Review: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

A Zelda game set in the same world as the SNES classic Link to the Past is just inviting criticism. Link to the Past is one of Nintendo's finest games, and frankly, one of its proudest achievements. Any game set in the same world would have huge expectations, and any misstep would be a disaster. A game set in that world would have to be near perfect in order to stand on its own. It feels like, at worst, a symptom of creative bankruptcy and at best a fool's errand.

Ladies and gentlemen, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is almost perfect. It holds specific charms if you've played Link to the Past, but the previous game isn't required to enjoy Link Between Worlds. As great as Link to the Past is, it still bears some of the fingerprints of old game design philosophy, with its emphasis on grinding and esoteric puzzles. Link Between Worlds takes what was great about Link to the Past and removes anything that's not necessary to the actual playing of the game. It's another masterclass in design from Nintendo.

What's fascinating is the way it builds on the player's knowledge of Link to the Past while expounding and deepening it, subtly nodding in the direction of the original while standing on its own two feet and bringing some of the most remarkable changes to the Zelda series in a while. What are some of these changes?

First, they've emphasized non-linear progression throughout the game, meaning you can go through the various dungeons almost in any order you choose. This really helped me out, since I always have a tendency to get stuck in Zelda games. This way, I was able to fiddle with different dungeons and pick the one I wanted, then move on to a different one if I was feeling overwhelmed.

Next, they've put in an item store. Instead of getting items in dungeons, you can rent or buy items using rupees. (I didn't even rent items, just waited until I had the money and bought them.) You would think this would ruin the game, since Zelda games are supposed to be about finding the item you need to progress and moving onwards, yet it doesn't. Here's why: You get so many rupees that you don't need to run around and grind for money. Then, because you can use any item you wish, you're never faced with an obstacle you can't find a way past or that block off large chunks of the world.

There's another huge change with Link Between Worlds that no one is really talking about: There's no more inventory management. You don't have to watch how many arrows or bombs you have, or how much magic power you have. Instead, it's all handled by a meter that refills on its own gradually. This works great, because you're never in a position where you don't have bombs and need to scramble around and grind for them, but at the same time you don't have "unlimited" uses either. If you lay down bomb after bomb after bomb, you'll have to stop and wait for your meter to refill. It's not so bad that you have to babysit your meter, but it does force you to use your weapons responsibly while still allowing you to experiment.

Now, Link Between Worlds makes a few small missteps, but they're so minor as to be nitpicky. For example, because Link Between Worlds is nonlinear, there's no difficulty curve after a point. Nintendo made up for it by making each dungeon wildly unique and memorable instead of making every enemy progressively more difficult, but the feeling of gradual progression is slightly missed. Link Between Worlds also feels short, but that's mostly because it's tight as a drum. It took me 16 hours to complete, but I was farting around with sidequests for a while before I got back on the main quest. Speaking of which, in the end, the sidequests weren't as important as I thought they were going to be. They were still fun, though, and I'm glad I did them.

Honestly, though, the fact that Nintendo would willingly invite comparisons to one of its finest classic games, then go on to exceed or beat those expectations is astounding. Anyone who thinks Nintendo has lost "it," whatever "it" may be, should play Link Between Worlds if only to find out how wrong they are.

Final Grade: A

NES Replay: Trojan

Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Released: February 1987

Capcom was so skilled in the early years of the NES that even crappy games had something that almost redeemed them. Case in point, Trojan.

Trojan was developed by Takashi Nishiyama, the same person who developed Kung Fu and later made Street Fighter and was extremely influential at SNK. Trojan and Kung Fu are almost spiritual cousins. In Kung Fu, you saw the outline of the fighting game genre: High attack, low attack, punch, kick. In Trojan, you saw another evolutionary step, as blocking became a major component.

Trojan's gameplay is very similar to Kung Fu. As you move around in the level, enemies will come at you from the left or right and you can attack them high or low. Some enemies take more hits, though, so you have to anticipate their attacks and block with your shield.


Something else makes Trojan notable. While the name "Trojan" may conjure up images of Greek warriors battling hoplites on the way to a siege, Trojan is actually set in a post-apocalyptic world where you're a lone warrior setting out to destroy a violent gang. Capcom does a fantastic job and making the game feel like a coherent, ruined place. The buildings look broken-down, and the muted colors stand in stark contrast to the vibrant enemies and your hero. Each level flows very easily into the next, so that it feels plausible that this could have been a normal 8-bit city until the 8-bit apocalypse destroyed it.

Alas, while there's a lot to like in Trojan, there's an equal amount that still needed work. Like Kung Fu, you only have a melee attack, but your hero in Trojan really needed a longer range attack owing to the fact that more enemies have long-range attacks too. Yes, you can block those attacks, but in order to really put a stop to them you have to get up close and personal. When you get close, many of your enemies have melee attacks that are too fast to block properly, so that puts you back at square one. It's especially problematic with some bosses. If you could attack from across the screen with a projectile that would even the playing field, but otherwise, you're wildly overmatched.

I think that Capcom thought they could get away with this solely because of the block function, but blocking doesn't really level the playing field when you have a split second to decide whether or not to block an attack. The pace of Trojan needed to be much, much slower in order to justify adding that layer of complexity.

That said, Trojan is definitely noticeable as another evolutionary step for Nishiyama's nascent design philosophy. The fast pace carried over to his later SNK brawlers, and while Trojan may not have been entirely successful, the art design almost pushes it into good territory. Almost.

Final Rating:

NES Replay: 1986's Games Ranked

17) Tag Team Wrestling - If the only good thing to come out of your game is a name that gets used years later, you've made a bad game.

16) M.U.S.C.L.E. - I still get mad when I think of this game. Let's move on.

15) Karate Champ - Got your nose!

14) Urban Champion - Punch someone a couple of times. Keep punching. Repeat until bored.

13) Chubby Cherub - Coincidentally, "fat angels eating food and running away from dogs" was what I saw last time I mixed medications.

12) Ninja Kid - A great idea squandered by poor execution.

11) Gumshoe - Nintendo rethought what the Zapper could do, and it ALMOST worked.

10) Balloon Fight - A Joust clone with a few good ideas added in.

9) Mario Bros. - Not polished enough and too dull to enjoy.

8) Popeye - Interesting but dull.

7) Donkey Kong 3 - Yes, it's polished. Yes, it looks great. However, yes, it's hard to play and not fun.

6) Commando - A varied shooter with some major technical problems that hold it back from greatness.

5) 1942 - Fun, but repetitive.

4) Donkey Kong - Almost a perfect arcade port. Almost.

3) Ghosts'n Goblins - Incredibly hard and incredibly fun.

2) Gradius - PEW PEW PEW

1) Donkey Kong Jr. - A perfect arcade port of a great game.

NES Replay: Gauntlet

Developer: Tengen
Publisher: Tengen
Released: 1987

Gauntlet is frequently viewed as one of the first mainstream action RPGs. However, if you try and play it like you would play a modern action RPG, you're gonna have a bad time.

In a modern action RPG, killing enemies gives you experience points, which then increases your strength, helps you progress further, and makes you more attractive to the opposite sex. In other words, killing more enemies gives you access to better loot, which allows you to kill more enemies, which allows you access to better loot.

Gauntlet's not the same way, which is disconcerting when you first try and play it. In Gauntlet, killing enemies is a sidebar to picking up the gold bars scattered all over the levels. Picking up gold increases your power and helps you progress. Your weapons don't get better, and the only resources you have to manage are your health and your magic.


However, your health meter is where Gauntlet gets problematic. The NES port has the bloody clawprints of the arcade game all over it, since your health drops automatically as you play, and health pickups are rare. This sort of worked in the arcade, even though it was a little manipulative. When you play Gauntlet in the arcade, it's easy enough to get around this limitation by pumping quarters into the machine. On the NES, though, putting quarters into the machine just results in a strange burning smell and a small electrical fire.

What we're left with, then, is a game that's nearly impossible unless you're playing with another player who can take some of the heat off of you. That's a sign that Tengen really should have rethought Gauntlet for the NES, but maybe Tengen figured that making major changes would have caused Gauntlet to stop being, you know, Gauntlet.

With that in mind, though, Gauntlet still pulled off some amazing feats. There are times where the screen is literally filled with enemies. There are movable blocks, secret passages and all other sorts of stuff, and this was all before The Legend of Zelda was released.

So was Gauntlet a little shortsighted in parts? Yeah, a little bit. But even if Gauntlet is hard to play today, it still needs to be appreciated for what it was able to pull off on the NES, and it represented a major stepping stone for action RPGs in general.

Final Rating:

NES Replay: 1987

There were some good games for the NES between 1985-6, but in 1987 the NES exploded. In one year, Castlevania, Kid Icarus, The Legend of Zelda, Arkanoid, Metroid, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! and Mega Man all hit the NES. That's an amazing run of games probably unequaled since, all in one year on one system.

Even more impressively, Nintendo didn't need to prop up the NES anymore. In the beginning, if a good game needed to come out for the system, they had to make it. Not so anymore. Nintendo now had the flexibility to lay back and make games at their own pace, investing more time and money into providing big experiences instead of tossing games out just because something had to be released.

The downside of this was that other companies started to take notice. From this point on, the highs of the NES would get higher and higher, but the lows would get lower. The NES looked like a big, fat sack of money, and making a game for the NES could make you rich. This brought out the opportunists and cynics, who put crap on a cartridge and expected it to sell. Sadly, a lot of times it worked.

However, that shouldn't temper what turned into one of the best console years ever. We'll anoint 1987 as the Year the NES Came Around.

Notable events:

January: Aretha Franklin is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

March: U2 releases The Joshua Tree.

April: The first Simpsons cartoons are televised.

June: Margaret Thatcher is elected to a third term.

June: Ronald Reagan tells Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."

August: Michael Jackson releases Bad.

September: Star Trek: The Next Generation premieres.

November: Workers rebel against the communist regime led by Nicolae Ceaucescu.

NES Replay: Gradius

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Released: December 1986

Gradius was the first classic shooter for the NES. It's got an awesome progression system, it's challenging even if you have every possible weapon upgrade, and it's relentlessly interesting. It also looks fantastic.

So what's so great about each of these parts? Let's pull them apart and look at them.

1) The powerup system.

In most early shooters, a power-up will automatically improve your ship. In Gradius, picking up a power-up fills a meter at the bottom of your screen. If you have only one power-up banked, you can upgrade your ship's speed. If you have more bonuses banked, you can apply the bonus to things like a missile that attacks below you, extra drones that fire along with you, and a shield that protects you from damage temporarily.

There's a risk/reward dynamic involved in this system. In order to get the really good upgrades, you have to keep picking up bonuses and not using them. Can you survive long enough with some of the vanilla powers? Or will you give in and take that speed power-up instead of getting the extra drone? It's a really well-made system that Konami would use in other shooters.


2) The challenge.

Even if you have every upgrade, your skill in Gradius will determine your success. While having all the upgrades will certainly help you, bullets are flying, enemies come from all over, and one false move will get you killed. Balancing everything together will keep you alive.

3) The varied environs.

Yes, Gradius is a typical side-scrolling shooter where you're flying from left-to-right and destroying everything in your path. However, the way the challenge is framed is constantly changing. In one level, you're killing weird moai statues that regurgitate blue discs, in another you're fighting for your life against raging volcanoes, and in another you're blasting through barriers that are surrounded by turrets.. There's always something different, which keeps Gradius fresh.

4) The graphics.

Konami did something fantastic with Gradius. Remember, the NES could only have so many sprites onscreen at once. However, Konami still wanted to have lots of bullets and enemies onscreen. How could they get around the limitations of the NES?

Brilliantly, Konami used sprite flicker to their advantage. By making the bullets and missiles flicker on purpose, they could alternate bullets and missiles and have the screen filled with danger without sacrificing graphical fidelity. Since old CRT TVs held on to images for a split second after they were displayed, the flicker would be barely noticeable for most people.

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So Gradius did a lot of things right, but there's one final stroke of genius that deserves mention. Gradius is very hard, obviously. The player is only given three lives to do the impossible. How would they do it?

Konami included something by accident, a secret code that would gain ubiquity. During the making of the game, a programmer found that Gradius was too difficult for him to play through. To get around this, he included a secret code that accidentally slipped through production and ended up in the final game.

Long after our civilization is destroyed by marauding Slagafarian Raiders in the Great Umber Wars of the 32nd century, a lone wanderer will be searching a cave for supplies when he will see etchings on the wall. Peering closely, he will angle his torch to see mankind's greatest triumph, a simple sequence that will bring tears to his eyes:

↑↑↓↓←→←→BA

He will pass this information down from one generation to the next, eventually rebuilding the world in this image. Finally, we shall see the stars. Finally, we shall ascend the path to transcendence, all thanks to one little code.

Final Rating:

NES Replay: Karate Champ

Developer: Technos Japan
Publisher: Data East

Karate Champ is either frustrating or hilarious. There is no in-between.

The point of Karate Champ is that you're in a one-on-one fight against another karate master. There are different arenas: On top of a cliff, in the trees, in the desert, etc. You throw a variety of punches and kicks at your opponent, and the first one to land a blow wins the match. Win a few matches in a row, and you move on to the next karate master.

So what makes it frustrating? Well, when you're throwing kicks and punches in the direction of your opponent and you can't tell whether or not they're going to land, that's frustrating. For example, if both players throw a punch at the same time, does either one land? If I'm kicking, and they're punching, does either one land? What if I'm kicking low and he's punching high? There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to them landing. This leads to less of a karate fight and more of a flailing competition.

The controls are fantastically borked too. Press B, and you'll attack to the left. Press A and you'll attack to the right. This is stupid, right? Shouldn't your attacks always be aimed in the direction of your opponent? Is there ever a good tactical reason to attack the air behind you?

To be fair, this was a minor evolutionary misstep in fighting games that took a while to resolve. Developers had trouble figuring out what to do with both buttons. One button worked as an attack button, but the other one could be used for... ? This was a problem that took a while to sort out, but as the fighting game genre grew developers realized that they could use that extra button for something else, like a punch, kicking or even blocking. Technos Japan made a different choice, and that's a big reason that Karate Champ is so terrible.

Even if they would have sorted out the controls, though, Karate Champ would still be bad. The collision detection is so awful that none of your attacks matter at all. Attacks appear to overlap each other, blocking is a chore (although the computer player can block anything it wants to) and doing a jump kick never, ever works. While some other fighting games we've touched on could conceivably be better in two-player, the collision detection would undoubtedly lead to both parties frustratedly throwing down the controllers and going off to play something more fun, like "let's pull our eyes out with fishhooks."

However, I'm about to make your day. Remember when I said that Karate Champ can be hilarious? I discovered something glorious about Karate Champ, and I would like to share it with all of you.

When each round starts, the computer player will walk toward you at the same pace, never stopping. Press the attack button at the right time, and you will hit your opponent in the face every single time. It's tricky to find that sweet spot, but if you start getting it right, it makes Karate Champ a great "Got your nose" simulator.

Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present to you the following video. It's the only good thing to come out of Karate Champ, I assure you.

Final Rating: