It’s easy to take Nintendo for granted. Their standards are so impossibly high that when a game is merely excellent rather than a genre-busting groundbreaking hit it’s tempting to get a little sniffy.
I feel that particularly strongly with the Zelda series. For better or worse Nintendo is constantly trying its best to innovate, be it with experimental control schemes, fresh graphical styles, or overhauling the gameplay loop. The current endpoint of that philosophy is Breath of the Wild, which threw out much of the established design conceits in favor of focusing on how the open world could be the best it could be.
2013’s 3DS exclusive A Link Between Worlds is easy enough to read as a dry run for some key decisions in Breath of the Wild. Both games ditch the traditional Zelda loop of slowly amassing weapons and gadgets and using them to solve dungeons, and both are happy to let the player wander off into the world and (more or less) tackle the adventure as you see fit.
Whereas Breath of the Wild simply gives you all your tools during the tutorial, A Link Between Worlds features an item shop from which you rent (and later buy) whatever you want at any time for a reasonable amount of rupees. Die and any rented items are returned to the shop, though you keep any you’ve actually purchased.
It’s a fun twist and perhaps a recognition that after so many games there’s not much excitement to be had in once again receiving access to a bow, hookshot, and bombs midway through a dungeon.
This allows you to progress through the dungeons in whatever order you see fit, with the flat item progression also letting you explore Hyrule without running into an item-gated dead end. At first, I had some doubts about only temporarily owning items, but A Link Between Worlds isn’t a particularly difficult game (I died four times during my playthrough) and is more liberal with the rupees than most.
This system aside it’s business as usual for Link. An opening set of three dungeons soon gives way to seven more, followed by a final assault on Hyrule Castle.
A Link Between Worlds was the last mainline Zelda game I hadn’t played and at this point I’m cutting through dungeons like a hot knife through butter. Puzzles aren’t particularly taxing, enemies go down with a few swipes of the Master Sword, and bosses stick like glue to easily manageable patterns.
It’s tempting to get a bit blasé. Even by the “everyone’s welcome” standards of the series this is a very easy game with simple dungeons spread over two or three floors. You almost find yourself on autopilot as you ‘solve’ each room, with no dungeon taking me longer than 20-30 minutes to beat.
Is that really such a bad thing? This is a handheld game that feels perfect to play in short, sharp bursts, and being able to hop on the train to work and bash out an entire dungeon by the time I get to my stop feels pretty good.
On top of that, this makes the best use of the 3DS’ 3D that I’ve ever seen, runs at a silky smooth 60fps, there’s a fun ‘merge into the walls’ design gimmick, and it boasts a genuinely excellent soundtrack. The story is no great shakes but it does the job, and I have to doff my cap to whoever at Nintendo came up with the name ‘Lorule’. Maybe it’s a little on the nose, but subtlety is for cowards.
It’s only when you compare this to something like Majora’s Mask that A Link Between Worlds starts to feel like a Zelda-by-numbers. For me, this franchise is at its best when it get weird, but this is a vanilla title lacking eccentric NPCs and memorable moments. I never thought I’d miss Tingle…
You’re left with a great game (certainly a vast improvement on Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks) but not one that’s going to lodge in the memory like the best games in the series have. Then again, it’s not fair to expect every Zelda to be mind-blowing – let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth!
Pixel Hunted 