A Link to the Past

Title Screen - A Link to the Past

The next adventure on our quest to save all of Hyrule is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.  This is one installment I actually never played on the original system: back on the cartridges, the original Zelda frustrated me and thus I had little time or patience for the series past that.  Little did I realize that everything that had frustrated me about the original (the poor action system based on 8-bit graphics) had been remarkably smoothed out in this title.  The first time I played this on the virtual console for the Wii, I regretted never playing it before.  It is a great title, full of action, adventure, puzzle and most of all, this title expands upon the element introduced in Zelda II: an interwoven plot.  While in Zelda II this was minimal and the non-player characters hardly said much of any importance, they were still vital to your quest.  This game expanded upon this, making the plot the core of the game and forced Link to uncover the mysteries behind the history of the Imprisoning War in order to achieve his ultimate goal (which he gets to do twice): rescue Zelda and put an end to evil's reign.  In addition, the NPCs begin to be named and say more than just "I can't help you" or "Step inside so I can 'heal' you."  This game was probably the staple in transforming the Zelda series from action-adventure into a real role-playing game, while still retaining the elements of action-adventure.  One of my favorite stories in the series, A Link to the Past explores the events after the Imprisoning War and Ganon's attempts to escape and realize his dream of ruling Hyrule and the Golden Realm.  The interesting subtlety surrounding all of this is that the King and the sages of Hyrule brought all of this on themselves, given that they were the ones who went to seal Ganondorf in the Golden Realm.  This is a recurring theme throughout the series: how Hyrule brings all of this on itself by trying to solve their problems.  One way or another, with the best graphics to date, the best action system to date and the first game with true RPG elements, A Link to the Past was truly revolutionary.