When The Legend
of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds was first announced, many reactions were
quite skeptical, including mine. A handheld, button-controlled, top-down Zelda
instantly sounded like a good idea to me, but I was unsure about its decision
to harken back to A Link to the Past as strongly as it seemed to
be. As more information about the game creeped out, I continued to fear that
the game would be overly dependent on the past. The game is out, and sure, I
wish it didn't borrow as much from A Link to the Past as it does, but
that doesn't come close to stopping it from being the absolutely fantastic and
innovative game in the series that it is.
The story of A
Link Between Worlds does not take up much of the playtime, but what's here
is surprisingly compelling. The stability of Hyrule is in jeopardy at the hands
of dark forces from Lorule, a mysterious, alternate world. The new antagonist,
Yuga, is simple, but wacky enough to be memorable. Without giving away too
much, there is some interesting moral ambiguity to Link's adversaries, and the
plot's conclusion finishes things off smartly.
What makes A
Link Between Worlds so special is the amount of agency it allots to the
player, which is founded on a kind of respect. Unlike the last game in the
series, Skyward Sword, A Link Between Worlds is not stuffed with
explanation and strict direction. This game throws you into its world with just
enough help to maintain a solid, coherent pace. For the most part, one is
thrown into the giant maze that is this game's world - filled with dungeons,
secret caves, collectibles and more - to do things how one sees fit. Doing more than what's required to beat
the game is really incentivized, as many of the extra activities are great.
Collecting the one hundred squids, which is like this game's version of Ocarina
of Time's skulltulas, is particularly enjoyable because of not just the
thrill of the hunt but also because of the substantial item upgrade offered as
reward for every ten squids collected. The order one completes tasks is mostly
up to the player, which creates a gratifying sense of discovery and
accomplishment.
The biggest change
to the Zelda formula in ALBW is the inclusion of Ravio, a purple
NPC which allows one to rent most of the items in the game rather close to the
start. Renting items is inexpensive, but one's rental only lasts as long as one
can remain alive. The first few hours or so of the adventure is a bit on the
easy side, so this rental system initially appears to be overly lenient, but
that certainly changes. This is a brilliant way to make the game adapt to each
players' skill level -- if one wishes to rent a load of items and go off
exploring the game's world for areas that require said items, one is able to do
so, but the risk of getting burned at death will linger over one's head.
Eventually one is able to permanently buy items for a steep price; how skilled
one perceives him or herself to be, how much a certain item is desired, and how
risky one is must all be weighed against each other in the decision to drop a
ton of rupees to purchase an item.
As stated
previously, things are a bit easy at first, but after a few hours the challenge
scales nicely. This is a challenging game when it comes to combat, with enemies
that can liberally eat away multiple hearts at a time and that require
different strategies to defeat. A certain fire-breathing enemy eats away a lot
of hearts and forces one to either attack with long-range weaponry, or with sword-swipes
after careful handling of a shield. Back to my point on this game's adaption to
different skill-sets as well as its dedication to player agency, areas with tougher
enemies can be avoided by novice players until more heart containers or
stronger equipment and gear have been obtained, while advanced players can
totally fling themselves into the fray. It's such an intelligently designed
video game.
The puzzle design
in dungeons and in the overworld is clever. The solutions make sense and are
just tricky enough to elicit a proper feeling of success. The crux of many of
these mental challenges is the new ability to align a 2D drawing of oneself to
a wall with a complying surface. Once etched to the wall, the player is only
able to move left and right -- the ability to traverse up or down is very
importantly restricted. This restriction assures that the player thinks strategically about the height at which one plasters him or herself to the
wall. This along with other mechanics, like springboards which propel the
player upwards, plays up an increased importance surrounding what vertical
layer one is located at. This, as the trailers show, was obviously done to
exemplify the stereoscopic 3D effect, which works wonders. The game's 3D feels
very natural because of this tie to gameplay, but it's also just neat. Arrows
that hit hard surfaces, amongst other things, have a nice pop-out effect, and
large chasms have a cool sense of depth which seemingly recedes far back into
the screen.
The look of the
game overall is quite nice, actually. Some may say it's overly safe,
like recent New Super Mario Bros. games have been criticized for, but I
like it. Character designs are smooth, cute and expressive, and the world is
packed with color. It looks similar to A Link to the Past stylistically,
but the complete use of polygonal graphics offsets this enough to not bother
me. The remixed A Link to the Past music, while lovely and catchy, does
feel overly similar to me, which is disappointing, but not as disappointing as
the very similar overworld.
The general look
and layout of ALBW's Hyrule is nearly identical to A Link to the Past's,
even though the nooks and crannies are very much different. There is a certain
kind of nostalgic charm to this, but I think it's a shame that such an
incredibly well-designed and inventive entry couldn't truly have its own overworld. The alternate world Lorule, which is new to this entry, is where
about half of the game takes place, and even though it feels markedly new, it is
still based off of the old map from the Super Nintendo classic. But this is a
small gripe, because what takes place within this similar overworld is wholly
fresh and fun.
The Legend of
Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
makes me retroactively like recent Zelda games less. The game is around
twenty hours long to beat and has a simple story, which is something I don't
see as better or worse than the long, epic style of something like Twilight
Princess; it can certainly compete with any entry not just in the past seven years but all the way back to the inception of this series. A Link Between Worlds is a fantastic
experience that pushes modern Zelda in a way and to an extent it sorely
needed.
***
~~ The Legend of
Zelda: A Link Between Worlds retails exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS for
$39.99. I played the game for approximately twenty-two and a half hours with
the 3D mostly turned on. ~~
No comments:
Post a Comment