The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past VC Review

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the only Zelda game ever made. It firmly established a formula of adventure game design that balanced out overworld exploration, item acquisition and storyline progression, a formula still followed today. Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, even Ocarina of Time – all just copies of the structure seen here. A Link to the Past is the only true Zelda, and Miyamoto and team simply keep remaking it, over and over.

It wasn't the first Zelda released. That honor falls on the original NES adventure that debuted in July of 1987. The first Legend of Zelda saw Shigeru realize a vision of a world of epic grandeur, a game space so large that players found each cartridge had shipped with a physical map. The land of Hyrule was vast, expansive. And you could go anywhere you wanted.

Which is why Zelda 1 is less Zelda than its follow-up Zelda would be. The first NES game was free-flowing – there was little stopping you from playing through the game's dungeons out of order, and it had no development of story to speak of. The Legend of Zelda was an excellent game, one of the greatest 8-bit releases ever to come from Nintendo – but ultimately, it was a skeleton frame. A Link to the Past fleshed it out.

This SNES sequel refined what Zelda 1 had defined, harmonizing the freedom of exploring Hyrule with a more focused and linear flow. You still had some leeway. You still had plenty of opportunities to get off the beaten path, completing sidequests, goofing around. But the entire game is orchestrated – you feel free in your actions and choices, but all the while you're advancing the story.

It opens on a scene of a storm, as your uncle steps into the night. He tells you to stay home. You don't listen. A princess is in trouble – she pleads for your help with telepathy, from a dungeon you've seen in your dreams. You charge into the rain, find your uncle, take his weapons and start on your quest. The game's prologue is one of the few strictly linear sequences contained in the adventure, but doubles as a tutorial on how the rest of the game will be played. After the simple rescue sequence and easy, direct-path dungeon crawl, the sun rises – literally – on the true, open-ended adventure.

It's an adventure that's just as fun today as it was 15 years ago. You'll seek out three powerful pendants, then use their magic to awake the sleeping Master Sword. Brandishing it and banishing the dark wizard Agahnim, you'll find the story isn't even halfway over. A Link to the Past is a truly immersive, engaging experience that you'll be tempted to play through in one sitting – but that would be difficult, given the scope and scale of the quest.

This Zelda isn't as long as the games that later followed and copied its foundation, but it still clocks in at a respectable number of hours. The modern method of measurement for Zelda titles seems to be the number of dungeons contained within – here, you'll find more than any other series installment.

Each of those labyrinths is vibrantly rendered, as the artistry and talent of Nintendo's early '90s development team shines through. A Link to the Past is a graphical showcase, full of diverse environments and characters, and boasting more than a few impressive effects – the twisting and rotating Triforce on the intro screen is one of gaming's earliest looks at 3D. The sound design, too, is magical. Koji Kondo's compositions here are legendary just by themselves.

Played on the Wii, A Link to the Past is perfectly suited to the Virtual Console Classic Controller. The Classic pad feels natural, and SNES gamers will hardly notice the difference between it and the original Super controller. The game also supports a GameCube Controller or Wavebird – but isn't as appropriately matched to that button layout.

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