and All Consoles

With all the hours I spent playing games from the Legend of Zelda series, I could have learned to speak a language fluently, or could have gotten a Master’s Degree in nuclear engineering, but no matter.  It was fun and engaging.  Zelda is the granddaddy of all adventure games as far as I’m concerned, and the new Wii A Link To The Past brings it all back.  Now, you can invest more of your life into exploring Hyrule!

Now receiving transmission… it’s a telepathic message from Zelda again!  Your mission is to find the Master Sword, then descend into the Dark World to do battle with the fearsome Ganon.  Defeating Ganon will bring peace back to Hyrule and, who knows, maybe Link and Zelda have a chance after all.  Eh?  Know what I’m saying?

But the real, exciting, totally new, super-cool feature of the new game is its multiplayer setting.  It’s called “Four Swords.”  You and up to three of your swashbuckling buddies can play the game together.  Four Swords is a totally different mission.  You get a message from Triforce, and the levels are set up so that you have to cooperate with each other to beat them.

In the Four Swords mode, you not only fight, but also have to solve puzzles.  For these, you have to work together with your friends.  You also collect rupees, just like in the original game, so you have a chance to compete with one another too.

Like all the games in the series, you meet strange men in caves who give you tips and sell you things.  You get crazy abilities from things you find.  You battle your way through the depths of Hyrule to get keys that open doors to the places you need to go.  One of the magical items that you use is a Magic Mirror that allows you to teleport from the Light to the Dark Worlds.

The graphics look great, and the music is fantastic.  It has the classic graphics from the old game.  They haven’t changed a thing, which makes it kind of charming.  The music is new, though, and it’s just as cool as you would expect from a new Zelda game.

One thing that’s caused us to lose hours of our life with Zelda games is that they are long.  A Link To The Past is no exception.  It takes forever to get through the whole game, so it’ll suck you in.  And, once you beat it, it’s been so long since you first started it, that you’re ready to go back through it all over again.  If you buy this game, you might as well take a lengthy vacation from work and hang up your social obligations for a while.  It’s engrossing.

A Link To The Past is the third Zelda game to be released on Wii in a relatively short time, but it is definitely the best of the three.  It was released some time ago on the Game Boy, but other than that, it hasn’t been available.  It’s definitely worth the money, especially if you’re a lifelong Zelda fan like me.