Some Zelda Things
5th October 2025, 4:55 PM
(This post was last modified: 5th October 2025, 5:09 PM by A Black Falcon.)
Link's Awakening is of course one of my favorite games ever. I have always said that it's the best 2d Zelda game ever and certainly still 100% stand by that. Of course my nostalgia for it being the first Zelda game that I owned helped there, but I'd played some of the first Zelda for NES before that. LA just does everything right, its whole design is pretty much perfect. Link's Awakening has probably the best story in any Zelda game (only WW really comes close), inspired by Twin Peaks I believe, and it should be really admired for doing something so different and not just being 'Link saves Zelda and beats Ganon again...'
I know this isn't new, I'm sure I've said this in threads from years ago, but comparing LttP and LA is fascinating because you see the way gaming was changing. In LttP, there are a lot of parts where you have to just find some item randomly hidden somewhere, NES game style. I complained about this at length in a thread some years back, about all the annoying random hidden objects LttP requires you find, some of which aren't mentioned at all and some of which only have the most cryptic of hints as to their locations. I did like the game, but when I got to the END of a dungeon only to learn that I'd missed a key item that is somewhere else in a random overworld cave, so I'd need to redo the whole dungeon because this was before dungeon warps... yeah I was not amused. Also, LttP has a really weak attack range. You don't have much sword range and the shield is, like in the NES games, only of use against arrows, not anything else.
In contrast, LA is in a lot of ways the first fully modern Zelda game. Here, instead of a large open world, you largely follow a set path. There is a world to explore, but it is more segmented than LttP. The dungeons have warp points in them and are designed with more of a hub-and-spoke design, as opposed to the often long linear paths of LttP, so that you won't have to repeat extremely long paths to get back to where you were. The game gives you a new item in each dungeon that you will make use of in that dungeon and sometimes outside of it, as every Zelda game has done since. (LttP moved towards this system, but it wasn't fully formed yet.) The shield is actually useful for the first time in the series, made possible by its being an item now you use with a button, which was a fantastic change. You can push Spinies and block enemies! It's a real shield, as it would be in the 3d games! So nice. The sword has more range than before, and hits diagonally above you in addition to in front and above. The puzzles are still challenging, it's a difficult game, but only the trading game is potentially seriously confusing and even there, there are a limited number of places to go and you know that every step involves talking to someone, and also you know that that's your task currently. It's nothing like 'find the Ice Rod you didn't know existed'.
As for the overworld design, LA goes for tightly designed, meaningful screens where everything matters. I like this design MUCH MUCH MUCH more than vast amounts of meaningless empty space! The world in LA feels large, but it is actually pretty limited in size. They did this with things like how trees in LA are a quarter the size of trees in LttP. (I am reminded of an old argument between me and OB1 on this subject... heh.) Brilliant stuff. It's my favorite Zelda overworld ever for sure, no question. LttP may have a larger world in screens, but most of it is just empty space that doesn't mean much. It's not close to LA.
Oh, and lastly, I like the original B&W version of LA the best. The DX version's colors are too gaudy-looking, I don't think they look like how I imagined the game looking while playing it in B&W. The new color dungeon is fine but nothing special, and its rewards make you overpowered. The new additional dungeon hints (multiple hints per dungeon instead of only one) are fine I guess, but I think the game can be completed without them so I've never really liked the addition. As for the Switch remake, it's quite nice looking and plays great, but ... eh, I'll always like the original version best.
As for the other 2d or 2.5d Zelda games...
The first game is a good game, and it's a very important classic, but it has issues: the combat difficulty is off the charts high (it's probably the hardest Zelda game...), there aren't really any puzzles in the dungeons other than "push blocks and bomb walls", the game heavily relies on you wasting your time finding random hidden nonsense by burning every bush and whatnot, etc. I kind of like it but have never finished it. I think I gave up in dungeon 6 on the GBA version, which is the one I got the farthest in. It just gets so hard and combat is really all there is to the game apart from 'find hidden nonsense' and 'push blocks/bomb walls/etc'. It probably did about as much as you could with the amount of cartridge memory available at the time, but it does make it somewhat hard to go back to.
Zelda 2... it's good, but I've never really gotten into it. It's maybe even harder than the first one and sending you back to the start point of the game when you die anytime not in a dungeon is needlessly punishing... not to mention that the dungeons are pretty confusing to remember and don't have much in terms of maps. ... I am remembering that right, yes? No maps in dungeons? I really never got far in Zelda 2. It seems well made but is so different and not as fun as the others.
LttP, I covered above. It's a great game but has some annoying random nonsense to find and annoying combat due to the nearly useless shield (LA making it an item was the best thing ever to happen to Zelda shields!) and very short sword range. The world is bland-feeling, the story very basic and irrelevant, etc. It did some nice things and looks great visually and was fun to play, but if you do have a walkthrough handy for when you get stuck. That 'LttP is overrated' thread was probably mine, but I do think it's an A- grade game at least, it is good.
The Oracles games I really love, they are some of the best Zelda games ever even if Capcom made them. I like the Oracles games second best of the 2d Zeldas, behind only LA. It's the LA engine but with some scrolling screens in dungeons, lame to terrible stories, and lots of challenging puzzles and combat. Exceptional games, apart from the awful stories. They're like LA but mixed with some of the aesthetic and town/character dynamics of OoT. Just amazing stuff, Capcom did so well!
Minish Cap I've never loved, but it is fun enough. In difficulty Capcom WW-ized this game by making it extremely easy, it's like 100x easier than the Oracles games were, but it is still a fun time while it lasts. The problems are that I don't love the art style and it's way, way too easy. The world feels quite small, too, with more empty space without purpose than you have in LA or the Oracles games.
Echoes of Wisdom I was very interested in conceptually -- a Zelda game from Nintendo that lets you play as Zelda? Amazing! -- and I bought and started it, but I lost interest a bit in for some reason and haven't gone back. I probably should go back because it's mostly good, but I do have a few complaints. Using the stuff you summon for attacks is fun, but the bits where you get a sword and can just attack things show that a lot of the challenge is somewhat artificial, you know? As in, it only exists because of the reduced combat ability Zelda has than Link. Character-wise this entirely makes sense, Zelda shouldn't be identical to Link, but it was a bit annoying sometimes. On the other hand, I like the strong puzzle focus of the game. Most of the puzzles seemed too easy as far as I got, but I did get stuck once, so maybe if I go back and get farther in there will be more parts that are actually interesting. The visuals are nice also.
I know this isn't new, I'm sure I've said this in threads from years ago, but comparing LttP and LA is fascinating because you see the way gaming was changing. In LttP, there are a lot of parts where you have to just find some item randomly hidden somewhere, NES game style. I complained about this at length in a thread some years back, about all the annoying random hidden objects LttP requires you find, some of which aren't mentioned at all and some of which only have the most cryptic of hints as to their locations. I did like the game, but when I got to the END of a dungeon only to learn that I'd missed a key item that is somewhere else in a random overworld cave, so I'd need to redo the whole dungeon because this was before dungeon warps... yeah I was not amused. Also, LttP has a really weak attack range. You don't have much sword range and the shield is, like in the NES games, only of use against arrows, not anything else.
In contrast, LA is in a lot of ways the first fully modern Zelda game. Here, instead of a large open world, you largely follow a set path. There is a world to explore, but it is more segmented than LttP. The dungeons have warp points in them and are designed with more of a hub-and-spoke design, as opposed to the often long linear paths of LttP, so that you won't have to repeat extremely long paths to get back to where you were. The game gives you a new item in each dungeon that you will make use of in that dungeon and sometimes outside of it, as every Zelda game has done since. (LttP moved towards this system, but it wasn't fully formed yet.) The shield is actually useful for the first time in the series, made possible by its being an item now you use with a button, which was a fantastic change. You can push Spinies and block enemies! It's a real shield, as it would be in the 3d games! So nice. The sword has more range than before, and hits diagonally above you in addition to in front and above. The puzzles are still challenging, it's a difficult game, but only the trading game is potentially seriously confusing and even there, there are a limited number of places to go and you know that every step involves talking to someone, and also you know that that's your task currently. It's nothing like 'find the Ice Rod you didn't know existed'.
As for the overworld design, LA goes for tightly designed, meaningful screens where everything matters. I like this design MUCH MUCH MUCH more than vast amounts of meaningless empty space! The world in LA feels large, but it is actually pretty limited in size. They did this with things like how trees in LA are a quarter the size of trees in LttP. (I am reminded of an old argument between me and OB1 on this subject... heh.) Brilliant stuff. It's my favorite Zelda overworld ever for sure, no question. LttP may have a larger world in screens, but most of it is just empty space that doesn't mean much. It's not close to LA.
Oh, and lastly, I like the original B&W version of LA the best. The DX version's colors are too gaudy-looking, I don't think they look like how I imagined the game looking while playing it in B&W. The new color dungeon is fine but nothing special, and its rewards make you overpowered. The new additional dungeon hints (multiple hints per dungeon instead of only one) are fine I guess, but I think the game can be completed without them so I've never really liked the addition. As for the Switch remake, it's quite nice looking and plays great, but ... eh, I'll always like the original version best.
As for the other 2d or 2.5d Zelda games...
The first game is a good game, and it's a very important classic, but it has issues: the combat difficulty is off the charts high (it's probably the hardest Zelda game...), there aren't really any puzzles in the dungeons other than "push blocks and bomb walls", the game heavily relies on you wasting your time finding random hidden nonsense by burning every bush and whatnot, etc. I kind of like it but have never finished it. I think I gave up in dungeon 6 on the GBA version, which is the one I got the farthest in. It just gets so hard and combat is really all there is to the game apart from 'find hidden nonsense' and 'push blocks/bomb walls/etc'. It probably did about as much as you could with the amount of cartridge memory available at the time, but it does make it somewhat hard to go back to.
Zelda 2... it's good, but I've never really gotten into it. It's maybe even harder than the first one and sending you back to the start point of the game when you die anytime not in a dungeon is needlessly punishing... not to mention that the dungeons are pretty confusing to remember and don't have much in terms of maps. ... I am remembering that right, yes? No maps in dungeons? I really never got far in Zelda 2. It seems well made but is so different and not as fun as the others.
LttP, I covered above. It's a great game but has some annoying random nonsense to find and annoying combat due to the nearly useless shield (LA making it an item was the best thing ever to happen to Zelda shields!) and very short sword range. The world is bland-feeling, the story very basic and irrelevant, etc. It did some nice things and looks great visually and was fun to play, but if you do have a walkthrough handy for when you get stuck. That 'LttP is overrated' thread was probably mine, but I do think it's an A- grade game at least, it is good.
The Oracles games I really love, they are some of the best Zelda games ever even if Capcom made them. I like the Oracles games second best of the 2d Zeldas, behind only LA. It's the LA engine but with some scrolling screens in dungeons, lame to terrible stories, and lots of challenging puzzles and combat. Exceptional games, apart from the awful stories. They're like LA but mixed with some of the aesthetic and town/character dynamics of OoT. Just amazing stuff, Capcom did so well!
Minish Cap I've never loved, but it is fun enough. In difficulty Capcom WW-ized this game by making it extremely easy, it's like 100x easier than the Oracles games were, but it is still a fun time while it lasts. The problems are that I don't love the art style and it's way, way too easy. The world feels quite small, too, with more empty space without purpose than you have in LA or the Oracles games.
Echoes of Wisdom I was very interested in conceptually -- a Zelda game from Nintendo that lets you play as Zelda? Amazing! -- and I bought and started it, but I lost interest a bit in for some reason and haven't gone back. I probably should go back because it's mostly good, but I do have a few complaints. Using the stuff you summon for attacks is fun, but the bits where you get a sword and can just attack things show that a lot of the challenge is somewhat artificial, you know? As in, it only exists because of the reduced combat ability Zelda has than Link. Character-wise this entirely makes sense, Zelda shouldn't be identical to Link, but it was a bit annoying sometimes. On the other hand, I like the strong puzzle focus of the game. Most of the puzzles seemed too easy as far as I got, but I did get stuck once, so maybe if I go back and get farther in there will be more parts that are actually interesting. The visuals are nice also.
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