6th January 2017, 1:59 PM
(This post was last modified: 8th January 2017, 1:09 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
A Black Falcon Wrote:0) Nostalgia: First, the issue of nostalgia. I’ve been playing games since the eighties, though we did not actually have gaming platforms at home until the early ’90s. However, while I did play some of the original NES Zelda game, I have no memory of spending any amount of time with Link to the Past for SNES back in the ’90s. I read about it, I read that LttP-inspired Zelda comic in Nintendo Power in ’92, and such, but hadn’t played the game much at all. The first Zelda game I owned myself was Link’s Awakening for the Game Boy, which I got in late ’94 and immediately fell in love with. I still really, really love LA, and consider it the best 2d Zelda game ever for a lot of reasons. But despite some misgivings I did want to sometime go back and play that SNES game some people talk about so much, so when the GBA port released in the early ’00s I bought it… and found it alright, but not as good as LA or either of the GBC Oracles games, Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. I dropped the game in the sixth dungeon and never have gone back to finish that version.
Several years later, after I started collecting classic games with my purchase of a Super Nintendo in 2005, I bought a copy of the SNES version of LttP. I played it partway and did think it was pretty good, and better than the GBA version, but I eventually got stuck midgame and stopped playing. In 2008 I finally went back and finished the game for SNES, and my reaction was pretty much as you see here: I liked it, with caveats. It is quite likely that if I had played it back in the early ’90s, despite the frustrating elements I would like it more than I do now thanks to nostalgia. However, I do think I’d still like LA more, because of the improvements to things like combat, mapping, story, required-item hunts, and more. LA and its successors build and improve on things LttP did, so this game feels primitive in some ways in comparison to later titles.
So, while I will admit that nostalgia is a definite factor here, I do believe that my issues with this game are things that mostly would bother me regardless of when I first played the game. The best games hold up regardless of when you first play them, and as my classic-games collection has grown and grown over the years there have been many games I love that I’d never even heard of before, back when they were new! LttP’s problem is not just that I didn’t play it when it was new, but that its game design does some things I dislike.
I see what you're saying here, but plenty of newcomers, young kids new to the series, have played the game for the first time after playing newer entries in the series and loved it. Yes, some of them feel honor bound to love it because they don't want to seem like they can't appreciate the classics, but there's a sizable number who have said things to the effect of "I couldn't get into the first Zelda game, but I loved this one!" or "Going back, this game feels like when the series first got good." I don't necessarily agree that Zelda 1 is bad, but I'd say your complaints about this one apply more to the original. LTTP seems like a perfection of concepts introduced in Zelda 1 to me, and plenty of the new generation of gamers seem to agree. There are exceptions, but most of them don't like Link's Awakening either. The best place to look for these kid's impressions is probably Miiverse. It really helps that Nintendo sets up communities on a game specific basis, so when LTTP finally came to 3DS and Wii U virtual console, I had to check out those first time impressions for myself. (Similarly, I checked out such first time impressions for Earthbound, Super Metroid and Super Mario RPG). Now, there IS a bit of a filter here, namely the kid would have to be interested in even touching the classics to begin with, but it still seems to reveal a general appreciation of this game rather than anyone having issues with it. What I saw were kids reacting in very similar ways to how I did when I first played the game all those years ago.
Quote: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. This feels quite limiting compared to most newer Zelda games, as you’re constantly having to pause and switch items to a degree beyond most newer titles. The Super Nintendo controller has plenty of buttons, and they should have added at least one more equippable item slot. This isn’t the huge problem of some items on this list, but it is a bit annoying.
The pause menu screen where you change which item you have equipped is kind of clumsy, too, as if you select an item which includes multiple items within, such as the bottle, it may change the item within that category instead of switching items. So, you need to watch out which items you select while switching items, so you don’t get caught in sub-menus. This could have been handled better. The on-screen interface is a little odd as well; 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.
Lastly in this category is the issue of the map. If you hit the X button, you open the map screen. In the overworld this opens a Mode 7 map of the whole overworld that you can scroll around, and in a dungeon this opens the dungeon map, if you have found that dungeon’s map item that is. The overworld map is fine, but stylistically, I strongly prefer a map which reveals areas as you explore, instead of maps that let you see everything from the beginning regardless of if you have been to that location or not. Unfortunately, LttP does the latter: you can see the whole overworld map from the first time you open it. Most people probably like this just fine, but I care a lot about ingame maps, and I don’t. In comparison, the next game, Link’s Awakening, switches that out for a grid-based map which reveals as you explore. This really encourages me to explore much more than LttP’s map style does, because I really want to reveal all of the squares on that map! I may not care much about loot in videogames, but I do care about exploring out maps in games which have a minimap which reveals as you go. I wish LttP had that as well, and not only LA and the Oracles games. And on top of that, in LA you can even move a cursor around the map, getting info about what the name for the tile in each area or the building in each location is. There is no similar function here, so you’ll just need to remember where everything is.
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 think I mostly agree with you on this point. I would point out that this game did put a LOT of actions on the A button rather than make them selectable items, and having the Pegasus boots usable without having to "equip" them is a point over Link's Awakening, though Toby Fair the Gameboy only has so many buttons to work with so their solution works pretty well there. Overall though, I found myself pausing and switching items a lot more in LA than in LTTP. On balance, Link's Awakening advanced the item usage exactly as you describe, by way of allowing more than one item equipped at a time, but at the same time the item menu in LA is a cluttered mess.
LA has the exact same problem as LTTP has when it comes to items with "sub items" you have to select, namely the ocarina and it's songs. Though, in both cases only ONE item works like that (ocarina in LA and bottles in LTTP). Also, LTTP's bottles are an advantage in terms of simply how many things the game lets you catch and stick in them, compared to one refillable bottle of healing potion in LA. In any event, the GBA version puts the bottles in as distinct items resolving this.
What LA does wrong is that when you switch items onto your button, it puts the old one back in the "place" you switched it. That quickly leads to a cluttered mess of a menu unless you make a concious decision to swap items in such a way that they all get back to a predictable position each time, meaning you spend more time in the menu swapping things around. I demand a clutter-free experience, so that means I spent a LOT of time swapping things around every time I needed to get something. Both older and newer Zelda games (other than the Oracle games) did this a LOT better, keeping all items in pre-set locations when you assigned them. MUCH less disorder, much less stress.
On a minor note, LTTP made sure you knew how many of everything you had in the menu. LA didn't show you how many heart pieces you had, so hope you committed that to memory. LTTP did. That's a small detail, but it was a bit annoying at times. LA's DX version resolved that issue though, so it goes the same way as the bottle issue in LTTP. You still have to individually select songs after picking the ocarina, but since the songs are used so rarely compared to the bottles, I can let that slide.
As for the map, I hadn't thought of this but again, I think I mostly agree with you here. I'll go even further to say that the "mode 7" effect kinda made the map ugly to look at and just showing it as a standard 2D map would have looked better (although the mode 7 effect was immersive, "pulling" you into the game world, so it has that going for it). I will disagree on one point, the map does obscure plenty before you get there, usually with cloud cover, and especially in the case of the lost woods. Showing the overall places in the world though? I can see a good argument for obscuring it a lot more so that you can be surprised you suddenly found Lake Hylia, rather than expecting it.
I will disagree on the showing of arrows and such. First, in context, Zelda 1 had a whole black bar dedicated entirely to that information, while LTTP made that area transparent so you could see the world underneath that part while still providing all that information. I think they used the space pretty well all things considering and didn't mind seeing all my magic, hearts, equipped items and so on all at once. Later games would move individual consumable numbers to the icon for the item itself, and that is a better design considering just how many consumables Zelda would ultimately have, but with only arrows and bombs to worry about in this game, it isn't hurting anything to show those numbers at all times.
Lastly, yes, they could have used the buttons better. Most notably, early SNES games hadn't quite figured out what to do with the shoulder buttons. Super Mario World used them to very slightly scroll the screen, and LTTP used then exclusively to shift zoom levels on the map. Yes, a little innovation and we could have put the map on the "L" button, and two additional items on the X and R buttons (map zoom level could be adjusted with "R" alone while in the map, similar to how the GBA version does it). In fact, some fan mods to the ROM have made similar changes. All in all though, LA gives up constant access to the sword in order to get the benefit of two tools at once, but there we're dealing with limitations of the Gameboy's controls being worked around. So yes, I totally agree on this point, but in terms of how badly it impacted the game, I'd say not enough to really detract from it any more than other Zelda games. Adding a couple extra items helps, but fundamentally Zelda games to this day require me to pause the game to switch things around every time I need to do something, and that's always going to break immersion. I guess I'm just so used to it now (between all the Zelda and Megaman and point and click adventure games I played growing up) that it doesn't really phase me. Still, even a slight improvement is appreciated when it's there, so yes, they could have made better use of the buttons.
Quote:2) Combat Issues: Another important issue with LttP is that combat can be frustrating. Some people claim that this game “isn’t very challenging”, but I would say that they have played the game too many times to remember that it’s actually pretty tough! I died more than 80 times in my first time finishing the game on the SNES, and even though I didn’t finish the GBA version my death count is not low. Part of that is that I’ve only beaten the game once and Zelda games are always easier on a replay than the first time, and some is probably just that some people are really good at games, but there is more to it than just that. You see, after LttP, the Zelda series made several important changes to its combat system that make combat easier and more fun than it is in this game or the first one for the NES. For the most part combat in LttP is fairly standard for a Zelda game, which means it’s great. You have a sword for your main weapon, a shield for defense, and a bunch of other items you can use in combat as well that you will get as you play. The core of the Zelda series is about exploration, action, and puzzles, and the combat here is mostly great fun. However, as good as LttP combat is, the sword and shield both saw big improvements starting with Link’s Awakening and it is hard to go back to this style after having played that game.
First, your sword’s range is limited, and your range varies depending on which way you are facing. You have good range to the left or right of the screen, but up and down range is a bit less. And worse, your diagonal range is very limited. While in the next game, Link’s Awakening, Link’s sword-swing animation hits a full three tiles, those in front of you, diagonally forward-above, and above, in this game your limited little sword attack swings only in a small arc in the direction you are facing. You don’t have the vertical hit you do in LA, and you don’t have as much forward distance in your swings as you do in that game either, particularly when facing up or down. Additionally, when you hold the sword button down, you charge up for a spin attack. This is great, and is also useful because if enemies walk into you when doing this they will get hit, but in this game the ‘charged’ sword is held close to Link’s body, so it has very little range. In comparison, in LA Link holds his sword out like normal when it is charged, making hitting enemies with it easier. 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.
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.
As a result of those two factors, I find combat in LttP to be less fun than it is in any of the Game Boy or GB Color Zelda games. I’m not sure if this is a harder or easier game than those, as I died more times beating any of the three GB/GBC games the first time than I did in this one, but I played this game well after those so some improvement is expected, and in LttP I felt like I had more frustrating, unfair deaths than I did in those games. It’s definitely fun to explore around in this game, but you’ll take hits more often than you should due to your limited attack range and defense, and this makes the game more frustrating at times. This is an issue they fixed starting in the next game in the series. Overall combat in Link to the Past is pretty good, with fun core sword-swinging combat and some variety with your various items such as the hookshot and fire and ice rods. However, it could have been better, and the limited range and shield make combat in this game less fun than it is in newer Zelda games, and harder than it should be at times as well.
You just made me realize that the 3D Zeldas and their shield control trace back to LA's shield control. Perspective does have a huge part on things like this. I'm not talking about nostalgia, but rather where you are coming from when you first play a game. With LTTP, it's key to understand the combat we had before and just how much of an improvement in design LTTP had over Zelda 1. In Zelda 1, you could only move in cardinal directions, there was no dashing, and instead of slashing in an arc you just stabbed directly forward. Now, there was one little glitch I abused to stab in one direction and retract the sword in a different direction by quickly changing directly mid-poke (allowing me to hit people on different sides of my character), but LTTP was a massive upgrade over Z1's combat. Z2 was, in retrospect, almost a totally different genre of game (though at the time, all there was was Z1 and Z2, so I didn't think of it as "not Zelda" because the pattern hadn't really been set yet). Anyway, Z2 was much more combat oriented and introduced special moves and verticality. LTTP took a few things from this, introducing new sword attacks like the spin attack and the dash attack. Technically, Zelda 2 has a much more powerful shield than either Z1 or LTTP, and with some more control. As a combat focused game, having a shield that blocked almost everything was seen as a must, and recently I've started viewing Z2 as a prototype for the Souls series, in terms of things like the game being hard, but fair, and designed entirely around that level of challenge.
LTTP's shield blocked a lot less than Zelda 2, going back to the design of Zelda 1, but with a few new twists. Firstly, you would hold the shield to one side when charging the sword, so it could still block attacks from one side, helping when there's projectile users off to the side of the target you're going after. Also, it was used to solve puzzles later in the game once the mirror shield was introduced, similar to the "reflect" spell from Zelda 2, but for hazards too instead of just combat. There's no denying the shield became a lot stronger in later games, and much more flexible in how it is controlled, but on balance the whole game is designed around the dynamic of either you attack or you defend, never both, and as in Zelda 1, it does work for this game. One benefit is I don't find myself walking around with a button held down for most of the game, as I did in LA and the Oracle games. That's a plus at least. Yes, the shield design is not as advanced as it would get in later games, but when the whole game's combat is designed around the way the shield functions in this one, I can't really fault it. Plus, and this is a big one, it is nice to be able to use the shield and sword and an extra item all at once (and the dash boots too just for good measure) without needing to sacrifice any of it. That really aids any fight where I need to use a special weapon, even if the shield doesn't block nearly as much.
The sword's range is limited. I think it extends just a bit when you get the Master Sword, but that's about the only time that happens. This is bad, and LA being a much more "tiley" design (that is, everything is much more obviously linked to the tiles the ground is composed of) does have a clear advantage in getting some good distance with the swings. Again, come at this from Zelda 1 and 2, where Link used a stabbing attack. Coming from those games, it felt like a massive improvement to be able to deal damage in an arc in front of me rather than just directly in front. Even with the shorter reach, the extra arc range more than made up for it, which is why swing attacks became the norm from this game forward. Further, if you do need a little range over an enemy's weapon, the spin attack extends your reach a bit. I used that spin attack a lot just for that purpose. That's a bit of a kludge like the "double stab" glitch in Zelda 1, but it's at least an intentional one. Further, all of the game's enemies are designed with that reach in mind. Most soldiers are working with the same range limitations, for example. The overall "feel" of the combat is still solid, and I never got frustrated because of the design. Again, the challenge still felt fair to me. So yes, the longer range is an improvement in the design of later games, but when the whole game is designed around the range you have, the end result still feels fine. It's no Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde.
Onto other aspects of combat, there's how the enemy encounters themselves are designed. Zelda 1 and 2 largely were action oriented, with the majority of combat being determined by reflexes and pattern recognition. That's never left the series and it still has a focus on that to this day, but ever since LTTP there's been a much larger focus on making every enemy a puzzle in itself. In LTTP, at first most enemies are easily dispatched with little thought. As time goes on, monster require a bit more thought to figure out. The stalfos knights, for example, are a two stage puzzle involving knocking them apart and then using a bomb to blow their bones apart before they reform. Most bosses also involve solving some manner of puzzle, most notably the water temple boss who you need to defeat by pulling it's orbs out one by one using the hookshot. I'll give LA some praise here, because while LTTP did a better job of using items in creative ways to defeat a boss, LA perfected it in a way that's stuck with the series ever since. In LA, EVERY boss repeats the same formula in that they involve using the item you found in the dungeon to beat that boss. LTTP did this sometimes, but LA did it with every encounter. It's a formula that never gets stale because every dungeon item is different than what was in the last, so using it to beat the boss of that dungeon works differently each time. It's a design that'll never outlive it's welcome, but it can result in poor item design. Everyone remembers the spinner from Twilight Princess and how it was amazing and cool and was used great with the boss, and then almost never used again, and that's an easy trap for designers to fall into. Since they are using the "item will be used against this dungeon's boss" formula, they might design the item/boss interaction first, and then figure out other uses for the item second. When that happens, they may find they just designed an item with an extremely limited range of uses and end up just relegating it to something only useful in that one location in the game. LTTP avoided this trap because they hadn't stumbled on that formula yet. They were designing items with their overall usefulness or cool factor in mind first, and how it could be used against the boss... maybe. It CAN be a tradeoff, but it doesn't HAVE to be and LA proves it pretty well. All in all though, they did a good job with boss design and how it interfaced with your equipment.
Above are what I'd call minor disagreements. Most of them are things I agree partly or mostly with but have a different interpretation on or defend as not hurting the game overall. Below we really get into the meat and potatoes of our disagreement, the world and puzzle design.
Quote:3) Poor Map & World Design: Ever since I first played it, one of my biggest problems with LttP has always been its map layout and design. The problem is, it’s not good, at all!Okay, I really gotta call you out on one thing. Please stop using sentences like "The problem is, it's not good, at all!". That sentence is just rephrasing it's subject as the predicate and doesn't really enlighten anyone. The moment you've said there's a problem, we already know you think it's not good. Problems generally aren't good, that's why they are problems. I really hate to lay into you on this, but I mean, you do it so often, and it isn't helping either of us.
Quote:Both in its overall layout and in how fun it is to explore, LttP’s map is kind of boring. While this game does not have the worst overworld design in a 2d Zelda game, I would say that The Minish Cap is worse, it’s one of the weaker ones for sure and this really bothers me. Across the Zelda series, in both the 2d and 3d games, you see two basic concepts in world design: either a carefully designed world, that is tricky to navigate and is densely packed with unique areas and things to see and do, or a large and open world that you can explore large amounts of more quickly and that has a much lower density of interesting or relevant areas. Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time are good examples of that second style, while Link’s Awakening and Majora’s Mask are of the first style. I think that the second style is better from a gameplay and level-design standpoint, when done well; it leads to more interesting, more varied maps with more to do and a more carefully designed feel, versus lots of pointless space that seems to be there for no reason other than to wander around in. As someone who has never liked open-world games much, that kind of design is not much of a draw for me. Objectively the two styles are probably equal, though, that’s just opinion. And beyond that, execution matters the most, as either style can be great or mediocre, depending on how well they are designed. For instance, I consider Ocarina of Time to be my favorite console game ever, while Majora’s Mask is interesting but very flawed due to its time mechanic. Despite that, MM has the more interesting, and almost certainly better, world to explore, but a game is more than its world, other factors are more important, in this case the time mechanic. In LttP’s case, the game has both the not-as-good style of world and also doesn’t have other elements that completely make up for that.
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. And even when an area does have a key item in it, this game rarely explains that well enough, expecting you to fully explore everything regardless of how important it seems. I will get in to this issue in depth later, though.
So the problem is, this game requires you spend quite a bit of time exploring and finding items, but I found the world too uninteresting to make me want to actually do that exploration. And even when I did find a suspicious spot in the overworld, sometimes I couldn’t figure out how to proceed because of how obscure the overworld puzzles often are. But when outside of the usually pretty interesting dungeons most of the world feels irrelevant, I just wanted to go find the next dungeon. Another thing that can make you want to explore a game is its story, so while I will discuss this in more detail in the next section, the story and character interactions aren’t nearly good enough to help here either. The writing here is average at best, both in the basic story and the only decent NPC characters that are scattered around. In many later Zelda games the characters and in some cases even the story can help you want to keep going, but while it is improved over the original NES game by a lot, that is not so much the case here. Most of the better story and character interactions are early in the game, too.
Additionally, if you look at the zoomed-out map on the X-button map screen, you’ll notice that the overworld map layout is not that great. THere are some scattered corners with neat stuff in them, but that is not the bulk of the map. A Link to the Past is the only 2d Zelda game with a very straightforward and unvarying hub-and-spoke world, and I don’t like that; it’s kind of boring! The gameworld here is built around a central castle, surrounded by a ring of open ground connecting to the main areas in the game. The map in this game is made up of nine square areas, connected by mostly wooded spaces in between the main themed regions. One area, Death Mountain, takes up two of the nine squares, but otherwise each square is one area. These squares are even mostly identical in size! No other 2d Zelda game has such a simplistic layout, and it holds this one back. 3d Zelda games can be more like this, Ocarina of Time in particular, but there the good layout and other improvements make the world great regardless of that. The later games mix things up more than you see here. LA’s more complex world design helps make that game better.
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. The implementation isn’t the best, but it is a good idea. While you spend the first half of this game in the Light World, midway you gain access to the Dark World, where you travel through a dangerous alternate realm. This map is a variant on the main map, so it is familiar and yet different. This concept of having multiple variations on the map is one that many Zelda games have used since, so it is an influential and important addition to the 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. And the Dark World is satisfying in some ways, as it adds challenge to world traversal that rarely exists before you reach it. However, its design is very linear. This wouldn’t bother me if it had multiple start points, since I don’t mind linearity in games so long as you don’t need to replay the same stuff over and over, but unfortunately unless you’re in a dungeon you can only start from the center point of this map, and unlike in the Light World the Dark World’s center area has only one exit. So, you end up circling around the Dark World over and over. You do eventually get an ability that alleviates this issue, though it leads to the overworld being even less important than before as you zip between the final few dungeons, but still, this could have been better. The Dark World also has many fewer people to talk to than the Light World and no real town, so the games’ already limited amounts of interaction drop off even more here.
Now, what you just said is a pretty good defense of your opinion, which you even state is a subjective measure of what you put value in, so why use statements like "it's just not very good"? Anyway, in principal I agree. A well thought out smaller world beats a slapdashed massive world in my opinion too. Link's Awakening does a great job making every screen matter, and "screens" are exactly how that game is designed. LTTP isn't designed using individual "screens" as units so much as whole regions, so it's important to consider each region as a whole rather than individual screens. Even so, there's still an argument to be made that some of the regions are wasted (that small forest just north of the blacksmith and just south of the main path from the castle is a great example of an unused space that's simply "there"). I would disagree with any assertion that this is representative of the whole game's design though. By and large, every region is full of secrets to find and things to do. The light world's swamp has the central submerged remnants of a dungeon, some hidden caves, lots of grass and enemies hiding in them, and some interesting little things like rocks that turn out to be rupee spitting enemies and some fish left high and dry to rescue. There's also a portal to the dark worldFurther, it serves as part of an obstacle course for one of the game's escort quests and links to 3 surrounding regions. There's also a dark world portal hidden here. In the GBA version, the east side serves as part of a racecourse for an added sidequest. The region as a whole has plenty to do and to find, though it is spread over a wider area than LA would have done. I think they found balance between "large world" and "interesting things to do".
The dark world/light world dynamic does introduce some inconsistency. You can't consider LTTP's world design without considering the light and dark worlds. That was revolutionary, and so very many games have come since then basically copying this design, including later Zelda games. LA doesn't have anything even close to that. I would agree it doesn't need it, and I would never claim any game that doesn't have two parallel worlds is lesser for it, but it is certainly something LTTP has that LA doesn't have and MUST be more closely considered than I think you've done. Everything about the world design in LTTP rests on that concept. This is so deeply nested in the design that, internally, the game only has ONE map, with flags turning on or off certain parts depending on "where" Link is. In terms of game design, this means they designed every section with both "versions" and their features simultaneously, and thus when judging any region, both "versions" of that region are more fairly judged simultaneously. Let's look at the desert. Frankly, you're right about it. It is not a well utilized space at all. It does get across a sense of wandering through endless wastes, which is valuable itself (I'll get to that later), but you're completely right that it doesn't have much going on until you finally trek through to the dungeon (on my first plays, I trudged through this very slowly, as those vultures and mudmen were getting the better of me, but later on I was able to more or less speed right on through). HOWEVER! Now let's get to Misery Mire. When I discovered just how drastically different this area was from it's light world counterpart, that was one of the defining moments of "wow" in the game for me. Based on the commentary in Miiverse, that holds up to this day. The mire makes much more use of the space than the desert ever did, covered in challenging areas to navigate and hidden coves around the space. Just getting around is a challenge more closely resembling how things are laid out in LA. Seeing how things are set up in the dark world version really explains what was going on with the light world version's design. Now, could they have made BOTH versions equally interesting? Well, maybe, but there's inherent limitations when you need both areas to share certain basic structures in common. All in all, most of the areas in the game that feel underutilized are like this. However, a lot of them are well used in both versions. It's just a matter of spacing.
To criticize LA for a moment, for all it's good use of space, it is NOT an easy game to get around in. Most of the time I spent switching items was just me trying to get from point A to point B. There's another element of design to consider, which is how an area holds up to repeated visits. This is one of LA's weaknesses. All those holes and rocks everywhere? They are interesting the first time, but when you're just trying to get from one side of the map to the other, they do little more than frustrate. LTTP's map design, on the other hand, allows for a more natural flow as you learn the quickest ways to get around. The stuff in your way in LTTP tends to either just be a temporary detour or something that'll actually speed up your travel (like how ledges are placed). LA has 4 portals that link to each other in a circle, and that's it. Each of those portals is rather difficult to get to, with at least one case of the VERY first thing you need to do once you reach one being lifting a rock that shouldn't have been there in the first place. These are the closest to shortcuts the game gives you. LTTP gives you water ways once you get the flippers, and the duck once you get the ocarina, and the various portals around the world beyond that. It's true that the dark world doesn't let you use the bird (which makes sense since the bird can't hear you, right up until the end when the bird somehow does hear you and get you to the pyramid of power), but when you can easily reach that last portal you created yourself when you went to the dark world and use the duck from there, it isn't so bad. The dark world itself more closely resembles the obstacle course layout of LA, but again, if you want to get somewhere quickly, you can go to the more free flowing light world, get there, and then switch back over. Generally, it works pretty well. The east side of death mountain is a particularly out of the way place, although in the GBA version they finally added a 9th duck spot that unlocks once you get there. All in all, travel around the world is smoother and flows better, and the dark world gets away with it's rougher setup because there's always the light world as a shortcut. For that matter, it was an interesting design choice to make getting to the light world something you could do at any time, but you never had a quick flight system, but getting to the dark world had to be done at hidden locations, but you had the flight system to get to those places. Aside from that head scratcher (Seriously Chrome? You're telling me "scratcher" isn't a word?) with suddenly being able to call the bird near the very end of the game, the system works well and provides an interesting gameplay loop that keeps you hopping back and forth between worlds and seeing the differences and what they might hint at rather than spending your time entirely in the dark world.
The central "hub" of this world isn't Hyrule Castle (though it is literally at the center of the world), it's Kakariko Village. I went to and from there so many times on my first playthrough because there was plenty to do there and it opened up as I played the game. There were lots of little things that kept me wondering how I'd do that, most notably that book in the library. One of the first things I kept trying to do when I got to the dark world was visit the town there. When I finally found a way to get there, well, I knew it wouldn't be the same, but I was shocked at just how depressing and outright dangerous the village of outcasts could be.
One major point of difference here is one I don't think we'll be able to reconcile. You think the puzzles are too obtuse and the game doesn't give you enough hints to find the secrets. I found the puzzles were well designed and the lay of the land more often than not informed me as to exactly what to do to solve puzzles in the overworld. The light/dark dynamic feeds directly into that. You go into this later, but the entrance to misery mire is, to me, a perfect example of providing exactly enough hints to the player that they feel like a genius when they figure it out. The first thing players notice when trying to reach the desert in the dark world is that it is blocked off, and when they look at it from the map (the map provides a lot of clues in the game), they'll notice it looks weird, but one common element is that large rocky outcropping in the south west. Sure enough, it's there in the light world too. Well, when I first got that bird, I had to check for myself, and sure enough it lets me fly to that outcropping. So, before I had even flew there, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, and sure enough there it was, a portal to the dark world. It was an amazing bit of design that you see all over LTTP. The game forces you to hop back and forth, as I mentioned before, and as a result you are forced to see how the terrain differs between areas, and those differences draw your attention and all your efforts. At a certain point, you start hopping back and forth any time you get stuck in the overworld, just to see, and you're usually rewarded in some fashion. The sunken palace and how changes in one place affect another are also great. Sahasrala does flat out tell you this, but it's something the game's design directly informs you of when you pop back and forth and see those changes for yourself. I say all of this, but it's clear you had some trouble noticing those hints. I think the reason is that you found the overworld boring from the start and just rushed from one dungeon to the next as fast as you could. Well, then it's no surprise you missed all those clues in the design hinting at what to do next, and no surprise you missed so many critical items most players find on their first time. I don't know what to do about your boredom with the map, but if you had payed attention, you'd have noticed there were numerous hints at every step of the way. I really do come off as condescending, but really it's just a VERY different view of the world at large. I would urge you to take a second look at the layout. Instead of digging and bombing every spot you see for those sorts of secrets, look at the lay of the land itself. That's where most of the hints lie, and the real strength of this particular design. Going back around to my original point, the world is not as densely packed as LA, and thus there is a good amount of wasted space, but on the larger scale, it uses that space to inform the player as to what is important and where to go next. Super Metroid does very similar things, with the geography often hinting at the location of a secret rather than some Metroid style clones that merely place the secrets at random. It's this use of hints that demand your attention that put LTTP's puzzle design ahead of so very many of the later Zelda games that pretty much hold your hand and tell you how to solve a puzzle the moment you enter a room, and I would say that extends to the overworld.
Quote:4) Story & Towns: Related to the previous point, Zelda: LttP has a very basic and no-good story, limited interactions with other characters compared to any newer game in the series, far less to do in the games’ one town than any subsequent Zelda game, and, of course, fewer clues for what you should be doing than any game after it in the series either. That last point is separate, though related because of how Zelda games combine story, towns, and clues together. But as for the rest of it, so, the story in this game is that you need to rescue the princess, again. It’s the same old garbage sexist story as usual, just with a better, more complete introduction segment than you’d see in the NES games. At the start the story seems to have promise, as you go to the castle, find your uncle and then Zelda, and escape with her. Once she gets kidnapped and the game proper begins, however, most story goes out the window apart from some conversations with the old sage Sahasrahla and a few psychic-link messages from Zelda. The game does have one twist, the initial villain Agahnim is revealed to be working for traditional series villain Ganon, so after beating Agahnim at the midpoint of the game you go over to the aforementioned Dark World. You start out in the dark world in an animal form, though, which is kind of amusing, but you soon get an item that lets you stay in human form there. Then you work your way through the dungeons in the Dark World until you can get Ganon. This is all a lot more plot than the nearly nonexistent story in the original Zelda, but that is a very low bar to cross and even compared to many other SNES games, LttP’s story is not that good. It has its moments, most notably the intro section and when you first go to the Dark World, but for the most part the story is entirely forgettable and generic, when it’s even there at all. And on top of that, “rescue the princess”, one of Nintendo’s favorite game plots, is a terrible and sexist plot that should go away forever, so it’s disappointing to see it return here. 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.
However, many Zelda games have bad stories; it is not a series known for great storytelling most of the time, it is best known for its great gameplay. Most newer Zelda games help make up for the weak stories with other things, such as amusing non-player characters (NPCs) to look at and interact with in the world, minigames, at least one town, and more. Link to the Past does have those things, but only in very early, rudimentary forms. Comparing this game to Link’s Awakening only a few years later, the improvements in NPC writing, design, and variety; towns; and minigames all are incredible and very, very noticeable. Where LA has some of the most memorable NPCs and situations in the series, with clever writing and a varied and amusing cast, and newer 2d or 3d Zelda games like Ocarina of Time or A Link Between Worlds have larger casts of interesting characters to interact with, minigames to play, and non-combat areas to explore, LttP shows the series’ first halting steps towards having these elements in a top-down Zelda game. The original Zelda is a great game, but apart from a few caves with one inhabitant each, who either gives you a clue or item or is running a store, your quest is done alone. Zelda II has full towns full of people to talk to, but its sidescrolling perspective makes it quite different from all other Nintendo Zelda games. Despite that though, I’m not sure if LttP is actually an improvement over Zelda II or not…
So, in this game, the third in the series, there is one town, Kakariko Village in its first appearance. The town is in the left center of the map, and is decent-sized but mostly barren of interesting things to do. There are some NPCs scattered around town, mostly in buildings, but they have little to say and there isn’t much progression or change here, unlike the towns in later Zelda games. I know many people at the time found the town fun to explore, but I find that there is so little to do there that most of the time the town is irrelevant. Apart from one key item and one dungeon, there is little reason to ever return to the town, something you could never say about Mabe Village in LA, or any main town in any 3d Zelda game. The handful of characters have little to say, there are no interesting minigames to play, and there isn’t much to find beyond a few overly obscure clues, either. For 1991 maybe having a guy who runs around town quickly and you need to figure out how to stop and a few people scattered around in the houses in town made for a good town, but it really doesn’t hold up at all. The town isn’t even monster-free either, unlike the (light-world) towns in all subsequent Zelda games! And as for the Dark World, there isn’t a town there at all, something else takes its place. Apart from towns, this game does have some scattered houses to visit, sort of like the caves of the original but better looking. It’s good that there are some of them in the game, but it’s nowhere near enough to make up for all the games’ other faults. And anyway, again, LA does this better.
On the whole, this game is heavily focused on the adventure, not the town and story elements of later Zelda games. The Zelda series is great because of the adventuring, dungeons, action, and puzzles first and foremost, but the lacking presentation, towns, and story in this game make it less interesting than later titles in the series. And even if it was a step forward for Zelda games in each of those categories at the time of its release, I think it is fair to compare it to other action-adventure games of its generation and find it lacking! Any of the three Soulblazer/Illusion of Gaia/Terranigma games have far better stories and character interactions than anything in LttP, for example, and Link’s Awakening is a huge improvement over this as well. As a result, while playing LttP I saw no reason to return to the town after the first time or so, so by the time much later in the game that I actually did need something there the thought of going back there didn’t cross my mind. I know that Ocarina of Time significantly expanded how much there is to do in a Zelda town, but this is the least interesting town in any Zelda game with actual towns. And as for the story, the decent start is wasted as soon as it turns into yet another stupid “rescue the princess” game. And yes, it’s a huge black mark against Nintendo they they STILL think that that’s an acceptable plot for most of their major titles. As much as I love the gameplay in so many Nintendo games, their sexism is unfortunate.
I'll get this out of the way, because this is about the only time you'll hear me playing devil's advocate for "rescue the princess", and I only do so because you just keep harping on that point to a degree I think is unfair. So, rescuing victims is, in and of itself, not a bad plot device. As far as a story goes, having bad things happen to people who don't deserve it and having them have no agency in their own deliverance from these bad things is a perfectly fine plot device. Not every victim should always play a part in their own rescue. Sometimes a story works better when someone really is purely a victim and the hero is the only one responsible for saving them, and SOMETIMES that person is going to be female. As such, SOMETIMES a story where someone rescues a princess and defeats a bad guy is going to happen, and I'm okay with it. In that case, it isn't necessarily sexist. Sometimes.
There, I've gotten my defense of it done, because that's the best I can say. The thing that makes "rescue the princess" a sexist trope at this point is the context of stories at large. Link isn't doing anything wrong when he rescues someone in distress. That's what heroes do. It's the nature of it as the "go to" plot device that's the big problem. The reason it's sexist is because it's the norm, the default assumption when you need a fantasy hero to have a heroic goal. There are also other deeper issues with it, namely the preponderance of stories where the hero is rescuing the princess so they can marry them, basically due to romantic interest rather than simply wanting to be a hero. (I personally detest that one the most, especially because of how certain people critique Mario and Zelda games as never letting Mario or Link "get some" at the end of the game. Even the Zelda cartoon plays up this notion with Link always trying to get "that kiss". That makes the cartoon a mixed bag, since Zelda has a character and is a hero in her own right in that game in a much more action focused way, but at the same time it undermines that with Link constantly giving her unwanted advances, and that part is so bad that it ultimately makes the cartoon come off worse for it. Oddly, the CD-i games came off pretty well in both regards, but their stories and writing are too atrocious to really consider them good in any other way.) The good news is there's never been any indication that either Link or Mario are doing their rescuing for anything but the purest of reasons. The bad news is that while a story of then rescuing the princess is okay ONCE, they do it ALL THE TIME. That's where the real issue comes from, that it's the default state. If they would switch things up and only dip into the "rescue the princess" well once in a decade, like for a remake of an old game or something, it'd be a LOT better (especially if they were having their princesses take a saving role now and again to balance the scales). Not perfect, mind you, because Nintendo' stories don't exist in a vacuum. Princess Leia, most Disney princesses, they're all in the same boat here, and taken all together they ALL contribute to it. So, even if Mario was fair and balanced as far as Mario games go in how often it put a princess in peril, it would STILL be an issue because everyone else isn't. In some distant future where princes and princesses don't need rescuing that often and when they do it's balanced between them, and that's the case across most stories in society as a whole, THEN it becomes a much safer bet to have a story where Zelda needs saving, but it is a problem. I just wouldn't call it an inherently sexist issue so much as a conditionally sexist issue. I guess ultimately that doesn't matter too much, but it does let me isolate my consideration of the story when I'm trying to get into it and let me forget that it's been done a billion times before, so I don't let it get me that angry. I'm more interested in where characterization is blatantly sexist most of the time. For example, there's this item banker in Skyward Sword who, well, needs some serious therapy. She starts out completely indifferent to you, but as you keep going back to that counter, she steadily somehow falls in love with you because of a mistaken assumption. You can "correct" this assumption, but the game only allows you to do it in a way that would emotionally destroy this person, or you can lie and stay in a relationship you've got no interest in, because she is entirely sickening in her cutesy nonsense and not at all endearing. Ultimately, the whole episode with that character rubbed me the wrong way, and it didn't help at all when Fi (one of the worst characters ever in a Zelda game) implies I shouldn't tell Zelda about this because, she'd be jealous or something? For most of Skyward Sword it's clear that Zelda and Link are very close friends, but it's also clear that's pretty much all they are, closer to Sam and Frodo than anything romantic (since nothing romantic actually ever happens between them), but Fi still says that with the matter-of-factness of an emotionless robot, like it's just an established law of nature that platonic relationships between men and women are impossible. Well, never mind all that...
I've said in the past I think the storytelling is fine for what the game is. I think I can clarify that a bit more now. The overall arc of the story is as basic as it comes: You're a hero, you must save the world, and there's one person in particular you have a link with you are trying to save. That's the story of this game. That's the story of Sleeping Beauty. That's the story of Star Wars. Does it have all the complicated twists and turns of a Final Fantasy? Not at all, and that's not what a Zelda story needs to be. Heck, some of the greatest storytelling in gaming right now is in the Souls series, and the overall goals there are spelled out for you right from the beginning of those games. (Like, kill all the demons and then you're done. That's it.) But, there's more to storytelling then the actual structure of the story itself. There's also characters. LTTP is pretty weak on deeply written characters, that's true. LA does characters better and that's why it comes very close to my favorite 2D Zelda game. There's also writing. Well, the quality of the writing depends on the original script and the translators. They did a pretty good job I'd say, but there's not exactly a bunch of quotable lines in this game. There's very little I can actually quote from memory in the game, just generally remembering the basic ideas they were telling me. (This is as opposed to Star Fox 64, where literally every single line in the game is instantly memorable. I'm taking too long, so I'll use the boost to get through.) So if the story structure isn't it, and the characters aren't it, and the writing isn't it, what exactly am I saying is so good about the story? The tone, the consistency in theme, and the way it tells the story through gameplay rather than through words. If this was nothing more than a dot running around solving puzzles and deleting other dots, it wouldn't be nearly as fun a game. All the Zelda games accomplish this, but it's notable in the first few Zelda games because that's ALL it has to rely on since all the other elements are so basic. This game makes you feel like you're on the adventure. You mention that yourself as a strength of the series as a whole. Compare this to a bad action adventure game. In a bad game, the music is lacking or badly placed. The areas are nonsensically placed, and there's no real reason why so much of the world is the way it is. You're just there, doing stuff. Hmm, how about a game that's good, but does this particular thing badly? Final Fantasy X has a well done and complicated story, decent writing, and good characters. Everyone remembers that. It also has great art design and music, as most FF games do. It does NOT have this element I just discussed though, "storytelling through gameplay". It's tubequest. You just sorta walk in a straight line until the game ends. I did like that game, but I never felt like I had any real agency in the world, at all. I never felt like the world itself even really existed. All the areas were connected just because they were, with no real sense of logic behind what place I went next in the string. I have never felt that way in a Zelda game. Even the super linear ones never felt like that, because they have an informed sense of location design, so that even when it's linear, it doesn't feel that way, and everywhere you go seems like a small part of a greater whole. When you reach big milestones, you can look back and get a real sense of how far you've come. In Final Fantasy X, I only knew I was near the end of the game because it told me I was. I didn't feel like I'd actually traveled very far at all.
The way every area is designed makes me feel a certain way. The forest feels mysterious yet hopeful because of every little element they put into it, from hiding the details on the world map to the thieves wandering about to the fog permeating the place to the maze-like layout to the fake master swords you keep finding to, of course, that amazing music. You're told what to expect deep inside the forest, so you feel a sense of excitement and hope. The dark world version of that forest accomplishes all those same things but with a totally different tone, one of wandering through some horrible level of hell. Instead of hope and excitement, you feel fear and anxiety, and you know nothing good is coming from this place. Misery Mire gives a real sense of nature having gone "wrong", of nothing being "right" about it, and hinting at the beasts that used to live there before it was walled off and flooded. The castle is vast enough to give a sense of enormity and importance, with the overall design and the music really giving you a sense of wonder at the royal family that once lived there. As I mentioned before, the desert gives a real sense of enormity and endless emptiness for first time visitors. I remember it being far bigger than it actually is. The enemies are pretty simply avoided, but they are designed to seem harder to make people slow down, which makes it appear larger. All of the dungeons stick with similar themes, giving you a real sense of where you are and that dungeon's place in the world, at least in a literal sense. In terms of any interesting characters, lots of kids really saw Agahnim as one of the best villains on the system. On the face of it, that doesn't make sense. He's a dark priest who somehow got controlled by Ganon and worked to free his master during the whole game. That's really all there is to his character, with nothing near the depth of villains like Kefka. Yet, he left an impression because his presence was felt during the whole game. You only see him a tiny handful of times, but you feel him through the whole thing. They really didn't need to do much with those few appearances to make you anticipate him. I suppose he's kinda like Darth Vader that way (that is, before Darth Vader's past was revealed in the prequels). The various towns people don't have much going on, but the few traits they have serve to make the village seem lived in. I felt the place was a town and bustling, even with the tiny handful of villagers in it. In fact, Mabe Village pulls off the same effect with even fewer townspeople. In the village of outcasts, Blind was also a pretty interesting thing. It starts out as yet ANOTHER "rescue the maiden" subplot (the game has you rescue a LOT of them, and it is to Link Between World's credit that they realized they need to have the fair share of people being rescued be male since this trope does get overplayed here), but as this escort quest goes on, you start to get more and more uneasy about exactly who she is and whether she can be trusted. Finally, you find out she's the boss of the dungeon and it all comes around again. Link Between Worlds has a similar very interesting subplot in the equivalent dungeon, done to even greater effect. As I've gotten older and played more and more games, the ability of a game to tell a compelling story has depended more and more on these factors and less and less on dialog or writing. Don't misunderstand, I still love those things when done well, but "tone" is the big one, and LTTP does that very well I think.
[quote]
5) Dungeon Issues: After I finished LttP, I thought that one of the best things about the game was its many fun dungeons. And that is true, the dungeons are mostly great! However, I do have two issues to discuss about them here. This is not one of the most damaging issues on this list for sure, as the many great, classic Zelda dungeons in this game are a key part of what makes it so good, but as good as it is, as in many other categories, in these dungeons some issues hold LttP back versus its successors.
The main issue I have with dungeons in this game is that there are too few shortcuts and the dungeons are too linear, so when you die, and you will die a lot because this is a tough game at least the first time you play it, you will usually be forced to replay the whole dungeon again from the beginning. This often can be just as hard this time as it was the last time, or harder if you used not easily replenishable items like fairies or potions, and it makes the dungeons...
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)