In recent years, The Legend of Zelda series has suffered from no end of problems. While Zelda games released in the last seven years have consistently been “good” (some even “very good”), there’s always been something missing. Some crucial element that keeps them from attaining the immortality enjoyed by Ocarina of Time.
Infuriatingly, this certain “something” that is missing tends to be different in the case of every Zelda game, so it isn’t as though one can simply point to a single missing ingredient and identify it as the culprit.
For instance, 2006’s Twilight Princess gave us the spiritual successor to Ocarina of Time with the best story and visual style the series has ever seen. The game's world oozed with a melancholic atmosphere, backed up by some of the best music and story-telling ever to grace a Zelda game, but it came at the cost of the actual playable overworld, which was large but empty, bereft of anything to do outside of riding about on your horse and battling the occasional enemy.
Meanwhile, 2007’S Phantom Hourglass gave us one of the best portable Zeldas we’ve ever had. Fluid touch screen controls that gave you more control over Link, the sea exploration from The Wind Waker in the palm of your hand, and the most inventive use of the boomerang in Zelda history. Unfortunately, Phantom Hourglass also has the weakest dungeons in recent Zelda history, with the Temple of the Ocean king being one of the most unnecessarily drawn-out experiences ever to take form in a Zelda game.
Then came 2009’s Spirit Tracks. This one is particularly near and dear to my heart, for it gave us the best Princess Zelda we’ve ever gotten. Zelda was smart, funny, courageous and cute all at once; and best of all, she accompanied you on your journey, allowing the game to make use of an incredibly imaginative co-operative style of puzzle-solving in the game’s dungeons. Spirit Tracks felt like a Zelda that freed itself of the shackles of the series’ convoluted timeline, and went about its business as it pleased. Unfortunate as it is, though, Spirit Tracks also suffered from a very restricted form of exploration on its overworld, limiting the player to travelling by a largely predetermined array of railroad tracks, taking all the fun out of travel and discovery.
And then, we got 2011’s Skyward Sword. Oh, Skyward Sword. You meant well, didn’t you? You gave us the Wii Remote sword-fighting we always wanted. You gave us fantastic new items like the Flying Beetle and the ability to roll bombs like bowling balls. You even gave Link a “Dash” ability to allow him to sprint up walls, and some of the best dungeons in a Zelda game to date! Alas, in return, you took the concept of an overworld away entirely, more or less leading us from dungeon to dungeon, from one fetch quest to the next, amidst a cast of bland, shallow characters and a world with no personality whatsoever.
Sigh.
If you’ve pondered over the faults of the last few Zelda games in as obsessive a manner, like me, you’ve probably failed arrive at some sort of reasonable explanation as to why something’s always missing. Is it a lack of ambition on the Zelda development team’s part? Or perhaps a fear of change, beyond the few baby steps each game seems to take. No, maybe it’s that simply they don’t understand just what it is that people want out of Zelda, as impossible as that sounds.
Or maybe... they just aren’t talented enough to realize the ambition of a big-budget Zelda game, and everything that encompasses. A large, interesting overworld. The freedom to explore and get lost and find your way back. Secrets to discover. An intriguing cast of characters and a story that doesn't insist on being childishly simplistic. Great graphics. Excellent music. All in the same game. It doesn’t sound like much to ask for, considering that other developers have been doing it for years now, but perhaps the Zelda team simply aren’t up to the task. You could hardly be blamed for arriving at this conclusion, as frightening as it is. Because, really, if the team tasked with producing these games just doesn’t have the chops for it, where does that leave us? Who do we turn to? Who gets Zelda back on track and how long will it take?
Thankfully, we don’t have to ask those questions yet. Over the past year, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma has been refreshingly open regarding the state of the Zelda games, and has been very receptive to feedback, too. All of a sudden, Aonuma, who only a year ago was considered the man responsible for letting Zelda stagnate the way it has, is saying all the right things. Talking about large, open worlds and the ability to lose yourself in it. About having the freedom to get stuck and figure things out by yourself, without constant hand-holding. About streamlining without cutting down on content. About how Nintendo tried and failed with Skyward Sword to break the Zelda mold, but that they’re up to trying again.
And it isn’t just talk either. Aonuma and the team have put out a new Zelda game, hoping to demonstrate their understanding of these concepts—The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, a Nintendo 3DS game that that takes place many years after A Link to the Past, and shares the same world as the older game.
A Link Between Worlds, like its prequel, is played from a top-down view like most portable Zelda games. Now, let me begin by saying that I’m personally not a fan of the top-down design. It feels... restricted. I enjoy the freedom of movement that 3D games afford the player. The ability to run and jump throw yourself about in a three-dimensional space. The ability to maneuver behind an enemy and attack him from the rear. The ability to explore a world from left to right, but also up to down. Those are things that A Link Between Worlds doesn’t allow you to do. That having been said, I found myself enjoying it regardless, because the game delivers on a lot of promises that Aonuma has been making.
A Link Between Worlds has, hands down, one of the best overworlds of any recent Zelda. Admittedly, this isn’t saying much, but it really is everything one would want out of a large world to explore. For starters, it’s just the right size for a top-down portable game—neither too large, nor too small. For another, there’s always something new to discover in areas you’ve been to in the past. Always. I found myself revisiting the same areas five or six times—mostly voluntarily, mind you—and always finding some sort of new trinket or secret to unearth. This is a game that’s made for gamers. It spends the first few hours teaching you its logic, and once you’re accustomed to it, you’ll start to dig deeper under the surface and make discoveries by using everything you’ve learnt in imaginative ways. And finally, you can go nearly anywhere you want, whenever you want, as long as you have the right tools to let you traverse those areas.
This means that I could visit the game’s locales in an entirely different order than someone else might, and complete the game’s dungeons in a completely different order than another player, too. And that’s exactly what appears to be happening. Everyone that plays A Link Between Worlds seems to be doing it in a manner of their choosing.
At the root of this new-found freedom is the game’s item-rental system. Unlike previous Zeldas, this one lets you rent every item in the game from an Item Shop right off the bat—provided you can afford them. This has two immediate effects:
1. What items (and upgraded items) you have at any point in the game is entirely up to you. Due to this, dungeons can now be navigated in a number of different ways, and you don’t necessarily have to use the “recommended” item to solve puzzles in a given dungeon, provided you have another item that can achieve the same results.
2. Since you require money to rent—and eventually buy—items, Rupees now actually have a purpose. In fact, they’re also used in many of A Link Between Worlds’ mini-games, which means you’ll always be able to put them to good use.
This design decision gives A Link Between Worlds the one thing that no Zelda game in recent memory has had—word of mouth. Players exchanging ideas and telling tales of their exploits. Word of mouth is so very important to a game’s success nowadays, and enabling players to make their own adventure ensures that they’ll want to tell other people about what they did, how they did it, and how much fun they had while doing it. Even better, Miiverse—Nintendo’s social network that takes cues from both Facebook and Twitter—allows one to share screenshots of their games, and the Miiverse community for A Link Between Worlds has been thriving with activity.
Another feature that helps the game immensely is the ability to merge into a wall. Link can walk up to a wall, merge with it, and travel along its surface as a wall painting, which sometimes completely changes how you look at an area or a dungeon. Some of the most well-hidden secrets in the game are unearthed by travelling great distances along walls, all the way from one area to another, and coming out in a place that you thought would be inaccessible without some sort of special item. A Link Between Worlds constantly encourages and rewards creative thinking. This combined with its Light World and Dark World design makes for dozens upon dozens of little secrets just waiting to make you feel like the smartest player in the world when you find them.
I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed the game. Not being fond of top-down games, I assumed I would stick with the game for a few hours, see everything it had to show me, and put it down. But that’s just it—it always has something new to show you, and that’s what makes A Link Between Worlds as engaging as it is.
Now, that isn’t to say the game is perfect. Combat feels a little too simplistic. You swing your sword with the B button, or hold it down for a Spin Attack. Certain items like the Fire Rod or Ice Rod can be used in combat as well. And that’s about the extent of what the game’s battle system has to offer. No fancy parrying like in Skyward Sword; no leaping behind your enemy like in Twilight Princess; and none of the agility afforded by the touch screen controls in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, both of which let you do so much with Link, simply by tapping, swiping or circling with the stylus.
Visual style, too, suffers in A Link Between Worlds. While Lorule—the Dark World—features an interesting and distinctive colour palette, Hyrule feels rather bland and a little too green everywhere you go. Furthermore, lighting in the game leaves much to be desired. Good lighting effects can really help bring your game’s world to life and give it a real sense of atmosphere, but you won’t find that here. There isn’t much lighting to speak of, which is disappointing, given that more visually complex 3DS games like Monster Hunter employ lighting effects liberally and look gorgeous.
Finally, the story. I’m told A Link Between Worlds has a conclusion worth seeing, and while I do look forward to it, I wish I didn’t have to wait until the end of the game for any sort of story or character development. Both the story and characters in this game are a little too underdeveloped for by tastes, and I do hope that we get another Zelda in the future that reaches the heights of Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess, as far as storytelling is concerned.
That having been said, A Link Between Worlds is a giant leap in the right direction for the Zelda team, and demonstrates that Aonuma and co. do have the desire, talent and resources to make a much-needed course correction to Zelda. The next major Zelda titles, which is in development for the Wii U, will be a culmination of what they’ve learnt up until this point, and I’m finally not afraid to look forward to it anymore.
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