Intro
Recently I've finished the story of Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and overall my impresion of it was great.
My history with Zelda games has been, well, I've only got to play four games in total to be honest:
Top-down is the way to go
All these games I've mentioned have one thing in common: They're played from the top-down perspective. There are some minor differences here and there sure, like the Oracle games had only 3 or 4 frames for sword slashing animation which made it feel swift and snappy while the NES version had more frames making the animation smoother but overall and slower (Also what the hell was up with Link's pink hair?). Each of the games had also similar approach to expressing the Z-level - while the previous games were done in Final-Fantasy-ish top-down perspective, the 3DS game was in glorious 3D with fixed top-down view camera while the models were that cutesy cartoony style similar to the windwalker.
I liked Oracle games
While Link to the past is considered a classic by many, I actually prefered them Oracle games myself. Mostly because of the swift and snappy way Link in those games handled his sword. - it just felt instant. While I do admit that you need to play both Ocarina games to get the "Full story" and I like the way it was executed - after finishing either of those games, you're presented with a set of "symbols" that slightly alters the gameplay of the other oracle game - by adjusting dialogues and adding the final fight with Ganon. Needless to say those boss fights tended to drag on. Especially at the end. I remember spending hours trying to defeat both stages of Twinrova, and after brief moment of victory i had then had to fight Ganon himself?! And if you happened to die you'd be returned all te way back to before first encounter of twinrovy witches?! Eventually though I did manage to beat those.
Bosses felt easy
Back to A Link Between Worlds you have to beat several boss monsters on your way through the story, and while they were mostly alright, it was actually pretty easy for me to figure out the strategy on how to defeat them withouth much of a problem. Some bosses could be defeated easily by simply swinging a sword at them, while others required use of special item, but it felt like most of the time I was just swinging my sword, and occasionally firing the bow. I enjoyed the use of merging mechanic, the fight in sand pit was also pretty fun.
The gear
You could have all of the items right of the bat if you so desired with the exception of the aforementioned sand rod. One of the characters allowed you to "rent" each of the items for small amount of rupees. These rented items were taken away upon Link's defeat, so you had to re-rent them again. Later on you could buy those items for larger sum of rupees so you could keep them upon defeat. While this allows you to explore the worlds of Hyrule and Lorule to your heart's content without much of a problem. This allows you to take on the dungeons in order that you choose, however past the certain point it felt disappointing since part of the fun in other games was discovering which fancy item is hidden in that big chest deep inside the dungeon. Most of the time you got the key to open locked doors inside the dungeon, or just some rupees which is handy if you need the cash to buy certain items but once you have all of them there's not much of a point other than hoarding... Occasionally you got few things to upgrade your sword, and your gear but that's pretty much it. You can get the "nice" versions of items by collecting Maiamai babies that are scatterred across Hyrule and Lorule. After collecting 10 of those little octo-snail thingies, you can choose which of the items you have gets an upgrade. After getting 100 of these little buggers the grateful mommy Maiamai teaches Link an upgraded spin-attack.
The story
From what I understood, Link Between Worlds is supposed to be some sort of sequel to Link to the Past, I might be wrong though since I'm not really familiar with LoZ's lore. Besides it's not like the official Zelda timeline is easy to navigate to begin with but that's for Nintendo's problem. This time Link starts as blacksmith's apprentice. Eventually the blacksmith gives Link a task to carry a sword to a customer who happens to be Captain of the royal princess Zelda's guard. Needless to say this royal guard is the sorriest excuse for an army I ever seen, but I digress. Without spoiling too much, Link catches up with the captain, hands him the sword and then something crazy happens, which sets Link for a quest to Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world. Well two worlds actually.
Conclusion
Overall, the game was fun and I enjoyed spending time playing it. I haven't played the Hero mode, nor have I found all them easter eggs and secrets, so I'll definetelly try to play some more.
Recently I've finished the story of Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and overall my impresion of it was great.
My history with Zelda games has been, well, I've only got to play four games in total to be honest:
- LoZ: Oracle of Ages - first on GBC then later on on my 3DS that was emulating the GBC version which was available at Nintendo store
- LoZ: Oracle of seasons - on GBC emulation for 3DS available on Nintendo store
- LoZ: A link to the past - on old SNES or rather some cheap SNES knockoff thing that was acailable for Czech market at the time, it's been so long that I don't really remember, and even though I spent most of my time playing Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt anyways.
- LoZ: A Link between worlds - on 3DS
Top-down is the way to go
All these games I've mentioned have one thing in common: They're played from the top-down perspective. There are some minor differences here and there sure, like the Oracle games had only 3 or 4 frames for sword slashing animation which made it feel swift and snappy while the NES version had more frames making the animation smoother but overall and slower (Also what the hell was up with Link's pink hair?). Each of the games had also similar approach to expressing the Z-level - while the previous games were done in Final-Fantasy-ish top-down perspective, the 3DS game was in glorious 3D with fixed top-down view camera while the models were that cutesy cartoony style similar to the windwalker.
I liked Oracle games
While Link to the past is considered a classic by many, I actually prefered them Oracle games myself. Mostly because of the swift and snappy way Link in those games handled his sword. - it just felt instant. While I do admit that you need to play both Ocarina games to get the "Full story" and I like the way it was executed - after finishing either of those games, you're presented with a set of "symbols" that slightly alters the gameplay of the other oracle game - by adjusting dialogues and adding the final fight with Ganon. Needless to say those boss fights tended to drag on. Especially at the end. I remember spending hours trying to defeat both stages of Twinrova, and after brief moment of victory i had then had to fight Ganon himself?! And if you happened to die you'd be returned all te way back to before first encounter of twinrovy witches?! Eventually though I did manage to beat those.
Bosses felt easy
Back to A Link Between Worlds you have to beat several boss monsters on your way through the story, and while they were mostly alright, it was actually pretty easy for me to figure out the strategy on how to defeat them withouth much of a problem. Some bosses could be defeated easily by simply swinging a sword at them, while others required use of special item, but it felt like most of the time I was just swinging my sword, and occasionally firing the bow. I enjoyed the use of merging mechanic, the fight in sand pit was also pretty fun.
The gear
You could have all of the items right of the bat if you so desired with the exception of the aforementioned sand rod. One of the characters allowed you to "rent" each of the items for small amount of rupees. These rented items were taken away upon Link's defeat, so you had to re-rent them again. Later on you could buy those items for larger sum of rupees so you could keep them upon defeat. While this allows you to explore the worlds of Hyrule and Lorule to your heart's content without much of a problem. This allows you to take on the dungeons in order that you choose, however past the certain point it felt disappointing since part of the fun in other games was discovering which fancy item is hidden in that big chest deep inside the dungeon. Most of the time you got the key to open locked doors inside the dungeon, or just some rupees which is handy if you need the cash to buy certain items but once you have all of them there's not much of a point other than hoarding... Occasionally you got few things to upgrade your sword, and your gear but that's pretty much it. You can get the "nice" versions of items by collecting Maiamai babies that are scatterred across Hyrule and Lorule. After collecting 10 of those little octo-snail thingies, you can choose which of the items you have gets an upgrade. After getting 100 of these little buggers the grateful mommy Maiamai teaches Link an upgraded spin-attack.
The story
From what I understood, Link Between Worlds is supposed to be some sort of sequel to Link to the Past, I might be wrong though since I'm not really familiar with LoZ's lore. Besides it's not like the official Zelda timeline is easy to navigate to begin with but that's for Nintendo's problem. This time Link starts as blacksmith's apprentice. Eventually the blacksmith gives Link a task to carry a sword to a customer who happens to be Captain of the royal princess Zelda's guard. Needless to say this royal guard is the sorriest excuse for an army I ever seen, but I digress. Without spoiling too much, Link catches up with the captain, hands him the sword and then something crazy happens, which sets Link for a quest to Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world. Well two worlds actually.
Conclusion
Overall, the game was fun and I enjoyed spending time playing it. I haven't played the Hero mode, nor have I found all them easter eggs and secrets, so I'll definetelly try to play some more.
