Later on, these items can be bought outright so they can be kept after death. The catch is that if Link should fall in battle, those items will immediately return to Ravio and must be rented again for a fee. New character Ravio decides to become Link’s roommate, and rewards our hero by loaning him most of the items in the game for a small price.
A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS ZELDA TIMELINE SERIES
It’s a series constant that has been played out, but unusually this time around you have access to most of the items very early on. It is Zelda tradition that each dungeon contains a new item that is mainly used for that area and for occasionally hunting for items in the Hyrule Overworld. What’s more, it adds an extra dimension to a world that many players will think they’ve already seen every nook and cranny of.Ĭarrying on the theme of taking something old and making it feel new, is A Link Between Worlds’ approach to items. Despite it being an important ability, it’s never overused and you’ll constantly discover new ways of using it. It’s such a simple ability that’s it’s quite easy to forget it’s there, but it’s used incredibly well in this familiar version of Hyrule. It wouldn’t be a Zelda game without some sort of overarching gameplay gimmick and this time around, it’s Link’s ability to merge into walls as a painting and move left and right around them. Once, it was a beautiful world, much like Hyrule was, and Link will eventually find out what become of Lorule while on his quest to defeat Yuga and rescue Zelda once more. Formally known as the Dark World, this twisted image of Hyrule has its very own version of Princess Zelda, named Princess Hilda. This version of Link, a humble blacksmith, finds himself thrown into increasingly catastrophic events, while also becoming a cave painting himself and being transported to Lorule. Confused yet?).Ĭanonical geekery aside, A Link Between Worlds puts Hyrule in peril once again, as a sorceress named Yuga has been turning Hylians into cave paintings.
Interestingly, it’s also set before the original Legend of Zelda and, even more interestingly, in this game, Majora’s Mask is hung up in Link’s house, even though the Majora’s Mask game takes place in an entirely different timeline (according to Hyrule Historia, the timeline splits into three depending on what happens in Ocarina of Time. It may well be a clear homage to what came before, but this is its own game and should be seen as such.įor those familiar with the Zelda timeline (recently canonised thanks to the excellent Hyrule Historia book), A Link Between Worlds takes place after A Link To The Past, the Oracles games and Link’s Awakening, taking place in the exact same version of Hyrule as in Link to the Past – although the Link in this game is not the same one. So let’s get the answer to the big question out of the way: no, A Link Between Worlds doesn’t quite match its predecessor, but it’s not trying to. It laid down the template for the decades of Zelda games to come and, put simply, it was (and still is) a masterpiece. It was a revelation a sprawling adventure that was impeccably designed and masterfully executed. The original SNES game was the third Zelda title and it took the series from being just another game in Nintendo’s stable, to one of their headlining franchises – second only to the Mario games. It’s a line so fine that when Nintendo announced that that they were working on a direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the news brought both excitement and fear. On the one hand they can be great for giving fans what they want, but there’s also a gigantic risk of retreading the same steps – or worse, staining the memory of the original. Sequels to cherished properties can be a double-edged sword.