#A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS ZELDA FIGURINE SERIES#
This extremely fast pace, coupled with the lack of hand holding and tutorials, is further enhanced by what is probably the biggest departure from formula the series has made since 1998’s Ocarina of Time (but is, after all is said and done, a return to a very promising past): A Link Between Worlds is fully open world. Walk around, explore, try to figure things out yourself. It throws you into the world, old school style, and expects you to figure things out for yourself, like an adult. No longer does the game stop and spell problems out for you, so you know exactly what to do. No longer are you interrupted every five minutes by some vague tangential plot thread that breaks the flow of the game.
People who sat through the nearly six hour long tutorials of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword will be delighted to know that the game starts, and within twenty minutes, you’re just thrown into Hyrule with your sword, on your way to conquer the ancient temples that litter the land. Perhaps the best thing about the story- and this is true for the entire game- is how fast it moves. No longer does the game stop and spell problems out for you, so you know exactly what to do."
"No longer are you interrupted every five minutes by some vague tangential plot thread that breaks the flow of the game. It’s still not a great narrative (although it has a surprisingly touching ending), but it’s a good one, one that gives you enough context for why you are doing what you are doing, and moves you from place to place to get things done. The beginning is also distinctly low key, with none of the epic, mood setting, somber atmosphere of A Link to the Past’s dark, oppressive proceedings, and a bit more whimsy and light heartedness to the proceedings.īut any ideas that Nintendo dumbed the story down for kids go right out the window once the inevitable happens, and the real machinations behind the story are revealed. It’s mostly serviceable, and it very heavily mirrors the story in A Link to the Past. It’s not the most original or groundbreaking plot. Yuga has the distinct ability to turn people into paintings, and he is planning on kidnapping the descendants of the Seven Sages from Ocarina of Time/A Link to the Past to revive Ganon and take over not just Hyrule, but its parallel dimension Lorule, entirely. Several generations after the cataclysmic events of that title, peace returned to Hyrule, and everything was okay, until a wizard called Yuga shows up. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds serves as a sequel to the 1992 Link to the Past. It also ends up being the freshest, fastest, most fun, and- dare I say it- best– Zelda game we have had in a very, very long time now.
Ironically, in sticking so close to the spirit of what made A Link to the Past (and the Zelda games that came before it) so good, A Link Between Worlds takes some bold steps forwards that, for the first time in over a decade, meaningfully progress the series. It's mostly serviceable, and it very heavily mirrors the story in A Link to the Past.
"It's not the most original or groundbreaking plot. The newest original entry is The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, a new top down Zelda adventure developed exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS, one that channels heavily, and acts as a sequel to, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the SNES Zelda entry that is widely acknowledged to be the best game in the series, and even the greatest game ever made. Whatever the reason, the series has lost its shine and its luster in recent years. Another part has to do with the fact that when the developers do decide to switch things up, their ‘progressive’ design decisions are, well, questionable at best. I am not going to say that recent Zelda games have been outright bad (although Spirit Tracks came very close), but they haven’t been the top notch, standard setting, epic odysseys that the series became synonymous with back in the day. Probably a large part of this has to do with a reluctance to move away from the formula the series established nearly two decades ago, and one which has so faithfully served it for all these years. In recent years, the Zelda games have lost the plot.