The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
is a 1991 action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the third game in The Legend of Zelda series, following 1987's Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and is the first entry in the series to be released for the SNES.
The story is set many years before the events of the first two Zelda games. The player assumes the role of Link as he journeys to save Hyrule, defeat the demon king Ganon, and rescue the descendants of the Seven Sages. It returns to a top-down perspective similar to the original The Legend of Zelda, dropping the side-scrolling gameplay of The Adventure of Link. It also introduced series staples such as parallel worlds and items including the Master Sword.
A Link to the Past is considered among the greatest video games ever made, with particular praise for its presentation and innovative gameplay. It was ported to the Game Boy Advance as A Link to the Past and Four Swords in 2002, and had sold 6.5 million copies across both platforms by 2004. It was subsequently re-released on the Wii, Wii U, and New Nintendo 3DS via the Virtual Console, the Nintendo Switch via the Nintendo Classics service, and the Super NES Classic Edition. A sequel, A Link Between Worlds, was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013.
Gameplay
A Link to the Past puts the player in control of its protagonist, Link, and is viewed and controlled from an overhead perspective, much like the original The Legend of Zelda. This contrasts its predecessor, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which had a side-scrolling perspective. Where Link could only move in four directions in the original The Legend of Zelda, Link can now move diagonally as well. The player explores the overworld of Hyrule while entering dungeons in order to defeat bosses and receive items necessary for completing Link's quest. These dungeons are often multi-level, requiring Link to ascend and descend stairs or fall into holes to progress. Link is able to use a variety of weapons and items, with his two main items being his sword and shield, both of which are acquired early and can be upgraded multiple times. Certain items, such as the Lantern, use magic points when used. Link acquires items at various point in his journey, sometimes in the overworld. Each dungeon has a large chest, which grants a piece of equipment that is typically necessary to complete the game. As the player explores the overworld, they can find optional health upgrades called Heart Pieces; when four are collected, they form a Heart Container, which increases Link's health by one.A Link to the Past features two separate but similar overworlds: the Light World and the Dark World. Link starts in the Light World. By traveling through portals, he can enter the Dark World, a parallel version of the Light World. The Dark World has different enemies, non-playable characters, and dungeons; the player will often have to travel back and forth between the two worlds to progress. The Dark World's locations and geography often line up with the Light World's, such as Kakariko Village and the Village of Outcasts. While Link can enter the Dark World via portals, he can only exit the Dark World using an item called the Magic Mirror. This leaves a special portal behind that allows him to return through it, though it is erased if Link uses the Magic Mirror in the Dark World. At times, this allows Link to reach areas otherwise inaccessible.
Plot
Setting
A Link to the Past is a distant prequel to the original The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link; within the official chronology, is the first game in the "Defeated Hero" timeline that connects to an alternate reality scenario where the Hero of Time is defeated by Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time. This results in Ganon being imprisoned in the Sacred Realm in his Dark Beast form out of desperation. Having successfully gathered all three pieces of the Triforce, Ganon's evil desires have transformed the realm into the Dark World. The game is set in Hyrule, also known as the Light World, which parallels the Dark World. Before the events of the game, the descendants of the Seven Sages who imprisoned Ganon are captured, Princess Zelda included, and, one by one, sent to the Dark World. The King of Hyrule is murdered, and the wizard, Agahnim, takes over.Story
The game begins with series protagonist Link, the last descendant of the Knights of Hyrule, and his uncle being awakened by a telepathic message from Zelda, who says that she has been locked in Hyrule Castle's dungeon by Agahnim and requires rescue. Link's uncle goes to rescue her first, and Link follows, despite his uncle's orders to remain home. His uncle is mortally wounded and, before succumbing, Link receives a sword and shield from him. He infiltrates Hyrule Castle and successfully hides Zelda in the Sanctuary as his uncle's last wish. Zelda remains in the Sanctuary with the priest, who tells Link that Agahnim is a powerful wizard planning to free Ganon from the Dark World, after he was imprisoned for attempting to use the Triforce for evil purposes. Agahnim's weak point is the Master Sword, a relic weapon only the chosen hero can wield; to do so, the hero must obtain three pendants.Link journeys to find the three pendants, aided by Sahasrahla along the way, and eventually obtaining the Master Sword. Zelda communicates her peril to Link telepathically and, upon returning to the Sanctuary, finds the priest dying, who tells him to rescue Zelda. He attempts to rescue Zelda, but to no avail, as Agahnim sends her to the Dark World. After defeating Agahnim, the wizard sends Link to the Dark World, where he must rescue the descendants of the Seven Sages. He once again battles Agahnim and, upon defeat, Ganon appears from Agahnim's corpse and flies to the Pyramid of Power. Upon defeating Ganon, Link retrieves the Triforce and is given the chance to make a wish. In the ending, his uncle, the priest, and the King of Hyrule are all resurrected, everyone trapped in the Dark World comes home, and Link later puts the Master Sword back into its pedestal.
Development
In 1988, development of a new NES The Legend of Zelda video game began, but one year later, the project was brought to Nintendo's next console; the Super Famicom. Due to the success of previous Zelda games, Nintendo was able to invest a large budget and ample development time and resources into the game's production. At the time, most Super NES game cartridges had 4 Mbit of storage space. This game broke the trend by using 8 Mbit, allowing the Nintendo development team to create a remarkably expansive world for Link to inhabit. Like Super Mario World, this game used a simple graphic compression method on the Super NES by limiting the color depth of many tiles to eight colors instead of the Super NES's native 16-color tiles. The tiles were decompressed at runtime by adding a leading bit to each pixel's color index. Storage space was also saved by eliminating duplication: The Light World and the Dark World are almost identical in layout, and the Dark World exists in the ROM only as an "overlay" of the Light World. Producer Shigeru Miyamoto originally intended the game to feature a party, "one that consists of the protagonist,... a magic user, and a girl". The script was written by series newcomer Kensuke Tanabe, while Yoshiaki Koizumi was responsible for the background story explained in the instruction manual. Due to time constraints, certain features were cut from the final release, such as the ability to cause wildfires in grassy areas. The player was able to freely choose which weapons to hold and would be able to swap and combine items such as using both bombs and arrows at the same time. According to Tezuka, this did not come to pass as Miyamoto requested that Link always have the sword equipped.Music
The score was composed, arranged, and produced by Koji Kondo. The overworld theme of The Legend of Zelda returns in A Link to the Past, redone in S-SMP style. The theme is also featured in "Light World Overworld" and in "End Credits". A Link to the Past helped to establish the musical core of the Zelda series. While the first game originated the "Hyrule Overture", many recurring motifs of the Zelda scores come from A Link to the Past, including "Zelda's Lullaby", "Ganondorf's Theme", "Hyrule Castle", "Kakariko Village" and "Select Screen/Fairy Cave". These themes have been used in subsequent The Legend of Zelda games. A soundtrack to Kamigami no Triforce, entitled The Legend of Zelda: Sound and Drama, was released by Sony Records in Japan on June 22, 1994. The first disc is 44 minutes long and features rearranged versions of a selection of the game's themes, along with a bonus drama track. The second disc features 54 minutes of the original arrangements for the game and those of the original NES game.Localization
The English-language localization included changes to the original Japanese game. The most common change was the removal of religious references to conform with Nintendo of America's content guidelines. The most obvious change was made to the subtitle, which was renamed from Kamigami no Triforce to A Link to the Past. The font used to represent an unreadable language, Hylian, was based on Egyptian hieroglyphs, which carry religious meanings, and it was altered in the English version. The priest Agahnim became a wizard.Easter egg
In 1990, Nintendo Power held a contest, requiring players to take a photo of the "WarMECH", a powerful and rare enemy in Final Fantasy. As a prize, one of the successful entrants was to be selected at random to appear in an upcoming game, though it was not revealed which game it would be. As a result, a hidden room exists in A Link to the Past containing 45 blue rupees and a greeting from Chris Houlihan, the winner of the contest, reading "My name is Chris Houlihan. This is my top secret room. Keep it between us, okay?"The room was intended as a crash prevention measure; the game would send players to this room if it could not determine where Link was going when he goes to another area, and has been found through five different methods. There was no wide awareness of the room until the 2000s, more than a decade after the release of A Link to the Past with the increased popularity of the Internet and Super NES emulators.
The Game Boy Advance re-release, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords, removed the ability to access the room; however, it could still be found in the game's code. The Virtual Console and Nintendo Classics versions contain the room, being emulations of the original game.