tommy_lop's Full Review: The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past for Game B...
I remember when I played The legend of Zelda a first time, my cousin at to force the controller into my hand. I was so sure that I would hate it that I was rather content paying garbage like Beavis and Butthead that he also brought over. Well I played it and quickly discovered I love it. I beg my aunt to find it for the SNES for Christmas and she got it for me and since then it has become one of my favorite games ever. The review for the SNES version can be found here http://www.epinions.com/content_76732403332
I asked my sister for the gameboy game for Christmas and she delivered. While I have played this game before (so much that the fact that I can basically play it in my sleep) I still wanted it a portable version of this.
Well I imdeadly open it and plug it into my GBA and set out on another quest in the legend of Zelda a link to the past.
Story.
The story has been change a little bit to help it coincide more with it's prequal Ocarina of time for the N64 http://www.epinions.com/content_40763756164. The wise men are now called Sages, and a few other lines have been changed to give it a bit better of a story element. The story is still the same a long time ago in the kingdom of Hyrule Gannon got the Triforce and the Sages shut in up in the Golden land now turn into a dark world. During the battle the sages made the master sword, which could killed Gannon, but only one of a good heart could wield it. Finding no one with the courage to wield the blade they hid it in the lost woods into someone could be found. If the barrier that they imprison Gannon in could be destroyed the great cataclysm would befall Hyrule. On the day before the Master Sword would find the one person who could stop the cataclysm. After several generations these happenings where distorted and where considered myths, into the day an evil wizard named Aganim came to the castle and got rid of the King. The wizard started to capture the discontents of the Sages and sacrificing them. On a dark night Link is woken up after a nightmare of a women calling for help in the dungeon. he finds his uncle leaving with a sword and shield and sets off to find out what's going on.
Graphics.
The graphics have change a little in the game. The color is a bit more crisp and easier to look at. To help with the lighting problems that the GBA has Capcom took the liberty of having a contrast option in the game so you can adjust it to the lighting levels. The majority of the game looks the same a brightly colored world of Hyrule which is play in a 2/3 of the way overhead view giving a sense of depth. The dark world where you have your 2nd part of your quest looks exactly like you would expect it's a mirror world with a lot of the same land marks, however these all look different in there own way. Also the dark world is dark and dreary completely different feeling then the light world.
Now the major changes in the graphics come that the bottom of the screen has been cut and requires more scrolling in that area. This also means more enemy’s shooting at you from out side of the screen. This almost caused me to die once (like I said I can beat this in my sleep and almost causing me to die is a major thing.) because an enemy started hitting me from outside the screen. Other then this there are a few different special fx, mainly because there are things that the GBA that the Super NES could never do, and there are a few things that SNES could do that the GBA can.
All the characters from the original game are there and unchanged but one, the witches assistant at the magic shop has now been changed to Maple from the Oracle series.
Sound.
The sound has been dumbed down a bit from it's SNES original, mainly because of the smaller speaker. However all the music from the SNES is there including what I still consider the best over world theme ever in the Zelda series (yes even the Majoras mask remix). They even put in the orginal opening them to the original NES Zelda game do. Now what's the one thing Nintendo has been doing in all there ports of classic games to really mess them up, putting voices in there. Nintendo really needs to learn that these voices take away from the classic experience, and to make it worse the GBA can't really handle them. In this one you hear the child voice from the N64 version every time you hit the sword button Link does a yelp. I wouldn’t mind this if you where doing a whirling blade trick or falling down a hole, but every time you hit the attack button you get a little yelp from Link drives you crazy after a while.
Gameplay.
Ok from now on I don't think portable players should expect to see a whole lot of Zelda games being done by Nintendo, rather there probably going to be done by Capcom. This is OK with me has Capcom has a lot of successful games themselves and they have done every Zelda game so far perfectly. They handle the game play elements in this perfectly.
The gameplay is unchanged the idea is to follow the map and find Dungeons that have pendants in them. Complete the dungeons and get the pendants. Then get the master sword and travel into the dark worlds and rescue the maidens that Aganim has sent there, and then of course duke it out with Gannon.
There are over 13 dungeons all in all in this game, and while they are shorter then dungeons in an average Zelda games they do have a lot of puzzles in them. For example the dungeon of darkness the first time through on the SNES it took me over 100 tries to get it and I'll I had to do was move a block in the middle of the room another way. These dungeons will take several tries the first time through.
The dungeons themselves have not been changed, all except for one puzzle on the SNES. in the ice dungeon in the dark world they change the last puzzle in the dungeon. It's still solve the same way it's "supposed to be done", but you have to do it the way that it was design to be solved. In the original SNES game you had to push a block off an edge of a hole and have it land on the switch fortunately you have to hit a switch that blocks it of so you have to go around the dungeon and push it in. People like me who where lazy just did the 6 dungeon first and grab the staff of someria and just hit the switch at the bottom of the dungeon with it. This has been changed to where you have to pick up a big block and jump in, but the staff then becomes useless for this puzzle.
All the items from the original SNES game is here, plus one more. In the SNES you got a shovel just to get the flute and then it disapeared. In this one you can get the shovel and use it to dig up tresure, even outside of the tresure field.
The four swords an incomplete review.
This game also comes bundle with another Zelda game called the 4 swords. But since I don't know anybody who has this game pack I have not been able to play this game. The story goes like this long ago a horny evil wind wizard kidnapped maidens in Hyrule and anybody who opposed him did not return. Until a day when a child challenges the wizard with just a sword, the kid beat the wizard and rescued the maidens. Before anybody could ask how the feat was accomplish the young hero disappeared. When the maidens where asked how he did they said he used his sword to split him into 4 different people and working together they where able to beat the wizard. Now the sword he used to beat the wizard now has the wizard locked within it and it's up to Princess Zelda to watch the sword to make sure he doesn’t get out. One day Zelda sense something wrong with the sword can called upon her friend Link to help her investigate. The wizard escaped from the sword and kidnapped Zelda now Link must use the swords power to split himself into 4 people.
The graphics in the sound seem to be improve from that of the link to the past and look like they use the GBA to it's full power. The story sounds like the Gamecube Zelda game might be the prequal to this, has Link is out to rescue his sister and the wind will play a big part of the gameplay. Don't know but I am pre ordering it for the cube soon.
Final recommendation.
Zelda a link to the past for the GBA, yes I recommend this it's probably the greatest game for the GBA released last year.
Based on a link to the past on the super nes, the legend of zeldagba spruces up the 1992 fan-favorite by introducing the firstever multiplayer mode fo...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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