Game: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Company: Nintendo

Size: 24 mbits

Reviewer: Adam Huisman, 17

Rating (1-10): 7

Bottom Line: This is a good game for beginners. Not too difficult.

What can I say, this game is a classic. If you have never played this, where in the world have you been! This is a great game, it is fun, good graphics, and good music. Some people may say that this isn't really an RPG; and they are right in a sense. This game has no experience points, no gold, barely any magic, and no real weapon and armor selection. This game is mainly an action game where you hack and slash while trying to find an item or solve puzzles. The actual game world isn't all that big. However, the size of the world is deceptive. After you get to the "end" of the game you get transported to the Dark World, thus practically doubling the land size.

The main weapon in this game is the trusty sword that your grandfather gives you. This is basically a dinky little dagger that I would barely call a "sword." This is soon remedied when you take on the quest for the Master Sword. This makes your old "sword" appear to be nothing more than a butter knife. Some of the other weapons include the bow and arrows and bombs. The bow and arrows is very nice, it may not be very powerful but it allows you to attack from a distance. This use is greatly diminished when you get the powered up sword which can shoot energy balls when you are fully healed. The bombs are mostly used for finding hidden passages and breaking floors.

The only other weapons in this game are the 3 magical medallions and the magic wands. I hardly ever use the medallions because of their steep magic consumption. I usually found it easier to save my magic and slash up the baddies. However, they can be handy in certain situations seeing as they kill everything on the screen. As for the magic wands there are two of them: fire and ice. Not very useful at all except they are necessary for completing some levels plus they can kill enemies that a sword cannot harm.

The monsters and bosses in this game are fairly simple to destroy as they all follow some sort of pattern, the bosses that is. The enemies are simple to destroy but they are more mobile than the large bosses thus they can avoid your attacks. The bosses are fairly routine to defeat: look for a weak spot, recognize pattern, destroy. The bosses are well drawn and vary in their design.

My single biggest complaint of this game is the save system. You can only save when you want to end the game and when you start it up again you have from 1-3 choices of where to start up again, depending on what world you are in (Light:3 Dark:1). This can be annoying because sometimes you need to do a lot of traveling to get back to where you were when you saved.

Over all this game is very fun to play and can easily suck up an afternoon. It may be a little on the easy side but that is okay with me. Sometimes we all just need an easy little fun game to play. Lastly, if you do not have this game in your collection, get it while you can it has been rereleased for a limited time so get it while it's hot, again!