Confession
time- Outside of a few minutes at the beginning, I've never played A Link to
the Past.
Now
that I have your attention, let me explain. I got into Zelda during the
pre-release hype for Twilight Princess,
and as a result I've always been more into the 3D Zeldas than the top-down
ones. That’s not to say that I didn't enjoy them- the Nintendo DS Zelda games, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, remain two of my favorite
games from the past generation- but the reason I was excited for A Link Between Worlds was more for the
prospect of playing a brand-new handheld Zelda game than it was to revisit a
classic.
Still,
after my initial hours with Link’s latest adventure, the drive to go back and
see what I've been missing out on is stronger than ever. The newest Zelda game
seems poised to address many of the criticisms longtime fans have had for the
more recent entries. Link’s adventure starts out humble, but within the first
ten minutes he is given a sword and thrown into the introductory dungeon, a far
cry from the notoriously lengthy prologue of, say, Twilight Princess. New items are acquired, monsters are slain, and
before long Link is on a quest to track down a sinister man who is trapping the
descendants of the Seven Sages inside paintings. The pacing, so far, is much
faster.
