Nintendo Music: A Link to the Past Added

Sorry for the silence lately, but I've been very busy with some other hobby projects and there weren't many Nintendo news to talk about: But this will certainly change with the Nintendo Switch presentation in early April.

What's not so silent is Nintendo Music and here we finally have another album for the Zelda franchise with A Link to the Past. 31 tracks filled with classic 16-bit tunes will give you a good amount of retro charm, where some of these tunes have endured the ages, with the themes of Princess Zelda, Hyrule Castle or Kakariko Village reinterpreted by recent games, such as Echoes of Wisdom.

Of course this is all from the SNES, so in the future it would be awesome to get the first disc of the "Sound & Drama" album as well, containing nine re-arranged tracks in much higher quality. Those were even used for the live broadcast of Ancient Stone Tablets, one of the Satellaview-exclusive games based on A Link to the Past, so maybe they could turn this into an album for that game.

Also, no additions for Metroid as of yet. But I suppose they are saving those for when we are getting closer to Metroid Prime 4.

Replaying A Link to the Past (GBA) on the Switch

Back on the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U, I was quite thorough with replaying all the Zelda games that I had on the Virtual Console, before Breath of the Wild came out. Now, eight years later, I haven't really made much use of the equivalent on the Switch – the Nintendo Switch Online classic game libraries. I've checked out some games that I've never played before, for which this service is great, but I was not really invested in beating or completing any of them.

The difference is that with the Virtual Console you've purchased single games on purpose, which then made me feel "obligated" to actually play it. Plus, these games were present right there on your home screen, waiting to be started. On the Switch, however, the emulated Zelda games are hidden amongst many games where I have no plans to ever play them. And it's also part of a service that will cease to exist eventually...

So, it wasn't until the recent re-release of A Link to the Past & Four Swords that I've finally come around to beat a game on the system's emulators. Well, I also had to pay extra for the Expansion Pack, so there was some obligation here to make better use of it, and I'm not sure that it will be worth it in the long run, because I really only got it for the Game Boy Advance library.

Anyway, this is the first time that Nintendo has re-released this version of A Link to the Past and this brings back memories, because this was also the version that I've first owned. Some people don't like it as much as the SNES counterpart, because you have a smaller screen and you get those Young Link screams with every sword strike, but for the most part this is the better version.

It incorporated the save system from Link's Awakening, where it puts you at the last exit / entrance and saving your game doesn't count as a "game over". The inventory menu was improved, because you get to keep the Shovel and the Bottles all have their own slot. There is an additional warp point at the equivalent to the Turtle Rock, which is a blessing in the later game. And the controls feel more intuitive, but that's out of necessity due to the lack of buttons.

In addition, there are a variety of smaller things that made the game more wholesome on the Game Boy Advance. For example, you get yellow counters when your Rupees, bombs, or arrows are maxed out. Or how you can break pots with your Golden Sword and with arrows. They even added Like Likes as a new enemy, which wasn't present in the SNES version. And Maple is in the game as the witch's apprentice:

There's more and I'm not going into every detail here, but there is only so much they were able to do with this on the Game Boy Advance. Some aspects of the game haven't aged so well in both versions, especially if you compare them to A Link Between Worlds and alike.

For example, I felt that it took too long to unlock the Flute / Ocarina for teleporting, where you need the Hammer for that and until then you had to rely on the whirlpool warp points. But that's also an issue in Ocarina of Time. And you get the Blue Mail for some much needed additional defense quite late, in the Ice Palace, where the increased damage in the Dark World is super annoying.

In A Link Between Worlds I will just go straight for the Blue Mail in the Swamp Palace to compensate this right away. But that's not an option here, because you will need at least the Hammer and the Titan's Mitt beforehand, ideally you also want the Hookshot, because it makes the Ice Palace much easier...

My biggest complaint, however, is how empty the world feels in comparison to its later iterations, which already starts with Ancient Stone Tablets. The Maiamais in A Link Between Worlds add so much, so that there is something to discover in every corner, not just the occasional Piece of Heart. Given that A Link to the Past is only the third Zelda game and its overworld was already so much more sophisticated and beautiful compared to the NES classics, it's not a major criticism of the game. But a remake with a new collectible could do wonders.

The Game Boy Advance version added some new content with the Riddle Quest and the Palace of the Four Sword, but you may have never experienced any of that, because it needed to be unlocked via Four Swords and this required at least a second player with the game. For me this took many years until I finally had that sorted out...

But of course this isn't as much of a problem on NSO, which is the main reason why I got the Expansion Pack and why I've replayed this version of A Link to the Past: I want to play Four Swords online with others after 21 years. And I did, where I was able to beat the game and obtain ten Medals of Courage, which are the requirements to get into the extra contents.

As for the Riddle Quest, that's a bit underwhelming, especially if you've already played it before and know all the solutions to the "riddles". But I also noticed how the Bug-Catching Net only really lets you capture things that are eligible as answers for those riddles.

So, for example, there are some enemies that you need, like the Sand Crab. And you won't be able to put any other enemies into the basket, only the ones in question. Or one riddle asks for a specific type of Rupee, where the net won't recognize any other colors or even other drops, like hearts or bombs. It's understandable that they've done it this way back on the GBA, but it makes this even simpler than it already is, because this excludes 90% of possible wrong answers.

I still like the idea and if A Link to the Past ever gets remade, they could improve this quite significantly by letting you capture everything and also by adding more questions. Oh, and there needs to be a warp point near the Lumberjack's house for this, because it always takes a while to walk back there. Luckily, many of the solutions can be found nearby, in the Lost Woods.

Off to the Palace of the Four Sword, I still remember how difficult this dungeon was for me when I first played it around 20 years ago. I used the "walk through walls" glitch going from Thieves' Town to enter the dungeon back then, since I was not able to unlock it with no one else around who had the game. And I had to do this several times over, because I needed refills for my Blue Potions after every boss...

Today it's significantly easier, both getting into the dungeon, where I'm now able to use the front door, and the bosses themselves, which are the toughest bosses in the game, but still not too tough. I suppose that after playing games like Death's Door and Hollow Knight I'm used to worse, but I already felt the same about this dungeon back in 2011, so that's not really it.

Though, this time I almost did the entire dungeon almost in one swoop, I only went for a refill before the final boss, which you can cheese with the Cane of Byrna quite easily. That item is so massively overpowered in this game that I don't know why it's there, especially since there is also the Magic Cape...

As for refilling your Rupees, that also never has been easier than on NSO with the rewind feature, because with it you can cheese the Treasure Chest Game at the Village of Outcasts very easily. Invest 30 Rupees and if you don't get at least 100 Rupees out of the chests, you rewind.

What I never knew before is that the contents of the treasure chests aren't fixed, like they are in A Link Between Worlds. What you get is chosen randomly whenever you open a chest. That's why you can always get two of the same. And if you rewind, you can simply open the same chests again for different results.

As for the rest of the NSO emulation, I still miss options to customize your controls, ideally for each game individually. In this case I had trouble with the inventory on the minus button, whenever I was playing in handheld mode. It's positioned in a way that I often accidentally hit the left stick when I wanted to close the inventory, which then caused the game to switch to the wrong item beforehand.

That was very annoying and I would have preferred to swap this with the L button. I know that you can change button mappings via the Nintendo Switch settings, but doing this for the whole system is also inconvenient, because then you need to constantly swap this for other games.

Anyway, this is it for A Link to the Past on the Nintendo Switch for now. I doubt that I will bother with the SNES version, since this was mainly about playing this alongside Four Swords. But it was good timing for this, where later this year we will return to this Hyrule in Echoes of Wisdom and I can't wait to find out how they've altered and expanded it.

Four Swords Online, Round 1

We are live! Quite literally. Today I had the pleasure of playing The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords with four people at the same time, for the first time in my life. Best I was able to do before was three, usually just two, so this was interesting.

You can actually watch the whole thing on Twitch, but it's in German. A friend of mine, KarlderHeinz, streams there regularly, just for the fun of it and to stay in contact. Mostly this is singleplayer, but from time to time he plays multiplayer games with people from his small, but great community, usually on Sundays. In the past two years this was almost exclusively Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where we've checked out the new courses...

Now I had made the suggestion that we should give Four Swords a try via Nintendo Switch Online, because I had a feeling that this could be a lot of fun in this round. In fact, some of us had played Four Swords Adventures together in 2018 and I still remember the laughs.

And it was fun, more than that, because the motivation to keep going is there. I went in with the expectation that we would play this until the credits roll and then be done with it, but we've actually got two Golden Keys already and are planning to complete the game eventually. There was a spark there. Getting the Silver Keys is too easy, so there was the ambition to play this a bit more seriously, as far as this was possible...

But let's start from the beginning. This was the first time that I've played any of the classic games online and it's about as bumpy as you would expect. It's peer-to-peer, as most Nintendo games with online multiplayer, so there can be some lag with four players. For the most part it went well, but you want to make sure to play this with people who live in the same state or country as you. It probably also helps to only play this with one other person, but that wasn't the goal here.

There can also be some visual glitches, like flickering shadows, which is notable in the stream. However, I personally didn't have such issues on my TV. But what I really dislike with the Nintendo Switch Online emulators in general is that it shows you part of the controls at the bottom and there is no way to hide this information. It's just wasting space and looks ugly. (Update: you can turn this off in the options, but you'll need to do this before you go into a game.)

Well, I was the group's overachiever, because I'm the only one who is bothering to also play A Link to the Past, where I had obtained the Master Sword beforehand. This unlocks sword beams in Four Swords, which was giving me a bit of an edge, but for the most part it didn't matter, because you only get them at full health. Still, you want to be at full health for the Rupee Fever, where for the Golden Keys we already had to be a bit more strategic and make sure that everyone gets enough health.

Now, I should be the only one in this groups who cares about earning the Medals of Courage, but I still have to fight for them. One guy in particular (he was the blue Link) has this mindset of "I don't care what Rupees will do for me, I just don't want any of the other players to get them." It's absolutely infuriating, but believe it or not, this is also exactly what I was hoping for...

In the past I was either playing this game alone, thanks to the added singleplayer mode in the Anniversary Edition, or I had someone who helped me out to finish the original Game Boy Advance version. So, I've rarely played this in an environment where the people would fight for Rupees.

Four Swords has this mix of cooperation and competition what makes it so unique. You have to work together to make it, but you also want to snatch all those Rupees for yourself, where this encourages toxic behavior. You may, for example, let two other players do the work and then harvest the fruits of their labor. And you can always carry and throw other players, where once their fate is in your hands, they can't do anything about it. In German we say "Kameradenschwein", someone who betrays their comrades. And you sometimes have to be the Kameradenschwein in this game if you want to score first place.

Or maybe you are just lucky. That also helps a lot, but I've ran out of luck at some point in my life, where today's session was proof of that. Whenever there are two treasure chests, usually one of them has a big Rupee and the other has a small one. And I always got the small one, every single time, so that didn't help.

We've finished half of the game by now and I only got three medals out of ten, so I certainly won't be able to complete everything in this round. But the requirement of ten Medals of Courage is way too much in any case. If nothing goes wrong, you will be playing twelve stages in total. And if you keep things even, then every player will end up with only three medals... Even if you're only playing two-by-two, you won't get enough. The Anniversary Edition was a lot fairer here, where either you needed five medals or 30,000 Rupees in total.

But I will try to play with some other people as well. And once I get all ten medals, I will keep playing A Link to the Past some more. It's actually a great choice for replaying right now, before Echoes of Wisdom returns to the same Hyrule. And it's been a while since I have played the GBA version with its extras. In case you don't know, here's a summery of how the two games interact with each other:

• Obtaining the Master Sword in A Link to the Past unlocks Sword Beams in Four Swords.
• Scoring ten Medals of Courage in Four Swords unlocks the Riddle Quest in A Link to the Past.
• Solving the Riddle Quest unlocks the Hurricane Spin Attack in both games.
• Beating both games opens the Palace of the Four Sword in A Link to the Past.
  

Most of this was impossible (or very hard) to do on the Game Boy Advance if you didn't know anyone else with the game. So, it's really nice that after all these years this title has become a bit more accessible.

Echoes of Wisdom ~ New Old Hyrule

Echoes of Wisdom is yet another Zelda game that will take place in Hyrule, where the Zelda games that don't slowly become a minority. From the trailer we can already see that this won't be a completely new version of Hyrule, however, but based on the one from A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds. If you look at the above screenshot, then you will notice how Zelda stands on a ledge above Lake Hylia. Hyrule Castle is in the center and the Eastern Palace is in the east, with the same old rock formation between the two. And then there is a forest area northwest of the castle.

So, this is clearly meant to be the Hyrule known from the Downfall Timeline, which we have explored a couple of times before. If you also count the BS-X Zelda game Ancient Stone Tablets, then this will be the fourth game to make use of it...

It has a lot more evolved from when we last saw it in 2013, however. What used to be Death Mountain now looks heavily mined and has turned cold, with snow on the top, like Death Mountain in Lorule. Hyrule Castle now has a small settlement in its walls, what could be a new Hyrule Castle Town:

And to the west of the castle there now seem to be some new ruins, which haven't been there before, while there is now a giant rock wall north of Kakariko Village, separating it from the forest above. Also, if you study the main artwork of the game (see here), you can see how Kakariko now has a windmill, like it used to in Ocarina of Time.

Most importantly, though, the game world was expanded. You can now go south of Lake Hylia, as already mentioned, which is seemingly where the adventure begins. In the west you can spot a giant volcano, which might be the new Death Mountain. And below it there is a canyon with some sort of temple, which could be Goron City.

There is a more tropical, jungle-like area, which we have never seen before and could be the Faron Woods of this game or something new entirely. This one isn't really visible in the landscape shots that we got, where potentially this lies somewhere in the east or south.

Hyrule wasn't just expanded with new areas, but also with the tribes that live there. It's getting a lot livelier than in A Link to the Past & Between Worlds. As already mentioned, there could be Goron City at the new Death Mountain in the northwest.

But you can also find Gerudo in this game, which is their second appearance in a top-down Zelda title, the first one being Four Swords Adventures. (Unless you also count Cadence of Hyrule.) They have their own Gerudo Town / Fortress somewhere in the desert. Maybe we will also see the Rito at the snowy mountains, which would be their first appearance in a top-down game. And there is more than a single Sheikah this time around.

Both the classic River Zora and the Sea Zora co-exist in this version of Hyrule, which was an idea from the Oracle games, mainly Oracle of Ages, to explain why the Zora from the 3D Zelda games were so different. But in the Game Boy Color classics the two different types of Zora never interact with each other, one is hostile and the other is not. In Echoes is Wisdom it looks like there will be some conflict between the two different Zora groups, which is very intriguing.

Finally, the Deku have returned, which marks their first appearance in a mainline Zelda game in almost 20 years. The last two games to feature them were The Minish Cap and Four Swords Adventures. Crazy, right? (Again, Cadence of Hyrule also got you covered there and even has a playable Deku.) We only get to see a Deku Merchant here, but there might be others around, probably in the Lost Woods.

Speaking of, this even will be the first top-down Zelda game to feature the Deku Tree from Ocarina of Time, which probably is found somewhere in the Lost Woods, maybe even at the spot where the Master Sword used to be. There is still some pedestal there, but not the exact same one.

Is it a coincidence that LEGO will release a Giant Deku Tree set a couple of weeks before this game, a Zelda game where you can take things from the environment to build with it? I think not...

Anyway, this game has pretty much everything that you might have wanted from A Link Between Worlds already. While the 3DS game also has changed up the world from A Link to the Past quite a bit, it still stayed quite faithful to it, maybe a little too faithful.

With Echoes of Wisdom they could potentially be making the ultimate version of Hyrule for the top-down perspective by taking the beloved Hyrule from A Link to the Past once more and adding a lot to it. And I can't wait to explore this.

Nintendo Switch Online Adds Four Swords and Zero Mission

There were more Zelda news today and it's not as small as you might think it is... Nintendo has finally added A Link to the Past + Four Swords to the Game Boy Advance library, which is part of the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. What makes this so special is that you can now play the first Zelda multiplayer game online with friends, which is something that wasn't possible before on any Nintendo hardware.

To beat and complete the original game on the Game Boy Advance you needed another GBA, a connection cable, and another copy of the game for every player. It took me many years to cross this off my list and I was never able to play the full four player mode, three players were the most.

So, Nintendo has now given me a reason to subscribe to the Expansion Pack, congratulations. I have preferred to purchase the offered DLCs and there weren't any other games in the extended library that I really wanted, but this has now changed.

In addition, they've also added Metroid: Zero Mission. This one doesn't have any multiplayer, but it did have some connectivity bonuses, where the Metroid Fusion Gallery is now unlocked by default (source). Originally, you needed to connect it to Metroid Fusion for this, using two Game Boy Advance systems and a link cable. And the Wii U Virtual Console didn't allow you to access it at all, so this is already an improvement.

Link's Awakening: Prototype Map

Tears of the Kingdom will return to the Hyrule from Breath of the Wild, but this won't be the first time that Nintendo has re-used the world from another Zelda game. In fact, they loved the Hyrule from A Link to the Past so much that they've used it in two more games: there was a modified version of it in the Satellaview exclusive spin-off, Ancient Stone Tablets, and it was revisited once more in A Link Between Worlds. But before all this they've actually worked on bringing this Hyrule to the Game Boy.

This game would eventually turn into what we know as Link's Awakening, but you can still see today some of the similarities. Kanalet Castle sits relatively close to the map's center, where it originally was intended to become Hyrule Castle. Mabe Village is found to the west, where Kakariko would have been, and the Mysterious Woods are right above the village, just like the Lost Woods. Martha's Bay is close to where Lake Hylia would have been, and the Ancient Ruins are to the east, like the Eastern Palace, with lots of Armos statues around. You have the mountains to the north with a tower on top, with waterfalls from there leading into the island's rivers and the castle moat. And this list goes on... Of course Koholint became its own thing, but this doesn't change the fact that it was born out of the Hyrule from A Link to the Past.

Now, you may recall the Gigaleak from 2020, where a lot of data from Nintendo got made public, which included documentation, source files, and other things, mainly from their older titles. Apparently, part of these files included the early prototype map of Link's Awakening, from the time where it was still meant to be A Link to the Past on the Game Boy. And thanks to MrCheeze on Twitter we are now able to see how it looks like when put together:

Behold! This is fun to study and puts many things into an interesting perspective. Like, the Seashell Mansion was effectively Link's house at some point. Or the small pond between the Fortune Teller and the graveyard eventually became Manbo's Pond.

The Lost Woods were entirely shut off, except for the entrances to the southwest, and feel a lot more like a maze here. Curiously, one of the screens, the one with the six bushes at the bottom, looks very close to what ended up in the final game. This seems to be an exception, however, together with the entrance to the Eastern Palace, which looks almost exactly like the entrance to the Ancient Ruins.

It's also interesting how the small forest to the west of Hyrule Castle wasn't connected to it in this version. Instead, there was a dungeon entrance there, which looks very similar to the Tail Cave, only with lion statues. The sprite for this statue can even still be found in the final version of the game, it's simply unused (see TCRF). They've ultimately put a dungeon into this forest area with Ancient Stone Tablets, so it's interesting to see that they've considered this as a spot for a new dungeon before.

And another dungeon entrance can be found at the swamp in the south with the floodgate ruins. It looks a lot like the one for the Key Cavern, where this is where the eyes originally came from. It always felt like the dungeon was intended to be swamp-based – with its location, the "Slime Key" and all that –, but what remained are the eyeball enemies.

The Mario statues there are certainly something else, though. Coincidentally, there was a Mario statue in a Japanese manga for A Link to the Past, which came in a guide from 1992. Melora from History of Hyrule (one of my favorite Zelda sites) has been recently scanning this manga, where she has been pointing this out today (see here):

This is quite awesome, whether this was a coincidence or something deliberate. It could be that the guys working on the manga saw the prototype at some point. Or it could be that the development team was simply inspired by the manga  and decided to put the Mario statues into the new version of A Link to the Past. This statue may even be where all the Super Mario content in Link's Awakening started...

We probably will never know, but it's nice to finally have a more detailed insight into what they have originally been working on! Too bad that the leak didn't include anything from the Oracle games, because it would have been awesome to see such a prototype map for Oracle of Seasons, which had a very similar development history, only that there they were trying to remake the NES The Legend of Zelda. But of course this wasn't done at Nintendo, but at Capcom.

Four Swords for Nintendo Switch Online?

There has been a leak of Nintendo's early development efforts with GameBoy (Color) and GameBoy Advance titles on Nintendo Switch. This shouldn't be all too surprising, where many fans are expecting this to happen eventually. Ideally, the GameBoy (Color) games will be part of the standard subscription, while GameBoy Advance games get moved to the Expansion Pack. It would be really low if every new collection became part of the latter from now on, and the GameBoy really should be next to NES and SNES.

Anyway, if Nintendo truly wants me to subscribe to the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, they will only have to do one thing:

Four Swords, with online multiplayer. The ability to play the multiplayer NES, SNES, and N64 games online hasn't been interesting to me so far, but the GBA with Four Swords could completely change this. I loved this game, but rarely had the chance to play it with others, where I've never even played this with four people at once, which could be fun and utterly chaotic.

Also, the GameBoy Advance version of A Link to the Past has never been re-released, where this would be nice to have, even though the original game is already part of the Super Nintendo service. But things like the Riddle Quest or the Palace of the Four Swords would be completely lost in time otherwise.

Well, the Anniversary Edition of Four Swords is equally lost in time, but the best thing about it was the singleplayer mode, which won't be as important if you can just easily play the game online with others. The Anniversary Edition was a DSiWare game and all about the 25th Anniversary, where it's questionable whether Nintendo will ever bring this back in any way, shape or form.

However, the current list of leaked GBA titles doesn't include A Link to the Past & Fours Swords, only The Minish Cap. There may also be concerns about griefing, because Four Swords was a game where you were cooperating and competing at the same time. You can pick up players and prevent them from doing things, kill yourself to waste Rupees, and so on. But since playing these emulated games online is limited to friends, this shouldn't be much of a concern, unlike in Tri Force Heroes, where you could play with random strangers.

Link's Awakening Remake: Rupee Rocks?

There was some other small addition visible during the Treehouse Live segment for Link's Awakening, where I'm sure some people have missed it: it seems that Rupee Rocks were added to the game.

You can clearly see such a rock north of Dampé's Shack, which wasn't there in the original versions and has a green glowing effect on it (this effect can be seen better in the video):

That's probably a Rupee Rock and they first appeared in the GameBoy Advance version of A Link to the Past. Since then they have appeared only one more time, in A Link Between Worlds, where it's likely that the same team, who was developing A Link Between Worlds, is now working on Link's Awakening and re-using some features from the 3DS game.

It's also not the only thing that was brought over from A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds. As we already know, apples can grow on trees as well, where Link can get them (probably with the Pegasus Boots) and eat them:

Rumor: A Link to the Past Coming to Switch?

According to these tweets, both Metroid Prime Trilogy and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past got registered in Best Buy's system. The former shouldn't be a surprise, but the latter certainly would be. And the new Link's Awakening is already there, so this might not be a simple confusion with the title.

This is very curious, since we're already getting the Link's Awakening remake and SNES games will come to the Nintendo Switch Online service eventually, maybe even this year. Also, a remake like this would have been best on the Nintendo 3DS, where we already have A Link Between Worlds and they could just use that game's graphics, enemies and everything to remake A Link to the Past entirely without any bigger efforts.

So, it seems very odd that a remake of A Link to the Past could be announced for the Nintendo Switch soon. But let's wait and see what this all will be about.

Replaying A Link to the Past on the Wii U

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After skipping over Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, which I just beat in August, my journey through the Wii U Virtual Console continued with A Link to the Past. I've already beaten the game on Nintendo 3DS earlier this year and directly compared it to A Link Between Worlds, so you should read that instead, because the playthrough was a little bit more interesting.

This time it felt more like a chore to be honest. I'm going through my backlog of Wii U games now and the redundancy towards the 3DS library really shows here, where the motivation for some of the stuff is quite low. At least with the NES and N64 Classics I have certain goals for my replay sessions, but A Link to the Past was just there, waiting to be completed yet another time.

I don't feel as strongly about A Link to the Past as the other classic Zelda games, most likely because I never owned a Super Nintendo as a kid and I wasn't able to play it before the GameBoy Advance times. I still see it as a great game, it has one of the best overworlds in the series, which Nintendo has reused twice over the years (in Ancient Stone Tablets and A Link Between Worlds), the visuals are nice, the music is great and it invented so many things for the Zelda series. Treasure chests, cutting grass, dashing into trees, lighting torches, Cucco Revenge Squads and so much more... A Link to the Past certainly defined the series.

But after a strong beginning, the second half of the game really is just dungeon crawling and most of the Dark World dungeons aren't as enjoyable. Of course they aren't supposed to be nice places, but they also didn't have to be as annoying, especially with letting you run in circles.

This time I played Misery Mire early (after Thieves' Town and the Swamp Palace), so that I wouldn't have to take to do the complicated backtracking in the Ice Palace. However, when I reached the end, where I could have just placed the block, I realized that I missed a key and since I always do 100% runs with the dungeons fully explored and cleared, I had to go through the entire Ice Palace again looking for said key. I also tend to always miss a key somewhere in Misery Mire, but it's not as terrible there.

Another troll moment is in Ganon's Tower, where you defeat the Armos after that long and complicated room with the invisible bridge. You now have the choice to go either up or left. The way up brings you to the Big Key, while the way left locks you out and then you have to do it all over again, both the puzzle and the Armos fight. Not nice, Nintendo!

At least I've learned something new this time. You can actually turn the "Rabbit Beams" (the rotating stars that follow you around and turn you into a rabbit) into a fairy by sprinkling Magic Powder on them, exactly like with a Anti Fairy. That was news to me and sadly I only learned this in Ganon's Tower. I'll try to use this to my advantage the next time, whenever I decide to play A Link to the Past again, probably on the Switch.

Classic Zelda Artworks Coming to Life

The one thing that impressed me certainly the most about Nintendo's E3 presentation of Breath of the Wild was the fact that they finally brought the infamous NES Zelda artwork to life, where Link stands on a cliff and looks at the vastnesses of Hyrule:

I always was in love with this artwork and what it stood for, as you might see from the background image of this site, and already when Skyward Sword got showcased at E3 2010, I had hopes that the game would deliver me this experience, but it didn't. Skyward Sword had some interesting and beautiful playgrounds, but it all was very restricted and confined.

With Breath of the Wild I might finally get the kind of Zelda experience that I always wanted. If you see something on the horizon, you can just go there. Hyrule is fully yours to explore and that feels exciting.

Another vision that absolutely came to life in the trailer was the classic resting place of the Master Sword from A Link to the Past:

Even the light falls in the same angle!

And I wonder, if these aren't the only artworks that Nintendo wanted to realize ingame. For example there is one classic artwork, where Link fights some giant one-eyed worm (probably Lanmola) on the overworld:

That is a stretch, but it's somewhat similar to the Guardians and I like how Aonuma pictured the original Octoroks as giant creatures (funny enough, that's exactly how the Octoroks were portrayed in the Animated Series, which also predated fairy companions, horses and shield surfing). And his vision of the giant Octoroks now lead to the Octobots, which certainly feel like a scary thing.

There's also this:

The way Link has all equipped gear on him including the Sheikah Slate, his current melee weapon, bow and shield, is very reminiscent of this old NES artwork, where he carries around nearly all ingame items. Of course he has still tons of junk in his Adventure Pouch, which you can't see on him, and he certainly won't be carrying a raft on his back, but they probably were inspired by the idea of Link carrying his current gear around.


And one artwork that I really would love to see come to life ingame is this old piece, where Link uses the Triforce against Ganon at Death Mountain:

A similar scene against Calamity Ganon would be epic.

A Link to the Past (New 3DS VC Review)

This review was originally published on ZeldaChronicles (formerly known as ZeldaEurope) and got translated for this blog in 2022 by the same author. Nintendo had provided a download code.

Since this month the Virtual Console on the New Nintendo 3DS offers a selection of Super Nintendo games, which includes The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. And after completing the classic on the new Nintendo handheld it's time to offer a summary whether it's worth it or not.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is without a doubt a must-have title for the Nintendo 3DS. And its success doesn't come from nowhere, where the Zelda classic A Link to the Past was used as a basis. A Link to the Past also laid the foundation stones for many things Zelda. The Master Sword, cutting grass, dashing into trees, enraging Cuccos – all these are staples in the series, which have their origins in the SNES game.

22 years later A Link Between Worlds returned to game world from the Super Nintendo and revived it in fantastic 3D. Now, owners of a New Nintendo 3DS have the opportunity to experience the origins of A Link Between Worlds and compare both games hand in hand on the handheld. This should be especially interesting to those who have played A Link Between Worlds, but not yet A Link to the Past.

Owners of a normal Nintendo 3DS or a Nintendo 2DS will be disappointed that this isn't available to them at all. But this should be a similar case to GameBoy Advance games, which were part of the Ambassador Program, where it wasn't possible to switch into the Home Menu and use the Miiverse for example. With paid-for games there should be a certain comfort and this was seemingly only possible with the New Nintendo 3DS.

Speaking of the GameBoy Advance, this actually isn't the first time that A Link to the Past was available on a handheld, where it shared a cartridge together with Four Swords. This version seems to be lost in time, really, where next to the Riddle Quest and the Palace of the Four Sword it offered many small improvements, which are easily missed here. For example, you were able to break pots with your sword and the save system was just better.

The latter isn't really as important on the Virtual Console, of course, since you can create Restore Points at any point, like right before a powerful boss. So, it comes with the typical Virtual Console features. Like with all Virtual Console titles on the Nintendo 3DS, however, there is no way of changing the controls, but in the least there is now an option to change the resolution. Previously this was only possible by holding down the Start or Select button while starting the games, if you wanted to play in the smaller, but sharper original resolutions.

And not only does it look sharp, it also feels faster – for a good reason. At least in Europe. For the first time ever the Virtual Console actually makes use of the 60Hz NTSC versions, which previously were only available in North America. The PAL versions, as offered on the Wii and Wii U Virtual Consoles in Europe, only had the 50Hz. The difference is that the PAL versions ran about 17% slower to make them compatible with the 50Hz TVs at the time. This may not be a big deal for games like Zelda, but it's certainly of note in something like F-Zero and can be quite important. There were even petitions that Nintendo of Europe should offer the 60Hz versions on the Virtual Console.

It seems that Nintendo was listening, but there is a catch: the game only comes with the English screen texts, but not German or French. For some this may even be an additional reason to buy this (in Germany the game was only available in German on Wii and Wii U), but if you prefer the other translations, then this won't offer them. Ideally, there would be options here which version you want to play, but options never were Nintendo's strong suit.

And of course a remake of A Link to the Past in the same style and engine as A Link Between Worlds would have been preferable overall. But you can't have everything and this will have to make do, where it offers an interesting alternative to what we already have on Wii and Wii U.

Replaying A Link to the Past on the 3DS

As stated in my previous post, I also went through A Link to the Past again, while finishing my 2nd Hero Mode run of A Link Between Worlds. Surprisingly, I did so on the 3DS as well, where Nintendo introduced the Super Nintendo Virtual Console for New Nintendo 3DS this month. Because there's no cross buy functionality and I still didn't touch my Wii U copy, I actually didn't want to get this, but then I received a review code from Nintendo and having it next to A Link Between Worlds on my New 3DS during my travels was nice, so I could easily switch between both games and enjoy them on the same system.

There was also another perk: in Europe they went for the 60Hz NTSC version of the game, instead of the usual 50Hz PAL version. This also let me experience the original game for the first time in English, because the console versions in Germany were locked in German and there was no language selection at the time.

In any case this was the first time that I've played through A Link to the Past again since the release of A Link Between Worlds. The latter became one of my favorite Zelda games and now I had the chance to compare, how the original holds up. And... it's alright, but I enjoy playing through A Link Between Worlds a lot more. Both games have a strong beginning, where you can prep in Kakariko and get some stuff like your first bottle and the Bug Net, before you head for the Eastern Palace. A Link to the Past starts out way more epic with Hyrule Castle in the rain, but I feel like this is a long and linear part, where I have to drag myself through, before the real fun begins.

And the "fun" feels a little bit like Hero Mode early on. I was actually searching for some fairies to put in a bottle, where you can't find them in the same spots as in A Link Between Worlds or Ancient Stone Tablets. There are some fairies south of Eastern Palace, but I forgot about those at first, so I went to the only spot, where I was sure to find fairies: the ice cave at Lake Hylia. However, getting there right in the beginning can be quite tough with those Sand Crabs, which are fast and deal TWO HEARTS of damage for some reason. So, it would have been smarter to go to Eastern Palace first.

And except for the Ice Rod and the Magic Powder, which you can both get early, it feels somewhat more restricted than A Link Between Worlds. After the Eastern Palace there isn't much to do except for going to the Desert Palace, because only the Power Glove really opens the Light Worlds up for you, where you finally can get the Zora's Flippers, which also give you some restricted means of teleporting with those vortexes in the water. You can't get the Ocarina until after the Palace of Darkness and I really missed Irene's broom. In A Link Between Worlds the game really opens up after the Eastern Palace. You can get the Power Glove and the Zora's Flippers right away, you can teleport early on and you can rent all items except one, opening all of Hyrule except for the desert.

I also feel like the Hyrule in A Link Between Worlds is more enjoyable to explore. A Link to the Past invented one of the best overworlds in the series and A Link Between Worlds perfected it. It start with small things like the pathways east of the smithy, which I immediately missed in A Link to the Past. And A Link Between Worlds makes just better use of all the areas, like the Flute Boy Meadow, even if it's just because you find Maimais there or Shadow Links. But there are also significant additions like the Rupee Rush minigame, one of my absolute favorites. In A Link to the Past you have this little parkour minigame, which you only play once and then never visit the same spot again. So, it feels like a waste of space. The world has more substance in A Link Between Worlds and the Light World was for me always the strong part of A Link the Past, because the Dark World basically just is dungeon crawling with little to do on the overworld.

The controls are also not ideal. For some reason someone decided it was a good idea to put the map on the X button, instead of using this button for a 2nd item. Also, the Pegasus Boots are used with the A button (which takes some time getting used to after playing both A Link Between Worlds and Tri Force Heroes), while the shoulder buttons don't really do anything. Later Zelda games handled the controls a lot better.

It's also curious, how throwing pots at enemies is the best way of fighting early in the game - it's a lot more powerful and effective than using your sword. But of course there are only a limited number of pots around, usually as many as there are enemies, so you have exactly one shot with each pot. It really seems like this even was an intended feature, using the "pots of power" as weapons, which got lost later in the series (it's still a thing in Link's Awakening, but there you have to earn the Power Bracelet first).

It's also noticeable, how you can get many Rupees early on, I got more than 700 Rupees before Eastern Palace. But the only thing to spent Rupees on are the Zora Flippers for 500 Rupees and then the Pond of Happiness, which takes up to 1400 Rupees... As soon as you did that, the only thing really requiring Rupees are potions, where a Blue Potion costs 160 Rupees. I abuse those together with the Cane of Byrna quite a lot for the bosses and then I refill my Rupees at the treasure chest game in the Village of Outcasts. But that's really all there is to the currency.

With the Restore Points of the Virtual Console I even went for a clear zero death savegame for the first time, similar to The Legend of Zelda in February. On the GameBoy Advance this wasn't an issue, because this version didn't count saving as "dying". The original did though, so you had to beat the game in one run in order to get this:

(When I replayed the game in 2011 on the Wii Virtual Console I also didn't die, but I saved about ten times. I remember that a friend watched me beat the game and then made fun of how I died ten times, where I had to explain to him that this happens with saving the game... Well, buddy, here's your proof.)

The one thing I always claimed to be a lot better in A Link the Past were the dungeons and even with those I now feel like they are a lot more enjoyable in A Link Between Worlds. The classic dungeons make better use of enemies, that's for sure - I really wish the Eastern Palace in A Link Between Worlds had some Eyegores for example. But save for this the dungeons were not really that much more difficult. Most people also remember the classic dungeons to be longer, but that's not actually the case, they are about the same. In some cases they are even shorter, e.g. Tower of Hera, which is so much more amazing in A Link Between Worlds and doesn't have the annoying Moldorm mechanic, where in A Link to the Past I now abused Restore Points to make things less frustrating. I always hated this fight.

Or if I compare the Ice Palace to the Ice Ruins, there's a clear winner. The Ice Palace isn't really that enjoyable. I avoided getting the Cane of Somaria in advance and going through the same trite set of rooms again and again is just absolutely tedious. Even the new Turtle Rock, where people seem to complain about how short it became, has a lot more to it than the classis SNES version, which was just a mess of Somaria roller coasters and tube mazes. And it was a very short dungeon also. The only bigger exception, where I still prefer the classic version, might be Skull Woods, as I explained in my previous post.

But... that's how it should be. A Link Between Worlds built on an amazing game and improved upon many things. A Link to the Past has the more serious / epic story, but overall I have moved on to the successor. It's still quite a short game, so this probably wasn't the last time that I've played it though.

Maiamais in A Link to the Past?

This Thursday I might get the chance to play A Link Between Worlds for the first time, so I'm currently replaying A Link to the Past to freshen up my memories of the game, before touching the all new sequel for the 3DS.

It's mostly the usual business. I've played the game several times already and therefore know it quite well. However, there's one thing that really caught my attention in the Dark World, in the cave, where the Sanctuary would be:

Is that a small versions of Mother Maiamai? Looks just like it. I completely forgot about this thing!

I wonder if it was already called "Maiamai" back in A Link to the Past and the character in A Link Between Worlds just was based on this one. Also,now I think that the Maiamai cave in Lorule is at the exact same spot (it was said that Mother Maiamai travels between the dimensions). This would be a nice reference. I imagine that there will be some people, who would be surprised about that, if they happen to replay A Link to the Past after A Link Between Worlds. Or play it right now like I did.

But I guess, it might even make more sense to replay A Link to the Past AFTER finishing A Link Between Worlds, because this might not be the only insignificant thing in the game that became important in the sequel.

A Link to the Past DX

I wished they would have called the A Link to the Past GameBoy Advance version "A Link to the Past DX". First of all it would go well along "Link's Awakening DX" prior on the GameBoy Color. Both games even share similar logos. But the main reason is that it's easier to distinguish from the SNES version. Whenever I talk about A Link to the Past on the GBA, I have to say "ALttP on the GBA" or "the GBA version of ALttP" or "ALttP with Four Swords", which feels like a hassle. "ALttP DX" would be so much easier to say and everyone would instantly know, that you talk about the GBA and not the Super Nintendo version.

So, from now on... whenever I say "A Link to the Past DX" on this blog, I mean the GBA version. Just so that you know. :D

Update:
Thinking about this again, I guess that "A Link to the Past GBA" does the job as well.

Replaying the Palace of the Four Sword

Sometimes your memory plays tricks on you. So, it's a good thing that I'm currently replaying all Zelda games to refresh my memories and get my facts straight. For example I remembered the bonus dungeons made by Capcom, the Hero's Caves in the Oracle saga and the "Palace of the Four Sword" in the GBA version of A Link to the Past, to be way harder than they actually are.

Or maybe I just got tougher. Especially playing Zelda II again lately probably toughened me up. Well, after beating Four Swords yesterday the Palace of the Four Sword finally became accessible and I used this as a opportunity to replay the dungeon. I originally played the dungeon only one time using the jump-with-mirror-and-go-through-walls-glitch to enter it on a different save file. That was a little bit inconvinient, because you couldn't come and leave as you please, but it worked.

And back then the bosses gave me a hard time. Especially Arrghus II was tricky, the electric Bari can be dangerous if you're not very careful. However, this time around Arrghus II felt like the easiest of the bunch. Mothula II and Blind II were also not a problem. Only Helmasaur King II and the four Shadow Links were still able to deal quite some damage. I used three Blue Potions and I abused the Cane of Byrna a lot, so my performance was still pathetic actually. But to enter the Palace of the Four Sword you have to beat both A Link to the Past and Four Swords and at that point you're definitely fully geared up and I'm not hesitating to use everything in my power.

But the bosses are the only highlight of the dungeon. The rooms before the bosses were mostly a no-brainer.

It's interesting how storywise this dungeon basically connects to Four Swords Adventures. In my theory FSA covers the Imprisoning War, however, there not the Master Sword but the Four Sword was used to seal Ganon away in the Dark Realm. But the backstory of the Master Sword got changed anyway... Well, at some point Ganon broke the seal and he split the Four Sword and cursed it by creating Dark Links guarding it, so no one could ever use it again to ban him. That's what you then get inside the Pyramid in the Palace of the Four Sword. And what you basically do is restoring the blade, though you don't get to use it, because the game ends at that point.

Portal Meets Zelda

Watch: Dorkly Bits: Link to the Past with a Portal Gun

This is epic. And funny, I especially love the last move, nice way to defeat Ganon. And the Moldorm scene is so spot on, oh how I hate this fight. Also makes we wanna play Portal right now.

There's also a Mario one.

Via: Kotaku

The Fear of Remakes

This post is a respond to this or similar posts in different Zelda forums. Because of Ocarina of Time 3D some Zelda fans became afraid, that from now on they will only get remakes instead of new games.

Of course this is nonsense. If you mention a possible Majora's Mask 3D they immediatly get angry stating that they would prefer a new game instead. They pretend like developing remakes would hinder the development of new Zelda games. But this is not the case, remakes are usually outsourced to less experienced companies like Grezzo. Which is a good choice, with these remakes Grezzo learns how the Zelda series works and how a good Zelda game looks like and eventually they will be able to help developing a new Zelda game in the future. You might suggest, that they start working on a new Zelda game right now, but the lack of new content in Ocarina of Time 3D let's me think otherwise. I don't know whether they just weren't allowed to add anything like a new dungeon to the game or they just didn't dare. But if they can't make one single new dungeon, how should they able to make a full new Zelda game? Okay, there's Koichi Ishii, who has a lot of experience with the Mana series and at least the first two Mana games were really solid. But I'd imagine Majora's Mask 3D as a bridge, where step it up by introducing new content like a Master Quest.

And a Majora's Mask 3D remake would practically develop itself. All stones have been set by the Ocarina of Time remake, they only would need to make some more textures and models. Development time would take two months max, unless they really plan to add new content this time. And like Ocarina of Time 3D this game would be perfect to bridge the time until the next new Zelda game.


^this game is not your enemy

What Miyamoto suggested for an A Link to the Past remake was just adding 3D effects to the different layers, which means it's a candidate for the 3D Classics, similar to Excitebike or Xevious. There's a separate team working on that, they were making six 3D Classics games simultanously (source) and there's a good chance that A Link to the Past will follow. Development effort is also very low. You could call these "Virtual Console Plus" games.

I don't know where the impression came from, that remaking A Link to the Past in the style of Ocarina of Time 3D is even an option. Ocarina of Time was originally supposed to be a remake A Link to the Past in 3D, at least this was one of their early approaches, but not all stuff from a 2D Zelda game works in 3D. For example a giant pig would look stupid in 3D, which is why they made Ganondorf as a more serious antagonist. There's no way, that they're ever going to remake this game as a 3D Zelda. Or any other 2D Zelda for that matter, it would basically turn into an entirely new game losely based on the original. And it's better to just make a new game instead without being restricted in the game's design in any way.

And it should be clear, that Nintendo will definitely develop an original 3DS-Zelda game or maybe even two. Just because Nintendo likes to remake and re-release old games it doesn't mean they stopped making new ones. It's ridiculous how Zelda fans get scared that they won't get any new games anymore, just because Nintendo decided to remake one game after ten years. Just look back to the past, there isn't a single Nintendo system (except Virtual Boy) without a Zelda title and there are twice as much Zelda main titles as there are Zelda remakes and spin offs. This ratio is crazy good. Right after Mario the Zelda fanbase should be least scared of not getting anything new. And there's no reason to doom the remakes, ports and re-releases.