Finished this for the first time in 2023 and wow, this game was so ahead of its time. I was consistently impressed by what I discovered through my play-through, and the variety of things Link would end up doing. It has several quality of life problems that old games tend to do but was a worthwhile experience. I can't imagine what it would have felt like playing this when it came out. The graphics alone would have been mind-blowing.
The world is incredibly fleshed out and interesting to explore. It truly captures the spirit of exploration that Zelda games were designed for from the beginning. You are rewarded for spotting oddities and the in-game map detail is limited so the world is expertly designed to be easily navigated from memory. ALTTP was great at having things to explore for exploring's sake, not because of some quest or NPC direction. Most games today still don't get this right.
Speaking of exploration, it has dungeons that truly feel like dungeons. I think this is because they have more of focus on combat and navigational challenges than puzzle solving, but they are still fun. You can quickly get lost even with the compass and map, and the dungeons with dark room elements enhance that feeling even further. Descending some 6 floors and getting stuck for an hour in the depths of the Ice Palace was an experience that nearly drove me insane, but I can't deny it captured the feeling of exploring a dungeon incredibly well.
Link has an abundance of tools and items in this game, although many of them are only used once or twice and then never again. I found this annoying mostly because they each have to be selected before use, as you only have one button for all your items. And somehow the L/R buttons go completely unused unless you are playing the Redux romhack which lets you cycle items with them. The Zelda team certainly learned to refine the item kit in later games, and the reason why really shows here.
Some other small complaints: combat knock-back is so high that it easily gets annoying, and the dungeon and boss fight songs are incredibly repetitive and become grating fast. I suspect the short musical loops are due to the cartridge memory limitations, but I'd rather have no music than annoying music, and the dungeon theme is by far the song you will listen to the longest in your time playing.
Aside from that, this game has great musical elements, excellent animation and sprite-work, a weirdly-dark story, memorable characters, and a truly epic feel. I hope one day it gets remade to bring in modern quality of life features. Even just a remaster with new UI and mapping more of a modern controller's buttons would be a god-send.
The world is incredibly fleshed out and interesting to explore. It truly captures the spirit of exploration that Zelda games were designed for from the beginning. You are rewarded for spotting oddities and the in-game map detail is limited so the world is expertly designed to be easily navigated from memory. ALTTP was great at having things to explore for exploring's sake, not because of some quest or NPC direction. Most games today still don't get this right.
Speaking of exploration, it has dungeons that truly feel like dungeons. I think this is because they have more of focus on combat and navigational challenges than puzzle solving, but they are still fun. You can quickly get lost even with the compass and map, and the dungeons with dark room elements enhance that feeling even further. Descending some 6 floors and getting stuck for an hour in the depths of the Ice Palace was an experience that nearly drove me insane, but I can't deny it captured the feeling of exploring a dungeon incredibly well.
Link has an abundance of tools and items in this game, although many of them are only used once or twice and then never again. I found this annoying mostly because they each have to be selected before use, as you only have one button for all your items. And somehow the L/R buttons go completely unused unless you are playing the Redux romhack which lets you cycle items with them. The Zelda team certainly learned to refine the item kit in later games, and the reason why really shows here.
Some other small complaints: combat knock-back is so high that it easily gets annoying, and the dungeon and boss fight songs are incredibly repetitive and become grating fast. I suspect the short musical loops are due to the cartridge memory limitations, but I'd rather have no music than annoying music, and the dungeon theme is by far the song you will listen to the longest in your time playing.
Aside from that, this game has great musical elements, excellent animation and sprite-work, a weirdly-dark story, memorable characters, and a truly epic feel. I hope one day it gets remade to bring in modern quality of life features. Even just a remaster with new UI and mapping more of a modern controller's buttons would be a god-send.