The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

The two-level scheme used in the previous Adventure of Link game, in which movement around the game world was shown as a schematic map, and locations and battles were displayed in platforming mode, caused many discontent among the players, and the project manager Miyamoto decided to use the game mechanics of the first part, with the display playing space in the perspective of "top-side".

The changes mainly affected control (Link got the opportunity to move along the diagonal), minor changes occurred with the weapons of the game character (arrows became an independent object and Rupees gems were no longer consumed when shooting from a bow, as it was in the first game). An attack with a sword could hit the opponents surrounding the game character, and not just standing in front of him, which facilitated the conduct of the battle in the conditions of the numerical superiority of monsters. An indicator of the level of magic appeared (which was a borrowing from Adventure of Link).

The game introduced new elements into the series, which later became part of the recognizable style of The Legend of Zelda series : multi-level dungeons, new types of equipment ( boarding cat , boots, boots). Finally, a scalable map was introduced, allowing the player to easily navigate the world around and simplifying the search for key characters and objects.

Maps of the labyrinths, as in the first game of the series, have to be searched independently, just like magic compasses indicating the location of the main objects hidden in the dungeon.

The protagonist of the game is a boy named Link, who lives at the beginning of the story with his uncle in a house south of Castle Khayrul. One evening, Link receives a telepathic message from Princess Zelda, who asks him for help. Zelda was imprisoned in a castle by an evil sorcerer named Agahnim, who executed her father, King Khayrul, and seized power in the country. Aganim plans to destroy the seal imposed centuries ago by the Seven Sages, and to liberate Ganon, the prince of Darkness. In this he is helped by the royal soldiers, whom he controls with the help of magic.

Uncle Link goes to the castle to save the princess, but is mortally wounded and dies. Link releases Zelda from prison on her own, but the princess’s escape from captivity will only give Link extra time to locate the relic and delay Aganim for a long time so that the plans are not implemented. Having escorted Zelda to the secret sanctuary, Link continues his search, in which one of the descendants of the Seven Wise Men, a hermit named Sahasrahla, becomes his mentor .

The only weapon that can withstand the dark magic of Aganim is Master Sword , an ancient magic blade designed to fight "those who have evil in their hearts." Sealed in a pedestal , the magic sword will allow you to pull yourself together only a real hero. To prove that he is worthy of this sword, Link needs to find three magic pendants hidden in different parts of the kingdom of Khayrul. However, having received the sword, he discovers that Aganim discovered Zelda's refuge, abducted it and transferred it to the Dark World. Link follows them, ahead of him is a fight with Aganim, and after that - by the Prince of Darkness Gunon himself.

New fixtures

• Magic Mirror - able to move from one world to another.

• Boots Walkers - helps Link to run faster.

• Glove of strength - helps Link to lift stones and detect hiding places.

• Magic cloak - helps Link become invisible and get through obstacles.

• Fire Medallion - Link creates a thunderstorm, destroying enemies on the screen.

• Stormy Medallion - Link creates snow and freezes enemies on the screen.

• Earthquake Medallion - Link creates a trembling earth that will destroy enemies on the screen.

• Ice Rod - Link can freeze enemies.

• Rod of fields - creates a shield for passing the place where thorns are everywhere.

• Flippers - Thanks to them, Link will be able to swim.

The commercial success of the first game ( The Legend of Zelda was sold in the amount of 6.5 million copies ^[5] ) allowed Nintendo to allocate a significant budget for the production of the sequel and determine a longer period of time for production. However, at the initial stage (in 1988 ), the game was planned to be implemented on the basis of the NES console, and only in 1990 the project was reoriented to the next Nintendo console - Super Famicom , known outside of Japan as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System . The increase in available resources contributed to a significant expansion of the boundaries of the game world (an 8-megabit cartridge for SNES allowed to increase the volume of the game to 1 Mb, while a 1-megabit cartridge NES had a limit of 128 Kb).

But despite the new features, the developers were still forced to optimize the game to reduce its volume. So, a compression algorithm was used to reduce the color depth of most graphic elements to eight colors (console graphics supported 16 colors). Decompression was performed at the start of the game by adding one bit to the color index of each pixel in the image. Significant amounts of memory were also freed up by the simple duplication method: the antipode worlds present in the game ( Light World and Dark World ) have identical topography and are, in fact, mutated copies of each other.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was favorably received by both players and the press, and has repeatedly been called one of the greatest games of all time ^{[6] [7]} . The Country of Games magazine in 2003 called the game excellent, despite its considerable age, and gave it 9 points out of 10. ^[8] In 2005, the IGN website placed the game in 11th place (based on a vote among the editorial board) in its list of “Top 100 Games ” ^[9] , and visitors to the resource identified it in 5th place ^[10] . A year later, Entertainment Weekly chose A Link to the Past as the best game of all time ^[11] . The participants of the GameFAQs resource gave the game the 4th place among the best ^[12] , and readers of the Japanese magazine Famitsu assigned 31st place in the 2006 list ^[13] . Also, the game was identified in third place by EGM magazine ^[14] , was ranked 23rd in the GameInformer 100 list ^[15] and 3rd in the list of two hundred best Nintendo games by Nintendo Power ^[16] . In June 2007, readers of Edge magazine identified the game in 6th place on the list of the 100 best games of all time ^[17] . ScrewAttack placed the game in second place on its list of the top 20 SNES games ^[18] .

In 1992, the game received the title "Best sequel" from EGM magazine ^[19] . In the Official Nintendo Magazine 's official list of “100 Greatest Nintendo Games of All Time”, the game is in 8th place (and is the second-rated game in the The Legend of Zelda series, a higher position - 2nd place - took The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64 ) ^[20] .

• According to Miyamoto, A Link to the Past was conceived as a direct sequel to the first game, The Legend of Zelda ^[21] .
• The name of the protagonist is used in the name for a peculiar pun: A Link to the Past can be simultaneously understood as “ Link goes to the past ” and “ Connection with the past ”, depending on how Link is interpreted as a proper noun or as a noun link (from the English. - "connection, connection").
• In the early 2000s, a lot appeared on eBay , declared as a “cartridge with a beta version of Zelda III for NES,” which later turned out to be a fake ^[22] .
• According to the 2011 Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia encyclopedia, this game takes place in an alternative timeline that formed after Link’s death at the hands of Ganondorf in the final of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . This game is followed by Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages , Link's Awakening , A Link Between Worlds , Tri Force Heroes , The Legend of Zelda 1 and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link .

• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Official Website (GBA)
• A Link to the Past Page on Zelda.com
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on GameFAQs
• Amateur translation of the game into Russian