My first impressions of seeing this game was pretty sour. I thought they were just taking an older title like A Link to the Past and trying to use it for profit and to be fair, they kind of did and I'll explain later. Every time I saw previews for the game, my opinion of it went worse and worse as the game's new puzzle mechanic, Graffiti Link, just looked absolutely stupid. However after the reviews finally came out, I was surprised to see it getting near perfect scores. I quickly put away my premature bias and picked it up just to see what was so special about the game. I was definitely not disappointed... This is something a little different as I will be using a number scoring system to elaborate the strengths and weaknesses of the game as this game does not come without it's flaw. This will also be spoiler free.... as best as I can. Be warned though, minor stuff will be revealed.
We start off the game in the same Hyrule we let off with in A Link to the Past and come to find out these mysterious graffiti paintings are all over town and as you venture further into the game, you eventually get the ability yourself to become these paintings inside the wall, where it allows you to roam off of cliffs without falling and add pretty much a new level of exploration and puzzling. And this is exactly where this games best feats lie: It's puzzles. You see the entire game is pretty much one giant puzzle for you to roam and collect these hidden out-of-reach objects with your new found power. This idea is absolutely brilliant in design and its something I've never seen before in a game and a lot of times I find myself completely confused on just how to obtain this item just barely out of reach and then "Oh god dammit!", I forgot I could use this new ability and just walk over to it and sometimes it's fun to just go into a wall, walk down the line and see if you can find something just on a whim. It's definitely really fun to experiment with. I'd honestly say this game does it's puzzles better than any game in the entire series. Though that might just be because it's fresh in my mind...
So the biggest thing I always head said negatively about this game was that you Rent your items. Yes that's right, every equipable item you obtain is rented through a merchant and if you die, you must pay for them again. Theoretically this also means you start off with every item as well... but there in lies the 2 problems with the game: The game also assumes you have every item and dungeons are only for story as they do not contain any equipable items anymore, which kind of cheapens the experience of exploring the dungeon. A lot of times you'll run through a dungeon and you'll see an obstacle that requires you to use bombs but oh wait, you didn't rent the bombs from the last time you died... Guess you gotta run out of the dungeon and rent them! Some dungeons are kind of obvious what item it wants you to have, but they will also contain a puzzle that isn't so obvious. But on the bright side you CAN buy the item later on and the game whores you with ruppees. So there's that...
The inventory in the game feels pretty lackluster... You got the very basic 9 items and that's it. Your inventory from Link to the Past is gone; Cane of Bryna, Cane of Somaria, Magic Cape, etc... Missing. There were a bit of puzzles later in the game that felt like the Cane of Somaria would have been welcomed, but I was disappointed to see it wasn't. I was kind of hoping with the inventory space that's opened, there'd be items that I was missing... but I wasn't.
SPOILERS BELOW
And where it SHOULD be different, in the "Dark World"*, it looks almost exactly like they stole the sprites from the Dark World from a Link to the Past. The Trees, the enemies, the buildings, hell I was honestly assuming the game was going to say that this second world WAS the Sacred Realm just inhabited by people now. But it's not....
END SPOILERS
But what this game does right, does it in spades. This games 3D looks amazing. Like a lot of the time I had my 3D on without even realizing it because it just looked so natural. It helps the game so much because of a lot of times the game has platforms on different levels and the levels can kind of be hard to see, the 3D makes it jump out. I would honestly say that the 3D is almost a requirement to the game... It adds so much and didn't really give me a headache. A lot of times the enemies and magic will jump out and kind of surprise you. I am honestly amazed to see myself call a gimmick like 3D an actual asset to the game.
The Gameplay is also the best you'll ever see in a top-down Zelda game. The gameplay is very fluid and rewarding. I kind of expected to see gameplay like this and it's kind of refreshing to come back to this type of Zelda after the 3D adventures of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword... so it's exciting to see it actually do very well. However, what cheapens the gameplay is the removal of ammo. All bombs and arrows share the same magic bar.... I'm not quite sure why they did this but I'm not sure if it's bad or good.
There are a lot more good things about this game and a few more bad.... None of them really come to mind at the moment, and it feels like I kind of did nothing but bash the game. But what the game does right does it SO well that it definitely makes up for its flaws. For a moment I was considering it better than A Link to the Past** but now that I've complete it, I wont.... but it's definitely a contender. With a little bit of polish, it could have done just that.
Gameplay: 9/10
Puzzles: 10/10
Story: 6/10
Music: 10/10
3D: 10/10
Design: 6/10
Overall: 8.5
* Let's be fair, it might as well be the Dark World
** A Link to the Past is my favorite in the series.
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