Systems: GBA, SNES.

 

In a time long forgotten, the Evil Lord Ganon kidnapped the fair Princess Zelda. Only a young boy, Link, could save her. Link's journey was aided by powerful magic and mystical items. And he needed them all to cross and unite the riven dimensions of the Light and Dark Worlds.

Zelda: A Link to the Past was the first Zelda game that truly did the land of Hyrule justice.  The game is incredibly large, featuring two overworlds that need exploring as well as 11 dungeons that Link must fight his way through. A Link to the Past was also the best game in the Zeldaseries until Ocarina of Time was released and is considered a classic by everyone who has ever played it.

The music in A Link to the Past was great.  Each song set the mood perfectly for where Link was or what he was doing.  The sound quality was as good as or better than that of any other Super NES game, and out of the entire Zelda series, only Zelda: Ocarina of Time had better music.  

The dungeons in the game were very well put together.  Like the other Zelda games, hidden inside each dungeon is a special item that Link must find and use in order to get through the dungeon.  At the end of each dungeon is a challenging boss creature that guards either a pendant or a crystal.  Just like the bosses in each of the other Zelda games, in A Link to the Past each boss requires a different strategy in order to be defeated.   Aside from the bosses, there were many other dangers inside each dungeon.  There were all kinds of monsters just waiting to ambush Link and many of the dungeons contained puzzles that Link must solve in order to move on.

Zelda: A Link to the Past also introduced many innovative features that are present in the games that were released after it.  Instead of collecting an entire Heart Container at a time (with the exception of at the end of a dungeon), Link would have to find four Pieces of Heart in order to gain a Heart Container.  The game also introduced several new items, some of which have appeared in it's sequels.  One of these items is the Hookshot, a long chain that hooks onto an object and pulls Link towards it.  Another feature that originated in A Link to the Past was the need of a Boss Key (called the Big Key in this game) in order to move on to the guardian of a particular dungeon.  These new features all helped make A Link to the Past the game that changed the Zelda series from a popular series to the most popular games Nintendo has to offer.

 

The Legend Of Zelda A Link to The past GBA version

The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past was ported for Gameboy Advance.  The game is perfect port of the Super NES classic that was originally released in 1991.  For those of you who haven't played it, A Link to the Past is right up there with Ocarina of Time as one of the best games in the series, so this game is definitely worth buying. 

In addition to the perfect port of A Link to the Past, Zelda Advance also features a 4-player cooperative mode.  In the multiplayer mode, players cooperate to finish dungeons together, but also compete against each other at the same time.  Some puzzles require cooperation, such as large blocks which require the strength of four players just to be moved.  Even though they are cooperating to complete the dungeons together, players will see an element of competition in the multiplayer mode.  Players will be competing to see who gets the most rupees in each dungeon.  Whoever finishes the dungeon with the most rupees wins.

Even though the game is a direct port of Link to the past, it is worth buying.  A Link to the Past is among the greatest games of all time, and the multiplayer mode brings a new and fun element to the game that is worth trying.  Also in the GBA version there is a hidden dungeon and a few extras that were not orignaly in the SNES version.