25th Anniversary of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

I didn't really know where to put this, but I thought it was worthwhile to mark this. Today, November 21, is the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past's 25th anniversary of release.

LttP is my favorite Zelda game, if not my favorite video game of all time. I do a playthrough of it regularly, which I don't do with any other game. It had a profound impact on me, and I still love the sense of adventure and exploration it provides.

So, happy 25th birthday Legend of Zelda: LttP.

IMAGE(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/w5REmtunJtY/maxresdefault.jpg)

P.S. Tomorrow is its younger sibling's third birthday.

Happy 25th! Yeah, it's likely my favorite game of all time. I was finally able to play and beat it on an actual SNES a couple years ago.

I feel really old now.

Yay! A lot of people take a hard line at OoT being "the best" Zelda game, but I always prefer the 2D games, and LttP is really the cream of the crop. I really ought to give it another playthrough.

If you haven't played it yet and have a 3DS, I'd say Link Between Worlds is a close second.

Link to the Past is my favorite Zelda game. FWIW, I started with the original Zelda on the NES all those many moons ago.

I can still blindly play this game to completion in about half a day. It is my favorite Zelda.

One thing I never managed to get to was the Chris Houlihan room. I've 100% it otherwise.

Link to the Past and Super Mario World may be the peak gaming experiences of my lifetime.

I've still to play this. I own a copy and intend to get around to it. 25 years on and still pulling in new players.

It's my favorite game. Good memories playing with my brother passing the controller back and forth, marking all the secrets we found on the pack-in map.

RnRClown wrote:

I've still to play this. I own a copy and intend to get around to it. 25 years on and still pulling in new players.

So jealous.

Favorite game I've ever played. Still remember bringing it home from Caldor (out of business target type store) and jumping right in. Had me right from the beginning with that rainy intro. First time I realized how big a game could be.

RnRClown wrote:

I've still to play this. I own a copy and intend to get around to it. 25 years on and still pulling in new players.

Yep, by coincidence mini Bfuzz just started playing at weekend on the Wii. Five years old and him reading those opening lines did make me smile, had a lil moment. With a bit of help here and there got to the Eastern Palace so far. He's loving it.

This is a good excuse for me to try the game again. I picked up a second-hand SNES cart after finishing - and utterly adoring - Ocarina of Time the year that came out. I got the GBA version bundled in when I got my GBA SP. I grabbed the virtual console version the day it appeared on the Wii, and again on the Wii U ... I've never made it further than a couple of dungeons in.

I stink at 2D Zelda combat, and that's always what makes me put them down. I've got the game on pause while I brew some tea; I've died twice already and have only just finished rescuing Zelda! So hard to hit the enemies without walking into them or getting rammed. Stunning them with the boomerang can be tricky too. This time I'm going to lean heavily on the Wii U's save states. If I can have another go immediately instead of needing to backtrack I might stick with it. Dark Souls this is not. [cough] Dark Souls is easier for my skillset [cough]

I sincerely want to finish the game. I love the Zelda series, and have completed most of the 3D games but only one (Link Between Worlds; the standard attack has better range so I found it easy) of the 2D games despite trying them all. I feel if I can crack this one I might do better with the others. Wish me luck.

The overworld theme is still fantastic. So catchy. Game looks surprisingly good on a modern TV too. Not as pixellated as I expected.

My most significant memory of this pre-widespread-internet game is one that could not be replicated in this day and age. I picked up a copy of the game when I was able to because Zelda duh not really knowing much about it. I seriously thought I was about to complete the game, which had been ridiculously fun but a little short, when I got sent to the Dark World. It just blew my mind to think I'd won only to find out I'd merely finished the first act.

frogbeastegg wrote:

I stink at 2D Zelda combat, and that's always what makes me put them down. I've got the game on pause while I brew some tea; I've died twice already and have only just finished rescuing Zelda! So hard to hit the enemies without walking into them or getting rammed.

It doesn't help that A Link to the Past has a few enemies that can charge you and end up on top of you, dealing continuous damage but difficult to hit. A Link to the Past is easily my least favorite Zelda game in part because of things like this.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
frogbeastegg wrote:

I stink at 2D Zelda combat, and that's always what makes me put them down. I've got the game on pause while I brew some tea; I've died twice already and have only just finished rescuing Zelda! So hard to hit the enemies without walking into them or getting rammed.

It doesn't help that A Link to the Past has a few enemies that can charge you and end up on top of you, dealing continuous damage but difficult to hit. A Link to the Past is easily my least favorite Zelda game in part because of things like this.

Oh yes indeedy! Also fast enemies which move unpredictably and are difficult to tag with your narrow sword swipe, enemies which pop out of bushes and shoot arrows without much warning, bombs hidden in bushes to nuke you when you're desperately hunting health ... 5 deaths now, and I'm yet to enter the first dungeon. Go me! Currently chilling in a fairy fountain while I reference a heart piece guide. Soothing music as I look for extra survivability.

I do like seeing the links (har har) with the 3DS game. That one was great and I have fond memories of playing it over Christmas whichever year it came out. Doing things backwards, so trendy, so cool, much hype.

Because of the slightly janky or at least picky combat (you really have to learn to work around the problems), I didn't think my nephew would be able to play it. I got him a GBA SP with ALTTP earlier this year. He's made it all the way to the first boss in the dark world somehow. I've watched him play it, and it's amazing how little kids can figure things out. He doesn't really play video games, so I figured he would get frustrated with it. I did give him the strategy guide because I figured my brother can help him get unstuck.

TLDR: Play this game when you're a kid and have more time to learn how to manage the frustrating aspects.

I played the original Legend of Zelda, and liked it, but was often confused where I was supposed to go. I never owned a SNES growing up because my parents pretty much refused to buy me another video game system. I played a little LTTP at a friend's place, but that's it. I remember not getting into the overhead style games as much as the 2D side scrollers.

I really got into Zelda with Ocarina of Time. I fell Hard for the Zelda series after that, and finally got to play LTTP all the way through. Having played it at least a decade after its original release, I can still easily say it's timeless and still awesome. The GBA version with extra dungeon was pretty great too.

And the Dark World overworld theme is still one of the catchiest songs in gaming, and was my ringtone for the longest time.

Is LTTP only available via the New 3DS? It's stupid to restrict some of those VC games to the new model...

They say SNES games can't be emulated sufficiently without the New 3DS' added heft. Some people here think that's a big lie.

Blind_Evil wrote:

They say SNES games can't be emulated sufficiently without the New 3DS' added heft. Some people here think that's a big lie.

And we're not going to rehash that argument a seventeenth time, right?

We can hope.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
frogbeastegg wrote:

I stink at 2D Zelda combat, and that's always what makes me put them down. I've got the game on pause while I brew some tea; I've died twice already and have only just finished rescuing Zelda! So hard to hit the enemies without walking into them or getting rammed.

It doesn't help that A Link to the Past has a few enemies that can charge you and end up on top of you, dealing continuous damage but difficult to hit. A Link to the Past is easily my least favorite Zelda game in part because of things like this.

That's alright, we still love you! ☺

I played this game for the first time in 1999 (less than legally). It was the first game I had played in about 5 years, and if not for it, I don't know if I would be playing games today.

Favorite Zelda game by far. The great implementation of the sword swing and the effects it brings to bear on combat and the overall sense of needing to explore to find a good number of things, (like that one bottle from the hobo under the bridge) really helped me enjoy this game for so many playthroughs. That and the minimal heart and 100% runs I kept doing.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

I played this game for the first time in 1999 (less than legally). It was the first game I had played in about 5 years, and if not for it, I don't know if I would be playing games today.

That's brilliant. What an endorsement.

I had a similar occurrence with Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. I was moving away from gaming. I had become disillusioned with many aspects of it. I was looking for something, anything, to freshen up my tired old scene. I turned to Nintendo, who were not afraid to make games minus scantily clad women, blood, gore, profanity, and guns, guns, guns. It did not and does not offend me. It was boring me. Catering to a certain demographic was seemingly taking precedent over new and interesting experiences. Tropical Freeze was exactly what I needed aesthetically, musically, and creatively, and it was good, too. Also, it was neither a first person shooter, or a third person action adventure.

Mario Kart 8 followed it up and Splatoon capped things off. I was back in love with gaming. My current Nintendo title is a descendant of this very game in Skyward Sword.

Now all I want to do is make a start on this, but I'm on Super Metroid now. I'd also like to try the original two games before moving up to this one.

(I clearly over indulged on too much of the same with little diversity, but until the Wii U I was struggling to identify anything different that was also interesting.)

I haven't played it in years but it's great hearing a lttp still holds up and is a truly timeless games. Not many of those at all.

Well, tonight I picked up LttP on 3DS. About two hours in and I've got two amulets already. Still an amazing game!

maverickz wrote:

Well, tonight I picked up LttP on 3DS. About two hours in and I've got two amulets already. Still an amazing game!

It looks soooooo good in pixel perfect mode on N3DS.

I made it to the Dark World before calling it a night. Lost count of how many times I've died now, but save-babying my way along with restore points is keeping frustration down and progress constant. Ah, the wonders of technology! The master sword made landing hits a bit less fussy as it's got a few pixels' extra range on the slash. The energy wave attack is great when I can use it. Countering that, the Dark World enemies are a lot tougher, doing more damage, taking more hits, and harder to hit in general. There are more of them per screen too. It's quite the difficulty jump. Now I remember why I quit on arrival the one time I got that far in my previous attempts. Not this time. This time I'm determined to continue. Hoping to tackle the first dungeon today, time permitting.

The little details in the sprite animation are wonderful. The drops of sweat when Link moves a heavy object, the way he gasps for air as he swims, that sort of thing. I like exploring the world and seeing the detail.

I had a thought: I wonder if the virtual console version is the old PAL version? If so, I wonder whether it had the usual slowdown? Probably did. That would explain why I find the controls mushy. Hmm ...

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
maverickz wrote:

Well, tonight I picked up LttP on 3DS. About two hours in and I've got two amulets already. Still an amazing game!

It looks soooooo good in pixel perfect mode on N3DS.

How do you turn that on?