Cameron McRae

Game

I played The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, an old Action-RPG from the SNES console.

How did it feel? The controls didn't feel very smooth, and it was sometimes difficult to turn and attack enemies, but it wasn't frustrating to play. Moving around out of combat wasn't as bad, but still a bit rough. The art in the game is very well done, although it wasn't as detailed as most modern games, it was still clear what everything was meant to be.The music was good, but after a while it got repetitive. It suited its locations well, and made the experience more immersive.The game doesn't have a quest marker or tell you what to do, so you have to explore the map to find where you need to go, but it isn't overwhelming or confusing. The game does have maps, but they won’t be available straight away, and you’ll need to find them in chests.

The Story?From what I played, I found out that a girl named Zelda (as well as some other nameless girls) had been kidnapped and put in the castle dungeon by an evil wizard that had taken over the castle and guards. It was my character’s job to rescue her and take her to a sanctuary through a secret tunnel in the castle, and then defeat the wizard. Then (this information is from online) my character had to search for the village elder in the north-west of the map. Once speaking to him, he directs the character to 4 dungeons with pendants that are required to take the Master Sword. Once the sword is taken, the character gets a telepathic message from Zelda, telling him to return to the sanctuary. When he arrives he finds out that Zelda has been captured by the wizard again, and so he makes his way to the castle. Once there he sees Zelda getting sent to the ‘Dark World’, and fights the wizard. He defeats the wizard but gets sent into the Dark World too. The character then has to rescue Zelda and the other girls that were captured. Once freed, the girls break the barrier to the castle belonging to the wizard’s evil master, Ganon. The wizard is fought a second time and defeated, and Ganon rises from the wizard’s body as a bat and flies away. The character follows

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Ganon and ultimately defeats him, restoring both worlds to how they were before Ganon arrived.

Identify

This game has many objects that can be interacted with, either pots containing vital hearts to keep you alive, or moving larger objects to reveal hidden doors and tunnels. There are multiple routes the player can take, which end up at the same location anyway, but make the player feel like the game is more open.

Enemies in the game are very generic. There are the green-coloured guards, which take about 2 hits to kill, and occasionally drop a heart or rupee. Then there are the purple/blue-coloured guards, which take an additional 1-2 hits to kill, and are usually placed in rooms with necessary items.Both types of guards may block after the first hit, making it slightly harder to kill them. There are also rats, bats, and snakes which can appear in dark, underground sections of the game. They mostly just run around the rooms, against the walls, but they can kill the player if they aren't careful.

Link has multiple attacks. He can do a normal swipe with his sword, he can hold it in front of him to keep enemies from hitting him, and he can charge up and unleash a spinning attack.

Link also has items that he can pick up in dungeons, usually being extremely useful in the dungeon they are found in. He can get bombs to blow up damaged walls and damage enemies, a boomerang to stun enemies, and a bow (and arrows) to take out enemies or hit a target from a distance.

The maps in this game are normally not needed, except for the overworld map, which can show important areas to go to. The overworld map shows the entire accessible world and key points on it, like the village and castle. It also shows the locations of important people with an X, and important items

Cameron McRae

with an image of the item at where they will be found. Dungeon maps are found in chests, usually near the beginning, although I didn't find them very useful. They show the general layout of the dungeon, and which room you’re in.

The inventory is really simple, it is a single screen that shows all of the items you have, and also all of the important story items that have been collected are put in separate boxes.

EvaluateI only managed to play this game for a short amount of time, so I didn't get to experience much of it. From what I did play, I saw that all of the starting dungeons are straightforward, and mostly linear, with later dungeons becoming more challenging with puzzles and harder enemies. This was probably so the player could be eased into the game. The game doesn't hold the player’s hand. You get told what you need to do, and the most help you get is an icon on the map. You need to find your way to that location, and then complete the dungeon (with only some hints to help you).

I did a survey to see how many people have played this game, here are the results: