The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds Review

After completing the very first Zelda game, it seemed only natural to play the newest (not counting remakes/releases) Zelda game out on the market... A Link Between Worlds! Well that and because I have a 2DS and it is ranked as one of the best on the system...

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How long does it take for me to beat a game? Well it took me since I finished my The Legend of Zelda review until now to finish this game. Moral of the story... when you get old you get less and less time to play video games.

Story & Dungeons

This is not an extremely deep or epic story, but it is a good one. A sorcerer invades Hyrule and starts turning people into paintings and is after Princess Zelda. Your job is to save Zelda and get back the paintings, which are hidden in the mysterious and mirrored world of Lorule! Very simple, but I liked simple in this case. It is a game on a mobile gaming device and I really felt that I could just pop in and play for a couple of minutes or a hour or two and either way it didn't hurt the story or make it confusing what is going on.  

Dungeons are a key part to the story in A Link Between Worlds (like most Zelda games) and they are very good in this game. Most dungeons you need a specific weapon for and they really use the weapon well in each dungeon. With all the weapons there are in this game, it helps to have specific dungeons for a weapon to showcase it.

Weapons & Special Abilities

A Link Between Worlds brings a new debate to weapon ownership... buy vs rent. In this game you are not finding all the main weapons in dungeons/castles, you are given the option to buy or rent. I feel like Nintendo decided that they need to teach children around the world about the age old debate of buy vs leasing, because that is exactly what the decision feels like. I found myself asking and thinking "This weapon is needed for this dungeon, but am I really going to need it afterwards?", "I could just rent every weapon right now and just save my game a ton and I will save so many Rupees!!", "I love this weapon, I going to buy this weapon." This is a fun feature, but really in the end there is no debate because this game just throws out the Rupees. You can easily buy every weapon when needed (this may not be true in Hero mode).

My go-to weapons were the Hookshot and Ice Rod. Hookshot was really helpful against the shield wielding foes and useful against all foes. The upgraded Ice Rod really helped when I was really surrounded by enemies (aka the Treacherous Tower). I found myself having these two equipped for as much as possible in the final castle.

I briefly commented above, but there are a lot weapons in this game, maybe too many. Example, I did not really use the bow at all in the game. A classic weapon like the bow could have been featured a little more. I don't think it takes away from the game by having too many weapons, I would prefer having the opportunity to really use all the weapons.

Wall-MERGING really EMERGES as a great new feature (I am too funny)
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I loved the merging with wall feature in this game. They really hit it out of the park with this new feature. Annoying enemy coming at me... merge into wall. Not sure where to go... merge into wall and run around. It is such a fun new feature to play with. I would see cliffs and would make note of them to find how to merge to a wall to get there. Puzzles were a lot more fun with this ability too. It makes you think about not only where you need to go, but how to get there. I would be very happy if this feature made a return in another Zelda game.

Rapid Fire

• I am a huge fan of the look of this game. Instead of going for super realistic, which the 3DS cannot handle, they went with the more what I consider cartoony look, which the 3DS handles great. There is nothing wrong with the cartoony look. Bad realistic is the worst thing ever in games. Play to what your system can handle and that is what they did here.
• Huge shout out to the compass in each dungeon! Without you I would have been a mess. I am not a fan of search dungeons for treasure that could or could not be there. 
• Although I own it on Game Boy Advance, I have not played A Link to the Past (I know I need to play and will in due time). Those that have will probably enjoy this game even more since it has the same map as Link to the Past.
• Since I own a 2DS, I cannot comment about the 3D experience in the game. I can tell the part that it would be used and I am sure it is nice.

Final Verdict: A

Great gameplay, good story, great visuals, and great wall merging make this a must own for 3DS owners and all Zelda fans.