BORN TO FUNNY
WORLD IS A TURNABOUT BIG TOP
West Clownadelphia 2006
I am Moe Curls
410,757,864,530 GROWN MEN ATTRACTED TO A 16 YEAR OLD

This game presents a lot of interesting and great ideas, but they're all hidden behind hours and hours and hours of tedious tests of patience. A Link to the Past is largely held back by a lack of modern conveniences, as well as general lack of direction. I think this game is great for children who have countless hours to spend walking around and exploring Hyrule, but as someone who has played any Zelda game that came out after this, it is a slog to get through. The dungeons are generally annoying to sift through, the Dark World is boring and annoying to traverse, the Light World is effectively a giant time waster once you finish three dungeons. There are only a couple of good dungeons in the game, and unfortunately they're the last ones and are still ridden with various issues the other dungeons (and the rest of the game) contain. I think the good ideas this game presents are done far better in later titles, so I really recommend only playing this if you want to play every Zelda game or if you haven't played one yet and want to see what all the hubbub is about.

Making a new review because my original got deleted (made a joke about k)
I'm finished. The gameplay and maps are consistently stellar and satisfying, and the story is intentionally campy. Many will compare it to the mess that is fates, but the camp here is by full intent and not meant to be serious, so I tolerate it more. The hub's far more optional and thus less of a slog than the monastery was for me, but the supports drag hard. They're very small and I find it hard to be attached to the cast. I like them, mostly, but they are every trope the "FE has never had a plot" bozos reduce this series to. While the story's goof is funny to me, these supports make me feel very little. I overall do find the game a stellar loop, though the onslaught of paralogues by midgame has stalled my progression. Nothing is intrusive. I like this quite a bit. It is a mickey mouse ass game with phenomenal tactical gameplay, yet mickey mouse by intent. This is what disconnects it from the insuffrability of Fates (not Conquest) for me, but any real layer to the story or world isn't there either. I'd like more layers, but camp is enjoyable if intentional. The OST is particularly good too. I initially didn't click then I hit Bright Sandstorm and I creamed.
All of the creepy shit that the localization team cut is good, but also, why was that allowed in general?
EDIT 3/23/2023, I beat this game on Hard. Love it even more. Bumping it up a half star, it was also a sort of comfort to cope with the loss of my father. Just a distraction from the world.

Finally playing a Touhou game feels like I've crossed some kind of cursed boundary I can't recover from. I guess time will tell if I've ended up in some deep dark abyss of my own making.

What time doesn't need to tell you is that I think this game is really good! Short but sweet metroidvania, cool time stuff, baller bosses, it's one of those games that's so focused on the gameplay that I kinda end up just listing the features in it because they're all rad. Well worth whatever nonsense I was spouting above.