Before Ocarina of Time, the SNES installment of the Zelda series was hailed as the best Zelda game ever. Ok, so there were only 4 Zelda games before Ocarina, but the statement still stands. Personally I like LttP a lot more than Ocarina but you’ll find those who disagree. They are definitely the top two though.
So how does a Game Boy Advance remake hold up? Pretty well. It’s not realy hard to do though considering this is more or less a straight port of the SNEs game. There are a few minor improvements here and there and the GBA of course has less buttons so the control scheme is a bit altered as well, but the overall game is mostly unchanged.
The primary difference is the addition of the Four Swords mini-game, which is my one and only complaint with this title. Also considering that Link to the Past is top ten material on it’s own and pretty much everyone already knows that anyway, most of this review will have to be spent on the subject of four swords.
Link tot he Past veterans will immediately notice that the Dark Pyramid now has an extra doorway. This leads to an additional dungeon. Unfortunately, in order to access this dungeon, you must complete the Four Swords adventure part of the game. In order to complete 4 swords, you must have 4 players, each with a copy of the game.
I’m pretty sure Square tried this trick with Crystal Chronicles and everyone complained about it. Forcing people to play a multiplayer segment in order to unlock single player options is ludicrously stupid. Especially in the GBA era of gaming. If this were the NDS where you could WiFi play with anyone it might be a different story, but the GBa is limited to gathering 4 people in the same room with the same game for an extended period of time. Not going to happen very often, sorry.
Still, you get a portable version of one of the greatest games ever produced as a bonus so the cart is still more than worth picking up. It’s also recently become available on the Player’s Choice list too so what are you waiting for?
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