This game feels odd to review. I can tell that for its time this would have been an excellent game and one of the best of all time for its era. However, having already played successors to this game such as Link Between Worlds, this game just doesn't match up in a lot of regards.
I can't crack down on this game too hard, though. LttP has a lot going for it. Its world design and exploration aspects are charming and engaging, the full arsenal of moves at play here is quite large (though most I hardly even touched), and the art direction still holds up extremely well.
However, there are a lot of negatives that soured the overall experience. General movement and combat felt extremely sloppy at times, and dungeon design is shockingly poor throughout. These factors continuously dragged the experience down for me the entire time I spent playing.
I did manage to 100% the game, but not without getting frustrated time and time again getting chain combo'd by weird enemy behavior. This game is difficult, but not necessarily in a good way. A lot of the challenge only exists because of weird enemy placement, sword blind spots, janky hitboxes, and the fact that an enemy could get on top of you therefore rendering your sword useless unless you could create some space and attack again. Usually this would result in taking 3 hits of damage or more instead of just 1. I'm sure there are experts out there who think this system works just fine, but it felt unfair and unfun to me.
I think overall I'll remember this game most for the feeling of frustration and annoyance I had with its mechanics and design. I think it's still got enough strong points to warrant praise and a decent critical score, but I would personally consider this my least favourite Zelda game as of writing this review.
Positives:
+ Art and presentation
+ World design
+ Exploration and progression
+ Lots of abilities to use
Negatives:
- Movement and combat
- Dungeon design
- Overly difficult / unfair elements
I can't crack down on this game too hard, though. LttP has a lot going for it. Its world design and exploration aspects are charming and engaging, the full arsenal of moves at play here is quite large (though most I hardly even touched), and the art direction still holds up extremely well.
However, there are a lot of negatives that soured the overall experience. General movement and combat felt extremely sloppy at times, and dungeon design is shockingly poor throughout. These factors continuously dragged the experience down for me the entire time I spent playing.
I did manage to 100% the game, but not without getting frustrated time and time again getting chain combo'd by weird enemy behavior. This game is difficult, but not necessarily in a good way. A lot of the challenge only exists because of weird enemy placement, sword blind spots, janky hitboxes, and the fact that an enemy could get on top of you therefore rendering your sword useless unless you could create some space and attack again. Usually this would result in taking 3 hits of damage or more instead of just 1. I'm sure there are experts out there who think this system works just fine, but it felt unfair and unfun to me.
I think overall I'll remember this game most for the feeling of frustration and annoyance I had with its mechanics and design. I think it's still got enough strong points to warrant praise and a decent critical score, but I would personally consider this my least favourite Zelda game as of writing this review.
Positives:
+ Art and presentation
+ World design
+ Exploration and progression
+ Lots of abilities to use
Negatives:
- Movement and combat
- Dungeon design
- Overly difficult / unfair elements