the first few hours of alttp's design are nothing short of magic. the game tosses so many new items and concepts of traversal and exploration at the player and allows them to lab those ideas and figure out how they can apply these new concepts without holding their hand through it - and looking at the game from a birds eye view, this is emblematic of the entire experience. that is to say, alttp structures itself around linearity while also nudging the player in new directions enough while they take that main path that they'll find sidequests and off-the-trail objectives on their own if they're paying attention. i think more often than it doesn't the game strikes a wonderful balance with this - and most of the time it's pretty fair in what it expects from you.

presentation is both timeless and beneficially superior for gameplay now. walls are clearly designated when bombable, for instance. holes that can and should be jumped down - considering alttp's love of multi-level dungeons are typically clear in pointing that out. and even from an aesthetical standpoint, alttp shines with gorgeous sprite art and one of the series' best scores.

that said, i think the game often gets ahead of itself with lodging tons of unfun, gratuitous combat in areas where it actively detriments the experience. some dungeons are SERIOUSLY built better than others, with the skull woods and ice palace landing close to the "pretty bad" side of the scale. boss battles typically range from alright to obnoxious. but still, alttp remains a reliable and solid foundation for what the series would do moving forward and a pretty great starting point for those interested in the 2d roots of the franchise.