, if you don't want to read what he wrote, then your response to the thread is meaningless. "im not going 2 read what u wrote but ur wrong" is essentially "tl;dr," which is not welcome here for obvious reasons. If you don't plan to engage with what's written here then do not post.

 

[petran79]

Lol only the music in that game makes it allready the Best game ever.

Can you name a few games during the same console generation that where better than this game plz? Any console will do.

Ys IV with English dub!

https://youtu.be/3rg96pCYtPY?t=1843

 

[inner-G]

This is my second favorite Zelda after the original

The series lost something intangible when it went to 3D, that it has never been able to get back.

It has a sense of charm and style unique to it and maybe links awakening.

 

[decoyplatypus]

1) Interface & Map: Next, the interface is dated and the in-game map system, the one you bring up with the X button, could be better. Over time, the number of items you can have equipped at once in Zelda games has increased. From only one in the first couple of titles, it went up to two in LA and three in OoT, and it has stayed at at least two in most every Zelda game since. But in this game, you can only equip one item at a time, apart from your sword and shield, which are permanently mapped to buttons.

The fact that your sword and shield are permanently equipped is not a small consideration. It means you actually have to switch items far less than you do in Link's Awakening. The item menu is also quite fast to navigate.

why do you need to know how many bombs and arrows you have on screen at all times? That is not such essential information that having this on screen all the time makes sense, versus the solution later games use which is to just put a number on each item that has a limited quantity of uses. That is the better design than this.

I find it pretty convenient to have the bomb information visible early in the game when running out can be an annoyance. But the modern convention is fine too.

Still, the overworld maps in LttP is a very detailed depiction of each of the two worlds in the game, so it is a useful map that makes navigating in this game easier. The map is great for that. But by showing you the whole map of it from the start, for me this discourages me a bit from exploring as much as I would in an LA or an Oracles game. And when you combine this with LttP's decent but sometimes annoying item-switch menu and on-screen display, you get something that is good, but not as great as the best Zelda games in this category.

I sort of get where you're coming from on the pleasure of filling in map tiles, but I don't see that having the full map discourages exploration. The map isn't the land. You still have to go to the Kakariko village to learn who lives there and what they do. The map won't tell you anything about what the Lost Woods look like or what is inside the Death Mountain caves. And in my experience, seeing a few landmarks or geographical oddities on the map actually inspires exploration. Remember, this isn't a 3D game where you can literally see a mountain in the distance.

These changes make combat harder than it should be because you've got to get close to enemies in order to hurt them with your main weapon, the sword, and this increases the chances you will take damage. This is a regular issue throughout the game and does hold it back. I'm still not used to the sword's limited range in this game, really. This is a significant issue with LttP.

I don't understand what you mean by "harder than it should be." How hard should it be?

And second, like in the first game for the NES, while you have a shield, it is nearly useless. In this game, unlike almost any newer newer Zelda game, the shield is only for blocking projectile attacks such as arrows and has no function outside of that. Blocking arrows can be useful, but blocking regular enemies and their attacks is far more important! In comparison, in most Zelda games from Link's Awakening and on, the shield is vitally important during combat because it blocks enemy attacks. Going from that back to this game with its very basic and limited arrows-and-such-only shield is not pleasant. While most third and fourth-gen action-adventure and action-RPG games don't have shields able to hold back enemies either, some games do, and walking around with this shield on your sprite that serves almost no purpose is kind of frustrating. It's like, you have a shield Link, use it when that enemy walks into you! But no, they didn't think of that idea until Link's Awakening. Ah well.

Well, again, you have pointed out a difference between the combat design of LttP and later Zelda games, but I don't think you've made a case for why one is better. Your main critique seems to be that you expect the shield to do more, particularly coming from later games. Okay. But the game communicates well enough what the shield does and doesn't do. Is there a reason that the ability to block projectiles but not melee attacks is confusing for you?

So, when I think of the game world in LttP, I think of a large and open map that is mostly decently designed, but just is not as interesting to explore as the maps in the top Zelda games. Yes, exploring the world can be a lot of fun in that classically Zelda way, and there are interesting areas to find as you look around, puzzles to solve, and more, but most of the map is mostly-empty and feels like it's just there to take up space. When you first reach the desert and can run through it in five seconds to your goal and that's the end of that, how is this supposed to be good world design? You'd never see this in Link's Awakening or a 3d Zelda game! When exploring around the map in this game, looking for those scattered areas which actually are important, most of the time you instead just run in to more of the usual boring too-open spaces full of random enemies to run past or maybe fight if you want filling most of the space, with corners that serve no purpose more often than not to the edges. It's hard to keep up my interest in finding the areas that are important, the places that have items like those below I couldn't find, when I find most of the map so forgettable.

I see this complaint a lot (mostly from LA fans), and I can't say I understand it at all. LttP's map is pretty small. It takes less than a minute to walk the width of it. It is nothing like crossing Hyrule Field in OoT or TP (or the great Ocean in WW). This is a small, dense map. But it trades off a bit of density in exchange for navigability. This is a good thing! I actually prefer searching for secrets in LttP and LBW because I know that I am never more than a minute from testing out whatever idea I have. In Link's Awakening, by contrast, moving around the map is a herky-jerky affair as you cycle through the items you need for each tiny screen (and get the same pop-up message a thousand times for accidentally walking into a stone you're supposed to lift).

LttP does do one thing which mixes things up in terms of map design, though: it introduces the concept of multiple game maps to the Zelda series. . . . It's not quite as cool as having an all-new second world would be, but it requires a lot less work and seeing an alternate version of the same world can be interesting for sure, so it does work.

It's pretty important that the layout be largely similar. I mean, warping between specific geographic points is a core game mechanic! It sets up some fun exploration and puzzles!

And as for the games' ending, the less said the better; there barely even is an ending, beyond a very basic ‘you win' sequence. It's a far cry from the endings of most any newer Zelda game.

It's a simple story, and it has a simple payoff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JU0C_l4aac

Try listening again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJh3D_zX0To

The causes of this are interlocking, but I'll try to break it up. On the point about linearity, Zelda dungeons are usually fairly open levels with a somewhat disguised linear structure, as you explore the dungeon trying to figure out its puzzles and defeat the foes within. There is always a progression to the dungeon, but in most Zelda games, getting through a dungeon doesn't take too too long if you have gotten the keys, been through it before, and such. I felt like that is less the case here; some dungeons are like that, but others, the Ice Palace and Misery Mire worst of all, are long linear corridors with no shortcuts, a design that forces you to replay those whole tough dungeons over and over from the start. Those aren't the only too-linear dungeons in this game, either, as it's a common design in LttP. Misery Mire is where I quit playing the GBA version of this game for good, and it's easy to see why, really. The dungeons before and after those are mostly better, with one very important exception I will discuss later, but they do still have some issues.

I don't believe I've ever heard Misery Mire described as linear before. The Ice Palace isn't exactly a straight-line either.

And lastly, one of the later dungeons, Turtle Rock, is mostly a pretty cool dungeon... except for one thing: at the end, there is a special door. This door requires you have both the Ice and Fire Rod items, which you will need to use to get through to the boss. The Fire Rod is a regular item you get in a dungeon earlier in the game, so that's no problem, but the Ice Rod is one of those items hidden in a random cave with few clues. I didn't know the Ice Rod existed until reaching this door, as the incredibly vague ”hint" Sahasrahla gives at the dungeon entrance really does not help one bit, so naturally I didn't have it. I will discuss this awful design decision again later, but I had to leave the dungeon, look up in a FAQ where the cave with the required item is, spend a quite frustrating time wandering around Lake Hylia looking for the right cave, finally find the right one, get the item, go back to the dungeon, and restart it from scratch because of course I had to, this game has no shortcuts. It took a little less time the second time, as I knew what to do, but still, this was an absolutely unacceptable design and if I'd stopped playing forever at that point I wouldn't blame myself one bit.

An NPC you have to meet tells you to explore the caves east of Lake Hylia. The map that you criticized earlier also pretty clearly shows an interesting location there. There are only two obvious caves (and a third hidden one), one shows you the ice rod, and one leads you to it. I was gonna concede the game could have included the ice rod in Sahasralah's warning at the dungeon entrance, but something about "if I'd stopped playing forever I wouldn't blame myself" makes me wanna say GIT GUD instead.

The defense I've always gotten when I say this is that some people enjoy this kind of exploration in a way I never have, and that the game has clues for most of these items. The former is just a difference of opinion, but for the latter defense, I find those ”clues" either so subtle that I don't notice them, or so vague that they're useless; I would never, ever have finished this game without a guide. In fact, when I first bought this game for the GBA, I quit playing in one of these points, as I gave up without figuring out how to get in to Misery Mire. I could have looked it up online again and found out what the required item was and where to find it (it's called the Ether Medallion), but having to do that repeatedly in a game I wasn't loving anyway just didn't seem worth it again, so I dropped the game there.

I remain perplexed by the fact that you love filling in all the tiles on LA's map but can't be bothered to explore dramatic landmarks in LttP.

6B) The Quake Medallion – This required item is found in a pond in a random corner of the map. You don't get any real clues to its existence this time, you've just got to have explored enough to find this spot, and figured out that there is a puzzle here as well. You see, there's a sign near the pool which says ”do not throw items in the water", so naturally this means you need to throw things in. Throw in enough stuff, and you get the Quake Medallion. There are no clues to this item's existence beyond that one sign, and as not all signs refer to required items, not by a longshot, that's one weak clue! All of the medallions are, again, required, and hiding a required item off in an obscure corner of the map, with only a hint that anything is even there, is too much. This is another thing I did not figure out while playing the game and needed a guide to find; I just hadn't found this corner of the map. Since this item is not one with any real hints but just something you need to find the problem some of these items have about the hints being long before the item is needed does not apply here, but the core problem of a required item hidden off somewhere with minimal hints to its existence remains. I have no problem at all with Zelda games hiding optional items like this one is; it's kind of a clever puzzle, really, once you find the pool. However, required ones should not be so hard to find!

I mean, it's a strange ring of stones in the middle of the pond. Even without the sign, most players would throw something in.

6C) The Flute – But getting the Flute itself is kind of tricky.

It's really not. If you're exploring landmarks and talking to NPCs, you're bound to meet the flute boy and his dad. And by the time you reach the boy in dark world, the idea of warping back and forth between worlds should be firmly established in your mind.

6E) The Bombos Medallion – The third medallion is hidden in a corner of the Dark World. I didn't have as hard a time finding this one as I did the other two, as I don't remember being stuck at this part, but that may have just been luck. As with the other two this is a required item with no substantive hints referencing its existence.

It's not required, and you pass by the marker early in the game, so you will naturally be looking for ways to reach it once you get to the equivalent area in dark world.

6H) Silver Arrows – At the very end of the game, if you want to defeat the final boss, you need to shoot him with a special alternate type of arrow called the Silver Arrows. There is no clue in the game that this item even exists until you get them, so I'm sure many people got close to the end, only to realize that they couldn't damage the final boss after a certain point and must be missing something. This is one thing on this list here I did know about the likely existence of when I first reached the end, though, because Silver Arrows also exist in the great early '90s Zelda comic in Nintendo Power that was loosely based on this game, and I've read that comic multiple times and like it quite a bit. So, I did think to look for them before trying to beat Ganon, but the location sure is obscure! Right in Ganon's Pyramid, the central building of the Dark World, if you destroy this one particular panel with a Super Bomb, it creates an opening into the place the silver arrows are hidden. The panel is cracked but won't break from a normal bomb, so that is sort of a clue you need something more, but that this panel holds anything particularly important behind it, or how to break it, is of course not mentioned anywhere.

???

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Yes, I couldn't stand the game even when it was new

The only 3d zeldas I enjoyed are WW and TP

Those build upon Ocarina of Time, hell one of those is Ocarina of Time.

 

[Mokujin]

Not in the mood of reading it right now, but I'm guessing that probably you weren't there at the time of release, otherwise you can't by any stretch call it overrated.

This post can be ignored as I'm being so lazy though.

 

[Neff]

Poor Map & World Design

what the fuck did i just read

 

[ReBirFh]

Thanks for this, just started playing and your criticism will help me to find those critical items.

 

[kitsuneyo]

I haven't read your excessively long essay OP but the game was something else on release. Incredible sense of exploration and discovery. Also what's with the self-promotion, leave it out.

 

[QisTopTier]

Those build upon Ocarina of Time, hell one of those is Ocarina of Time.

Yup, but it's also not OoT jank framerate, stiff combat, and hyper ugly early 3d

OoT was ambitious but I don't think it's best of all time tier, "had to be there" disqualifies that to me

 

[Nairume]

An NPC you have to meet tells you to explore the caves east of Lake Hylia. The map that you criticized earlier also pretty clearly shows an interesting location there. There are only two obvious caves (and a third hidden one), one shows you the ice rod, and one leads you to it. I was gonna concede the game could have included the ice rod in Sahasralah's warning at the dungeon entrance, but something about "if I'd stopped playing forever I wouldn't blame myself" makes me wanna say GIT GUD instead.

Not to mention the door things is wrong to begin with.

That was taken in Trinexx's lair. No sequence breaks or anything. You can get to the boss without the ice rod.

Spoiler

And, yes, I realize that it's a moot point since you can't beat Trinexx without it, but still.

The fact that your sword and shield are permanently equipped is not a small consideration. It means you actually have to switch items far less than you do in Link's Awakening. The item menu is also quite fast to navigate.

Don't forget the pegasus boots and power gloves being quickmapped to a single button.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Yup, but it's also not OoT jank framerate, stiff combat, and hyper ugly early 3d

You should play the 3DS version then. All of those problems (which weren't a big deal in the first place) are gone.

 

[QisTopTier]

You should play the 3DS version then. All of those problems (which weren't a big deal in the first place) are gone.

Played it, combat still was unfun. Not a fan of the dungeons in general. I just never like it xD

 

[decoyplatypus]

Not to mention the door things is wrong to begin with.

That was taken in Trinexx's lair. No sequence breaks or anything. You can get to the boss without the ice rod.

Spoiler

And, yes, I realize that it's a moot point since you can't beat Trinexx without it, but still.

Yeah, I wasn't quite sure what door he was talking about, but

Spoiler

like you, I figured it was sort of a moot point.

Don't forget the pegasus boots and power gloves being quickmapped to a single button.

Good point!

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Not in the mood of reading it right now, but I'm guessing that probably you weren't there at the time of release, otherwise you can't by any stretch call it overrated.

This post can be ignored as I'm being so lazy though.

"Having to be there" always seems like a fairly weak piece of defense to me.

 

[Nairume]

Good point!

I think the other thing to consider is that while having more items would be nice, it's really not that necessary with how the game is laid out. It's easy to compare how Link's Awakening let you chose more items at a time, but it was also designed in a way where you had to switch up pretty frequently.

While there are definitely a few points in LttP where it would be convenient to slot more than one sub weapon, the vast majority of the game is honestly set up in a way that you can get by without having to spend too much time jumping back and forth to the menu like you do in the gameboy games. Any future remakes absolutely should work that into the game, but I don't really think it's even remotely fair to dog LttP for not doing it.

 

[Earthpainting]

You hit on several of the points why LttP is on the lower end of the Zelda spectrum in my book. The problems for me can be broken down into two categories, but their consequences spread throughout pretty much the entire thing.

The first one has to do with the items. There's a lot of them, and they're pretty great. Sadly enough, their utility is really limited, like they designers didn't really know how to use them. The game usually adds a single obstacle in your way as a proof of concept for the item, and then kind of moves on from it entirely. Sometimes this is in the form of a single small puzzle or an item required to harm the boss, or sometimes a combination of both if you're really lucky. When you compare how items work to items are handled in the later entries, all items have a proof-of-concept phase where they show their core functionality, slightly escalated takes on that concept get put to the test both in puzzles and combat (which the game had been visually teasing you with), you get introduced introduced to some out-of-the-box twists on their initial usage, and finally you get like a big final exam that combines everything. The latter usually happens again in the boss battle itself. A Link to the Past usually gets stuck in that proof-of-concept stage, and rarely ever evolves beyond it. This approach makes the dungeons pretty puzzle-starved and featureless when you compare it to any entry after it. Often it doesn't even bother with making you use the newly acquired item in the dungeon's boss fight. Quite a few of the game's bosses are straight up dull sword fights, and the OP does a decent job at detailing the state of the sword-combat in this game. When the developers thoroughly explore the design of the items, it just makes the game world feel interactive in meaningful ways that few other franchises do, so it's sad to see how simplistic and limited it used to be. I feel like Link's Awakening was the first Zelda to properly use its items in the way a modern Zelda game does, and I bet it's because the Gameboy's lack of buttons lead to the sword losing its dedicated button. When the sword became more optional, the designers had to find ways to compensate for interactions with the game world in other ways. This lead to more usage out of your gear, which in turn would dictate what would populate the dungeons.

This flows into the second issue for me, which is the world itself. This one is a little harder to unpack because of how far-reaching it is, but the short version of it is that the entire game lacks flavour and character. The simplest example of it is how the game treats its characters. Aside from the staple three cast members, A Link to the Past has very few named characters, and the majority of the characters are stuff like "Flute Boy", "Blacksmith", "Bully", "Lumberjack", "Maiden", "Witch", "Uncle", etc. Some of the named characters, like Sahasrahlavladiblahblibbidometh, are so void of personality that they might as well be called "Old Man" too. This same type of blandness extends to many of the dungeons as well. Much like the Zeldas before it, many of these dungeons both look and sound like they were recycled from other dungeons. I understand the need for this on the NES, where audiovisual limitations were a lot stricter, as well in terms of cart size, but there really was no excuse for the Super Nintendo. Attempts at theming were made here and there, like in the water, ice and desert dungeons, and these ended up being the dungeons that stuck with me the most. Sadly enough they also just make the times when they didn't bother stand out all the more.

I genuinely have trouble describing what makes A Link to the Past stand out, or thinking of things it excels at, when taking the rest of the series into account. This is partially because the other entries built on the foundation that this game laid, but also because its quantity over quality approach didn't seem to allow it to aspire for anything more. Luckily Nintendo showed us how they'd do things if they were given another stab at it with A Link Between Worlds. It improved on its predecessor in virtually every single way, and shows how far the series has evolved in terms of item usage, dungeon design and characterisation.

I don't believe I've ever heard Misery Mire described as linear before.

I don't think it's unfair to say that Misery Mire becomes pretty linear once you get the big key. A lot of ALTTP dungeons are structured in such a way that a third of the dungeon is sectioned off, and that last part is pretty straight forward. I'm not sure if that's necessarily a bad thing in itself though. It adds a bit of structure, which improves the flow. Once you get the big key and item, it's nice for the game to make you feel like you're on top of things and hurries you along to the finish line. GAF's very own McBacon is doing a pretty cool series on his Youtube channel called "Boss Keys" on this very subject. Highly recommended if you're interested in Zelda's dungeon design.

 

[DarkConfidant]

Also, i think OP just bombed his full length analysis including this personal taste phrase in the conclusion

Really? I thought it happened when they said:

"Please note, this is not a review; it is, instead, a list of most of the points of criticism I have about this game, with details about why each one is an issue."

Reviewing thoughts about and aspects of a game is a review.

 

[Beegeous]

The issue that I've got with LttP is that I played it after OoT so the structure, and by proxy the story, were already trodden ground for me (I got a Mega Drive instead of a SNES one Christmas hence skipping LttP).

Twin the above with the fact that the first Zelda game I ever played was Link's Awakening on my GB in 94 (the pinnacle of 2D Zelda), LttP just didn't do it for me.

 

[decoyplatypus]

This same type of blandness extends to many of the dungeons as well. Much like the Zeldas before it, many of these dungeons both look and sound like they were recycled from other dungeons. I understand the need for this on the NES, where audiovisual limitations were a lot stricter, as well in terms of cart size, but there really was no excuse for the Super Nintendo. Attempts at theming were made here and there, like in the water, ice and desert dungeons, and these ended up being the dungeons that stuck with me the most. Sadly enough they also just make the times when they didn't bother stand out all the more.

The dungeons are pretty distinctive.

Hyrule Castle = It's an actual castle. Unique music and color scheme.
Eastern Palace = Pretty basic, but it's a first dungeon. Blue tile floors and green walls.
Desert Palace = Well, it's full of sand, it's got multiple entrances and exits, and you can ignore a good portion of what's in the first large section.
Tower of Hera = This is considerably more vertical than any prior dungeon, and the whole dungeon operates on switch puzzles. Plus it's got distinct, reddish-brown walls.
Palace of Darkness = Gray color scheme, lots of dark rooms, a memorable central room with a middle platform and various switches/locked doors/gaps setting off the various exits.
Swamp Palace = It's full of water.
Skull Woods = The dungeon requires you to navigate through several entrances in the Lost Woods, some of which are skulls.
Thieves' Town = The first several rooms of this dungeon are a highly distinctive labyrinth, and of course the lower floors introduce the central gimmick of a maiden you need to lead to the boss room.
Ice Palace = It's full of ice.
Misery Mire = The walls are sludgy, the whole place is sickly green, and there are wizrobes all over. Plus it's got that cool hub room with the multiple layers.
Turtle Rock = You create your own floating platform to ride around bottomless pits. There are some dramatic exterior scenes on Death Mountain and giant pipes that funnel you around.
Ganon's Tower = It's Ganon's Tower.

I don't think it's unfair to say that Misery Mire becomes pretty linear once you get the big key. A lot of ALTTP dungeons are structured in such a way that a third of the dungeon is sectioned off, and that last part is pretty straight forward. I'm not sure if that's necessarily a bad thing in itself though. It adds a bit of structure, which improves the flow. Once you get the big key and item, it's nice for the game to make you feel like you're on top of things and hurries you along to the finish line. GAF's very own McBacon is doing a pretty cool series on his Youtube channel called "Boss Keys" on this very subject. Highly recommended if you're interested in Zelda's dungeon design.

I don't disagree Misery Mire becomes linear when you have the boss key, but that doesn't make the dungeon itself linear. And for most players, getting the boss key and the dungeon item is going to involve some exploratory circling around the dungeon's many rooms.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Played it, combat still was unfun. Not a fan of the dungeons in general. I just never like it xD

That still doesn't make the game overrated.

 

[Nairume]

I also strongly disagree with the idea of the world being empty and dull.

It's easy to write off the characters like Lumberjack Brothers because they aren't named characters who have a lot of dialog, but the game still gives a ton of character to them by having a little story about them unfolding where they are initially kept from being able to do any lumberjacking, then emerging from their home in excitement after Link pulling the Master Sword, only to fall sick from the tree they start cutting being tinged with evil magic. Likewise, even if they don't have names, you still get a wonderful little story about the old man and the music boy where the only difference between it and, say, something similar in OoT is that they don't have names and you don't get the kind of 3D doll gesticulating you get in the 3D games. Even random little people like the guy sleeping under the one bridge who gives you the bottle or the townsfolk who run from link and call the guards because he's been framed for Zelda's disappearance did a lot to build up the world when you remember that in 1991, the prior standard for NPCs in Zelda and most action adventure games in general were that NPCs were static characters that just stood around in town/caves and gave you brief little dialog boxes.

Sure, you could shit on it for not doing more by comparing it Link's Awakening and subsequent games giving even more focus to building up characters on the periphery, but that'd still be wrong headed because those games are literally building on the foundation that LttP helped establish.

 

[oatmeal]

The hell is going on in here?

 

[Nilaul]

Links Awakening and Oracles games >>> LTTP

 

[The Hermit]

Op how many people are u expecting will read this.

the main reason I have black falcon on ignore is that every post is a goddamn essay.

 

[A Black Falcon]

This new thread title isn't that good because it doesn't bring across the purpose of what I wrote. I didn't write this to just write up "my thoughts" on the game; that would be a very different article, with different contents that cover all aspects of the game, not only the problems. No, this is a work of criticism, and the thread title should reflect that. It could be rephrased, but the key point that the work is a critique is important to bring across in the title, not only in the text itself.

So, I renamed the headline in the first post to "A Criticism of Zelda: A Link to the Past". Hopefully whoever changed the thread name will change it to this.

Beyond that, it's nice to see one of the things I write get a bunch of replies here for once, it's been a while...

You can't use the word over rated and then try and make it factual that it is.

Anything about "rating" with regards to gaming is a statement of opinion, so this comment makes no sense. Ratings are opinions.

So the game discourages exploration but is also not good because it requires that you explore it to find multiple key items?

Yes, and I did my best to explain exactly why this is in the article. The game requires you do do that NES-style exploration stuff of randomly wandering around looking for hidden things. Two problems, though: first, I find the world boring due to all the reasons I stated. And second, I have never enjoyed that kind of game design, as I want to have a clue about what I should be doing in a game. So, the actual gameworld and design, and what they want you to do in that world, conflict. The best Zelda games do not have this problem because they have better-designed, more interesting worlds, and don't hide required items in random corners with minimal clues.

Seems pretty contradictory to me.

LttP requires me to do something which goes against how I found it fun to play the game. The game is contradictory.

Also I massively disagree with the notion that it has one of the boringest overworked in a series that has the empty fields of OoT, MM, and TP.

Those have so much more to do than there is here, though! Yes, OoT's Hyrule Field is just an empty space, but at the time it looked so cool! And besides, the ranch, the town, and the side areas all around (mountains, lake, river, forest) are all far more interesting than their LttP counterparts. The dungeons are a lot better as well, but that's different of course. As for MM, that game has a dense, detailed overworld full of stuff to do, not sure why you're putting it on this list. As for TP, I love that overworld, there is plenty to see and do...

It took some of the lethality out of Zelda. Not as much as the 3D games did but enough to make the world a little less interesting.

LttP is probably harder compared to its NES predecessors than Super Mario World is compared to its NES predecessors, though, so it just fits with Nintendo's attempts on the Super Nintendo to not make games quite as hard as they did before. It was a good move because extreme difficulty can drive people away, and with larger game sizes you can fit in more game so you don't need to cover over for very limited amounts of content with super-high difficulty quite as much as you did before. That process, of course, continued over time and probably went too far, but it makes sense.

I'm sure you've thought of a lot of reasons, but none of which is the real cause: that you played it in 1994, and you played ALttP in the 2000's. You think you are above nostalgia and context, and can evaluate each game objectively in a vaccum. You can't. Nobody can. You are unconsciously looking for reasons why you dislike ALttP and love LA, but that's what they are, justifications and rationalizations. The bottom line is already set.

While I agree that nostalgia is a factor, that's why it is an item on my list there, I put it as number zero because I think that most of the reasons I don't love LttP would apply regardless of when I first played it. Sure, I'd just have accepted things like the combat system, but the hidden required item stuff would have annoyed me anytime, I'm sure, for example! So nostalgia helps, but I do think it's more that LA happens to fix most of the things about LttP that I dislike. And I definitely do not think that it's because LA shaped what I want out of games, but that the game happens to do a lot of things in ways I really like.

My experience mirrors yours, in the sense that is perfectly symmetrical. I played ALttP on release, fell in love with it, then played LA in the early 2000's and it felt primitive and user-unfriendly, got stuck often, and I ended up dropping it. As I said, nobody is above nostalgia and context.

If you thought that LA felt primitive, then you should never play LttP again, because it's dramatically more so than LA in many, many ways...

Apparently rescuing a princess is a garbage sexist story now.

It definitely is. "rescue the kidnapped girl" is a game plotline that should have gone away forever decades ago unless you come up with a REALLY good excuse for it. As much as I love Nintendo, it's incredibly sad that they are so devoted to sexist game stories... like, the only Nintendo game from the past 20 years I can think of that actually pulls off the "rescue the kidnapped girl" plot in a way that works is the first Paper Mario, and that's because it played with the Mario formula in some amusing ways. And even there it's really only the first Paper Mario game that worked so well.

Many of your complaints remove LTTP from its historical framework which really isn't fair.

While only comparing games to other titles available at the time of their release is an understandable idea, nothing exists in a vacuum. Newer games than this one exist, and I think it's fair to compare them, particularly when this game not having some of those things hurts it so much!

I¨ve always wondered how every best SNES games list has ALttP as a number one. I get that people like it but when there's great games like Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario World and so it's just puzzling how it can always be number one. IMO ALttP isn't nowhere near the best Zelda game but that's just me. Hell, A Link Between Worlds is better than ALttP though in my book it's the best Zelda game ever made.

I think you are on point with the nostalgia. It's same with the first Zelda. As a kid everyone had much more time and patience than average gamer nowadays. Some stuff was really tough to figure out when I played it for the first time in 2014. That kinda made the experience less fun. But when you've played the game as kid you don't get stuck in later playthroughs which may make you blind to some of the shortcoming.

Still a damn good game that has aged pretty well but it's not perfect and definitely not the best SNES game ever. Not even in my top 10 actually. But that just shows how great library SNES had.

It's hard to separate nostalgia from fact, yeah... impossible at times.

I think calling it overrated paints a slightly confusing picture-- yeah, nothing's perfect, but in your post you call it a "great classic."

I probably should have said 'good" there instead of great, yeah. That'd be more consistent with how I refer to the game everywhere else outside of that one mention. Maybe I should change that... there are times I've thought LttP is a great game, but then one of the issues gets in the way and my opinion of the game goes back down again.

Yet it's overrated? If something is indeed a great classic, how can it be overrated?

But even if I leave that language in, I do think it works -- remember, this is a game often mentioned as the best game on the Super Nintendo, maybe the best game ever made by Nintendo, the best Zelda game ever in any list that doesn't have OoT on top, etc, etc. The usual consensus opinion on it is that it's a nearly perfect masterpiece, not just good or even great. And I've never agreed with that.

Something can have flaws but in the end if many people love it and think it's great, as you seem to, I don't think that makes something overrated. For example I have problems with Resident Evil 4, but the consensus is wildly positive and I acknowledge that it's a great game overall, so I couldn't realistically call it overrated.

I agree here, yes. Every game is flawed, the question is about how much the games' flaws bother you, and how big those flaws are.

It's a solid, in-depth analysis with plenty of merit and I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I think it should have been approached from a less deliberate, matter-of-fact standpoint. The header is going to dictate the rest of the conversation

The point of a title is to sum up your argument in a few words, and that's exactly what that title did well.

(As for people who only react to a headline without reading the text, that's unfortunate and that isn't why I write stuff like this. What I want is for people to actually read it.)

 

[Not]

Is this a thing we can do? Plug our offsite articles as long as we copy and paste and format them into threads?

Sorry OP

This was the first Zelda game I ever beat. I bought it along with my silver Game Boy Advance SP in 5th grade

 

[WonkyPanda]

As someone that loves LOZ, LTTP ranks pretty low.
Something about the visuals and sword combat isn't appealing.
Might need to give it another go, tho

Yes. The swordplay is terrible in LttP

 

[Caelus]

I do agree the art style is kind of strange and not necessarily the most pretty of the 2D Zeldas, Link's Awakening DX and Minish Cap have that beat, and ALBW is extraordinarily colorful and fluid even though the character models are a tad plain.

I was born months before Ocarina came out so I'm not attached to any of these games from a nostalgia point of view, something I've always loved about LttP is the sense of progression from tunic, shield, and weapon upgrades, as well as the sheer amount of dungeons.

Link's Awakening is still a bit irritating to replay due to the limitations of its inventory system, where everything has to be equipped to either A or B. Regardless, the game is designed around that and designed pretty well, but navigation and using different item combos is made less seamless. LttP, despite having some cryptic elements, is more fun to navigate due to items like the Pegasus Boots always being bound to a button.

 

[Acerac]

Op how many people are u expecting will read this.

The fact that so few are willing to do so says more about those people than the post itself. It makes a lot of salient points, if people are too lazy to read on a discussion board I don't know why they're here in the first place.

This new thread title isn't that good because it doesn't bring across the purpose of what I wrote. I didn't write this to just write up "my thoughts" on the game; that would be a very different article, with different contents that cover all aspects of the game, not only the problems. No, this is a work of criticism, and the thread title should reflect that. It could be rephrased, but the key point that the work is a critique is important to bring across in the title, not only in the text itself.

So, I renamed the headline in the first post to "A Criticism of Zelda: A Link to the Past". Hopefully whoever changed the thread name will change it to this.

If you think that title changes are made to aid discussion you haven't seen too many of them.

 

[GregLombardi]

Waiting for the spoiled little brats that played Ocarina first to come here and try to avail their favorite game once again...

I played both exactly when they were released. I am of the opinion that Ocarina was better and more important. I don't think those that played Ocarina first are spoiled little brats necessarily though.

 

[Weltall Zero]

This new thread title isn't that good because it doesn't bring across the purpose of what I wrote. I didn't write this to just write up "my thoughts" on the game; that would be a very different article, with different contents that cover all aspects of the game, not only the problems. No, this is a work of criticism, and the thread title should reflect that. It could be rephrased, but the key point that the work is a critique is important to bring across in the title, not only in the text itself.

In my opinion it's not a critique indeed, and I was about to point it out before, but refrained for politeness' sake. It has nearly zero objectivity, which you may notice is a recurring issue I have with it.

While I agree that nostalgia is a factor, that's why it is an item on my list there, I put it as number zero because I think that most of the reasons I don't love LttP would apply regardless of when I first played it.

I know what you wrote; I'm saying you're wrong. Again, you're not a special snowflake capable of assessing a game outside time and context, and this is especially obvious from your writeup.

Sure, I'd just have accepted things like the combat system,

The combat system is perfect and (in my opinion) infinitely better than AoL. There is nothing to "accept", except the fact that it's not AoL, which shaped your view of an "ideal" Zelda, much like LttP shaped mine.

but the hidden required item stuff would have annoyed me anytime, I'm sure, for example! So nostalgia helps, but I do think it's more that LA happens to fix most of the things about LttP that I dislike. And I definitely do not think that it's because LA shaped what I want out of games, but that the game happens to do a lot of things in ways I really like.

OK, how likely it is that the very first Zelda game you played is not just the very best one but perfect in every way, versus the fact that the very first Zelda game you played set the standard of what you wanted in a game and made you consider any deviation from that a defect? Which of the two do you think Occam's razor would sooner cut?

(For the record, LttP wasn't my first Zelda; I played the original two before that).

If you thought that LA felt primitive, then you should never play LttP again, because it's dramatically more so than LA in many, many ways...

And I'm telling you the only reason you perceive it that way is because you played AoL in 1994 and LttP in 2000+. I've replayed LttP many, many times since then (well into double digits), including the GBA port, and the most recent times my thoughts are always "I can't believe how good it still looks and plays". It puts a lot of modern games to shame, quite frankly. The thing is, I breeze through it because I know it inside out. I'm not capable of seeing the roadblocks that would trip up other people, much like you're not capable of seeing AoL's. The only difference is that I'm aware of my bias and you're apparently not.

In any case, this discussion is pointlessly going in circles so we might as well drop it.

(As for people who only react to a headline without reading the text, that's unfortunate and that isn't why I write stuff like this. What I want is for people to actually read it.)

Well, then perhaps don't use a clickbait title out of a gawker article.

Is this a thing we can do? Plug our offsite articles as long as we copy and paste and format them into threads?

Frankly, this seems shady to me as well. At least his site doesn't have ads, otherwise I expect we would have seem some swift lock & ban from the mods.

 

[ElFly]

aLttP clearly has the best overworld simply due to having the parallel world system that makes you have to find ways to traverse it from one world to the next. don't think this is really equaled in the series? well until it is repeated in aLbW

re: required optional items: this is a weird standard. It's not like Zelda 1 required all the items in the dungeons only. some things are elsewhere

there is not a contract saying that you should only ever need the items in the dungeon and nothing else.

Combat seemed p good to me back then. sure, it has improved (and also gotten worse recently) in the series, but you actually can have the enemies hit your shield if you so want to. it is not as reliable as in the 3D series but it def works, at least with the enemies that wield swords

honestly playing LA recently in the 3DS gotta say that thing is unplayable nowadays. it really needs a remaster that does away with the many limitations due to the hardware. only two items, clumsy menus, lack of scroll, etc etc

 

[Calamari41]

I have to disagree big time with the idea that showing you the map discourages the desire for exploration. Being at the top of Death Mountain in the Dark World for the first time and seeing that map made me absolutely hunger to get down there and explore. If I had pressed X and seen nothing but three tiles and a wall of black, it would have done nothing for me. The thing that really got me going was seeing the Dark World equivalent of the house with no doors in Kakariko sitting there with a hole in it.

Also, the ice rod is not hard to find or all that missable. As you said, Sahasrahla literally tells you to go look for it, and you can see the chest in that cave on the eastern shore. You then walk out and see the bombable wall corresponding with that room you couldn't get to. I got it when I was 6 and it was as natural as if there were a flashing arrow on the map.

 

[Glitchesarecool]

While only comparing games to other titles available at the time of their release is an understandable idea, nothing exists in a vacuum. Newer games than this one exist, and I think it's fair to compare them, particularly when this game not having some of those things hurts it so much!

It's absolutely unfair to compare them. You're telling me you think it's ok to compare a modern title, with all the advances in computing power and game features that could not have existed then, to the game in the SNES era?

 

[Walt_Clyde]

OP thanks for the write-up; will read in depth later but I do think it is very important to place the game in context with what was out at the time. I still think it holds up immensely well and, frankly, I like playing it more than any other game in the series (solely in terms of replayability).

 

[Aeana]

This new thread title isn't that good because it doesn't bring across the purpose of what I wrote. I didn't write this to just write up "my thoughts" on the game; that would be a very different article, with different contents that cover all aspects of the game, not only the problems. No, this is a work of criticism, and the thread title should reflect that. It could be rephrased, but the key point that the work is a critique is important to bring across in the title, not only in the text itself.

You wrote a thread title that would incite nothing but drive-by garbage from people who would only read the title. I don't have the time to ban that many people, so I renamed the thread and got rid of the sensationalist slant. If you don't want your thread renamed, don't give it such a sensationalist title next time.

 

[Transistor]

OP has valid criticisms, I'll give him that

But what shocks me most is the people saying ALBW is better than LTTP

 

[Nairume]

It's absolutely unfair to compare them. You're telling me you think it's ok to compare a modern title, with all the advances in computing power and game features that could not have existed then, to the game in the SNES era?

Yeah, like, you can totally try and make an argument that A Link Between Worlds is a better game (and, to a point, it is!) because it does a lot to improve upon the formula that ALttP established.

But you'd be daft to argue that Link to the Past is bad because ALBW exists, because what makes ALBW so much better is because ALttP existed to provide a wonderful foundation for it to build from.

But what shocks me most is the people saying ALBW is better than LTTP

Speaking as somebody who loves LttP and considers it as one of his favorite games of all time (hence defending it in this thread ), I do think there are points where LBW is better. While the overworld is worse to a point (namely the weird sectioning of Lorule), it brought about a huge design shift with its dungeons that do actually highlight some of the flaws that existed with old Zelda dungeon design (which I am more than willing to admit does exist).

 

[sanstesy]

This flows into the second issue for me, which is the world itself. This one is a little harder to unpack because of how far-reaching it is, but the short version of it is that the entire game lacks flavour and character. The simplest example of it is how the game treats its characters. Aside from the staple three cast members, A Link to the Past has very few named characters, and the majority of the characters are stuff like "Flute Boy", "Blacksmith", "Bully", "Lumberjack", "Maiden", "Witch", "Uncle", etc. Some of the named characters, like Sahasrahlavladiblahblibbidometh, are so void of personality that they might as well be called "Old Man" too. This same type of blandness extends to many of the dungeons as well. Much like the Zeldas before it, many of these dungeons both look and sound like they were recycled from other dungeons. I understand the need for this on the NES, where audiovisual limitations were a lot stricter, as well in terms of cart size, but there really was no excuse for the Super Nintendo. Attempts at theming were made here and there, like in the water, ice and desert dungeons, and these ended up being the dungeons that stuck with me the most. Sadly enough they also just make the times when they didn't bother stand out all the more.

You hit the nail on the head. What a bland slog of a game.

 

[A Link to the Past]

The Quake Medallion is optional

EDIT: Wait no, it's Bombos that is optional.

 

[Man God]

Link's Awakening is my goto game in that style.

Followed by Zelda 1.

Followed by A Link Between Worlds.