It's honestly hard to believe that this is only the third game in the Zelda series with how much of a jump in quality it is from the NES titles in all aspects. From the visuals, to the map, items, sound, everything is wildly improved. It really impressed me.
Exploring and fighting enemies here is pretty fun. The large amount of weapons and abilities give you plenty of options for combat and generally traversing Hyrule. There are definitely roadblocks at times when you're missing certain items, but it's still a pretty open world overall. One of the most infamous issues with the first two Zeldas is that they're ungodly cryptic and almost impossible to figure out without a guide, and thankfully I think Link to the Past is much, much better about that. NPCs actually give comprehensible directions now, and having an ingame map (with markers even!) makes things a whole lot easier. It's not perfect, it's still very possible to miss items that are required for progression, but it's drastically better so I can't complain too much. And we live in an era with google now so whatever.
Dungeons in this game were pretty good. Lots of good challenges and puzzles, each one was satisfying to beat. The difficulty of the bosses is kind of all over the place - Helmasaur King kinda kicked my ass despite being only the first Dark World boss, but past that there are things like Kholdstare and Vitreous which felt super easy for how late they appear. Not that big a deal, but it is a little weird. As for the levels themselves, I enjoyed almost all of them except for two. Skull Woods was really annoying with having to keep going back and forth between the dungeon and the surface, plus the never-ending swarm of Wallmasters. And Ice Palace is TRASH. Some of the worst ice physics I've felt in any game, in small rooms filled with some of the most obnoxious enemies in the game, and something like 7 floors to get lost in. I really, really hated it, but the bright side is that all the remaining dungeons were much better.
Link to the Past is a game I've been meaning to play for a while, and I'm glad I finally did! I enjoyed it a lot and have to give it a ton of credit for being such a huge upgrade to the original Legend of Zelda. Looking forward to Link Between Worlds whenever I get to that.
Exploring and fighting enemies here is pretty fun. The large amount of weapons and abilities give you plenty of options for combat and generally traversing Hyrule. There are definitely roadblocks at times when you're missing certain items, but it's still a pretty open world overall. One of the most infamous issues with the first two Zeldas is that they're ungodly cryptic and almost impossible to figure out without a guide, and thankfully I think Link to the Past is much, much better about that. NPCs actually give comprehensible directions now, and having an ingame map (with markers even!) makes things a whole lot easier. It's not perfect, it's still very possible to miss items that are required for progression, but it's drastically better so I can't complain too much. And we live in an era with google now so whatever.
Dungeons in this game were pretty good. Lots of good challenges and puzzles, each one was satisfying to beat. The difficulty of the bosses is kind of all over the place - Helmasaur King kinda kicked my ass despite being only the first Dark World boss, but past that there are things like Kholdstare and Vitreous which felt super easy for how late they appear. Not that big a deal, but it is a little weird. As for the levels themselves, I enjoyed almost all of them except for two. Skull Woods was really annoying with having to keep going back and forth between the dungeon and the surface, plus the never-ending swarm of Wallmasters. And Ice Palace is TRASH. Some of the worst ice physics I've felt in any game, in small rooms filled with some of the most obnoxious enemies in the game, and something like 7 floors to get lost in. I really, really hated it, but the bright side is that all the remaining dungeons were much better.
Link to the Past is a game I've been meaning to play for a while, and I'm glad I finally did! I enjoyed it a lot and have to give it a ton of credit for being such a huge upgrade to the original Legend of Zelda. Looking forward to Link Between Worlds whenever I get to that.