As technological advancement came, arose the opportunity to streamline the format introduced in the first Legend of Zelda, attempting to replicate its penchant for exploration, all the while setting new standards for accessibility and world design, trying to keep the sense of wonder and adventure from the original but without the obtuseness and steep difficulty. All that seems like taking an already brilliant game and polishing it to perfection, introducing new ideas that improve the experience, yet, in the case of this game, that approach has diminishing returns. In a nutshell, the ideas introduced in this game would inevitably spread in the gaming industry like wildfire, all the while defining Zelda experiences to come, yet, this first implementation of said ideas is, while playing in present day, very lacking.
'Dated' is a very common adjective in gaming discourse, much more than with other mediums, as the standards for how satisfying and fun a game can be and how pristine it can sound or look are intimately tied with technological advancement, and consumers are even more picky for it being an interactive medium which demands many hours of time investment. Take the 80s as a reference point: for pretty much the whole of the 2010s there was a wave of 80s nostalgia, many movies, TV shows and music from that era are still considered classics to this day and the entire cultural ethos of that era is still being replicated in all sorts of media; except for video games – you don't really see titles from the 80s being talked about anymore, aside from rare exceptions like Pac-Man, Tetris, and the early Mario games from the tail end of the decade, and the design philosophies that were commonplace back then are comfortably considered a thing of the past, even the retro-est revivalist game won't try to replicate the cheap deaths, the password system, the chopped audio and the deeply limited color palette of that era. The point being that, while other mediums have so many enduring classics from many eras, games usually age much faster, and while classics like Chrono Trigger and Super Metroid have managed to remain a part of its canon, for every one of these there's a thousand 'Boogerman' and 'James Pond's completely lost to time.
With all that said, A Link to the Past is not dated. Not in the slightest even, its revolutionary ideas such as its progression system from which nearly every action RPG or adventure game since its release borrowed at list a bit, with stuff like heart pieces and item-specific quests becoming a staple, its dungeon design and puzzles, its narrative structure which places every beat around an objective being fulfilled, bringing a sense of cohesion with the gameplay, its alternate dark world map and the many ways it interacts with the main one, and, specially, the way it conveys information to the player through visual and audio cues, all still feel very modern, and its mechanics still could show up in a game released in 2022; Tunic is an obvious example. Definitely, age is not what brings this game down in my estimation, at least not in a direct way.
What does, though, is how all those brilliant ideas were implemented in such a staunchly boring way. Take the story, for example: princess gets kidnapped by evil wizard who needs her for magic shenanigans, Link goes to the rescue, is aided by a guy named fucking SARASRAHLA, needs to collect three thingys to find a sword strong enough to kill him, but unsurprisingly he's not the main villain, so Link goes to save more maidens in distress + Zelda, kill the true bad guy Ganon and restore peace to the world. I can't even think of a more unimaginative fantasy backdrop for a game, there's like one or two memorable characters in the game and they aren't even IN the main story. Without a strong narrative to engage the player constantly, there is an even greater need for the game mechanics to shine, and while they do, in parts, they're mostly every bit as uneventful as the storytelling.
The original Zelda, despite its severe limitations, was very successful in channeling a sense of wonder and adventure to the player, Hyrule really felt like a three-dimensional and mysterious land with secrets at every corner, the powerlessness of the player character and its handling of information surely helped in this, making the world feel huge and challenging to traverse, while keeping a cohesion that further made it feel like a true interconnected world. In a Link to the Past, however, i'm reluctant to even call the map 'open', since it's so restrictive and bound to a linear sense of progression it feels pointless to explore and take risks like in the original, ending up resembling the open worlds of today, and not in a good way; if the player wants to poke around the map looking for something interesting to do, the possibility is there, but there won't be almost anything to find, since nearly every area of the map is bound by some story beat you need to overcome first, otherwise it's either inaccessible altogether or just devoid of anything to interact with, and that's made even more annoying by how hostile the overworld is, just traversing from point A to point B is a pain in the ass since the game won't allow for any spot to not have relentless respawning enemies. In that sense, the moments where it rewards exploration the most are in the side collectibles, such as the heart pieces and items, specially in their interactions in the dark world, with some cool tests of spacial awareness, yet those are so telegraphed and simple they barely even feel satisfying, like they're not even an achievement to begin with, just something you have to go through to strengthen your character, essentially Zelda's version of grinding.
Speaking of the combat, well, it sucks. Sure, you can get used to it, and even get quite good at it, that skill is surely needed in some bosses down the road, but it's never really fun and absolutely not empowering in the slightest. The quirky mechanics applied to every enemy and the way there's a different strategy for every one of them is a very creative idea, one which surely influenced the Souls-like games, and should work beautifully to make the combat more engaging, but instead it just makes it frustrating and annoying, as it never really feels like you're fighting monsters as much as like you're solving puzzles, and not even the good kind. There's just so much about this combat system that i hate, like how the fighting itself feels iffy, with still no diagonal attacks like in the original – even though many enemies CAN attack diagonally –, the way so many attacks and offensive items are mostly useless, like the spin attack that has a veeery situational use and the boomerang which even fully upgraded i struggled to find any use for. There isn't a particular problem for taking a more strategic approach to a combat system that doesn't feel like just a power fantasy, but with this pace, this balancing, this presentation and this difficulty? It doesn't really work, a much simpler and shallower system would be much more welcome instead of an intricate one done poorly.
Admittedly, when i squint my eyes i can still see the sparks of brilliance this game has, and can definitely imagine how amazing it would have been to have played it in 1991, there truly wasn't anything like it back then; the Dark World stuff is specially compelling and cool, one of the most surprising aspects of the game. But playing it in 2022, i couldn't help but view it as just a blueprint for better games to come, which would take those ideas and make something truly special out of them. Even if all those elements it introduced are still modern and thus made it "age well", it lacks much of the charm, polish and uniqueness that would make this a truly timeless game; it's that extra oomph makes a game that's clearly dated, like Super Mario 64 with its sucky camera and unflattering graphics, still a masterpiece to this day – while equally influential, its singular feel hasn't really been replicated or done better since, which can't really be said for ALttP; a timeless game isn't about not being 'dated', it's about doing something special that resonates through all time. So, for all intents and purposes, the SNES cartridge for A Link to the Past documents a remarkable triumph of creative and innovative game design, which unfortunately makes for an unremarkable game that adds up to less than the sum of its parts. If anything, it makes me excited for the rest of the games on the franchise!
'Dated' is a very common adjective in gaming discourse, much more than with other mediums, as the standards for how satisfying and fun a game can be and how pristine it can sound or look are intimately tied with technological advancement, and consumers are even more picky for it being an interactive medium which demands many hours of time investment. Take the 80s as a reference point: for pretty much the whole of the 2010s there was a wave of 80s nostalgia, many movies, TV shows and music from that era are still considered classics to this day and the entire cultural ethos of that era is still being replicated in all sorts of media; except for video games – you don't really see titles from the 80s being talked about anymore, aside from rare exceptions like Pac-Man, Tetris, and the early Mario games from the tail end of the decade, and the design philosophies that were commonplace back then are comfortably considered a thing of the past, even the retro-est revivalist game won't try to replicate the cheap deaths, the password system, the chopped audio and the deeply limited color palette of that era. The point being that, while other mediums have so many enduring classics from many eras, games usually age much faster, and while classics like Chrono Trigger and Super Metroid have managed to remain a part of its canon, for every one of these there's a thousand 'Boogerman' and 'James Pond's completely lost to time.
With all that said, A Link to the Past is not dated. Not in the slightest even, its revolutionary ideas such as its progression system from which nearly every action RPG or adventure game since its release borrowed at list a bit, with stuff like heart pieces and item-specific quests becoming a staple, its dungeon design and puzzles, its narrative structure which places every beat around an objective being fulfilled, bringing a sense of cohesion with the gameplay, its alternate dark world map and the many ways it interacts with the main one, and, specially, the way it conveys information to the player through visual and audio cues, all still feel very modern, and its mechanics still could show up in a game released in 2022; Tunic is an obvious example. Definitely, age is not what brings this game down in my estimation, at least not in a direct way.
What does, though, is how all those brilliant ideas were implemented in such a staunchly boring way. Take the story, for example: princess gets kidnapped by evil wizard who needs her for magic shenanigans, Link goes to the rescue, is aided by a guy named fucking SARASRAHLA, needs to collect three thingys to find a sword strong enough to kill him, but unsurprisingly he's not the main villain, so Link goes to save more maidens in distress + Zelda, kill the true bad guy Ganon and restore peace to the world. I can't even think of a more unimaginative fantasy backdrop for a game, there's like one or two memorable characters in the game and they aren't even IN the main story. Without a strong narrative to engage the player constantly, there is an even greater need for the game mechanics to shine, and while they do, in parts, they're mostly every bit as uneventful as the storytelling.
The original Zelda, despite its severe limitations, was very successful in channeling a sense of wonder and adventure to the player, Hyrule really felt like a three-dimensional and mysterious land with secrets at every corner, the powerlessness of the player character and its handling of information surely helped in this, making the world feel huge and challenging to traverse, while keeping a cohesion that further made it feel like a true interconnected world. In a Link to the Past, however, i'm reluctant to even call the map 'open', since it's so restrictive and bound to a linear sense of progression it feels pointless to explore and take risks like in the original, ending up resembling the open worlds of today, and not in a good way; if the player wants to poke around the map looking for something interesting to do, the possibility is there, but there won't be almost anything to find, since nearly every area of the map is bound by some story beat you need to overcome first, otherwise it's either inaccessible altogether or just devoid of anything to interact with, and that's made even more annoying by how hostile the overworld is, just traversing from point A to point B is a pain in the ass since the game won't allow for any spot to not have relentless respawning enemies. In that sense, the moments where it rewards exploration the most are in the side collectibles, such as the heart pieces and items, specially in their interactions in the dark world, with some cool tests of spacial awareness, yet those are so telegraphed and simple they barely even feel satisfying, like they're not even an achievement to begin with, just something you have to go through to strengthen your character, essentially Zelda's version of grinding.
Speaking of the combat, well, it sucks. Sure, you can get used to it, and even get quite good at it, that skill is surely needed in some bosses down the road, but it's never really fun and absolutely not empowering in the slightest. The quirky mechanics applied to every enemy and the way there's a different strategy for every one of them is a very creative idea, one which surely influenced the Souls-like games, and should work beautifully to make the combat more engaging, but instead it just makes it frustrating and annoying, as it never really feels like you're fighting monsters as much as like you're solving puzzles, and not even the good kind. There's just so much about this combat system that i hate, like how the fighting itself feels iffy, with still no diagonal attacks like in the original – even though many enemies CAN attack diagonally –, the way so many attacks and offensive items are mostly useless, like the spin attack that has a veeery situational use and the boomerang which even fully upgraded i struggled to find any use for. There isn't a particular problem for taking a more strategic approach to a combat system that doesn't feel like just a power fantasy, but with this pace, this balancing, this presentation and this difficulty? It doesn't really work, a much simpler and shallower system would be much more welcome instead of an intricate one done poorly.
Admittedly, when i squint my eyes i can still see the sparks of brilliance this game has, and can definitely imagine how amazing it would have been to have played it in 1991, there truly wasn't anything like it back then; the Dark World stuff is specially compelling and cool, one of the most surprising aspects of the game. But playing it in 2022, i couldn't help but view it as just a blueprint for better games to come, which would take those ideas and make something truly special out of them. Even if all those elements it introduced are still modern and thus made it "age well", it lacks much of the charm, polish and uniqueness that would make this a truly timeless game; it's that extra oomph makes a game that's clearly dated, like Super Mario 64 with its sucky camera and unflattering graphics, still a masterpiece to this day – while equally influential, its singular feel hasn't really been replicated or done better since, which can't really be said for ALttP; a timeless game isn't about not being 'dated', it's about doing something special that resonates through all time. So, for all intents and purposes, the SNES cartridge for A Link to the Past documents a remarkable triumph of creative and innovative game design, which unfortunately makes for an unremarkable game that adds up to less than the sum of its parts. If anything, it makes me excited for the rest of the games on the franchise!