A Link Between World's 10th Anniversary

Another anniversary to behold: A Link Between Worlds is now ten years old! I haven't talked about this game in quite some time, so this a good excuse to change that. In the shadow of the overly successful Breath of the Wild, it's easy to forget how this Zelda title acts as a bridge between classic and modern Zelda.

It uses the world of A Link to the Past as its foundation, but tells its own story in this world, very similar to Tears of the Kingdom. And after the Zelda series had become increasingly more linear with games like The Minish Cap, Twilight Princess, Spirit Tracks, and Skyward Sword, it dared to move in the opposite direction, letting the players go for the dungeons in many different orders. For this it also experimented with the idea of giving the player most main items at the beginning of the game, which became a staple for the series afterwards.

The wall merge ability was ingenious, on a similar level to Ascend in Tears of the Kingdom, where it's something that will be easily missed when going forward with the series. It made playing a top-down Zelda game a lot more three-dimensional and let you think around the corner, quite literally.

Going forward, I'd love to see this game remastered on Nintendo Switch, more so than Ocarina of Time. It could probably re-use assets from the Link's Awakening remake, which borrowed from A Link Between Worlds to begin with. The StreetPass stuff with the Shadow Links could be even transformed into an online feature, making this part of the game more accessible today.

And I also hope that a future Zelda game will eventually explore Lorule once more. It's a shame that we probably won't see characters like Ravio, Princess Hilda, and Yuga ever again, outside of Hyrule Warriors, because they felt more meaningful than your usual one-game characters. But to be fair, it was not the most serious addition to the lore, where there is a lot of goofiness involved, especially with the naming. Though, it's not as bad as its multiplayer sequel, Tri Force Heroes.

Overall, A Link Between Worlds is an enjoyable and fast-paced Zelda game, which did a great job at easing the fans into the open world experience that was to follow. And I'm personally quite excited to see what the future will bring for this game and the land of Lorule.