Its hard to believe that its been 35 years since The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past was released for Super Nintendo. Zelda: Link to the Past was appeared on the SNES back in 1991 and was the sequel to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link from 1987. Zelda: Link to the Past was a significant improvement from its prequel in just about every way imaginable. Nintendo had decided to ditch the 2D side-scrolling gameplay from Adventure of Link and decided to go back to the top down perspective formula which made the first Zelda game from ’86 popular. The graphics and world design in Zelda: Link to the Past looked incredible in 16-bit because everything looked so vibrant and it looked completely different from its prequels from the NES era. The story for Link to the Past involved Princess Zelda sending Link a telepathic message to rescue her from the Wizard Agahnim. In Link to the Past the Wizard Agahnim attempted to break the seal to the dark world in order to free the overarching antagonist of the Zelda series Ganon. The gameplay and the combat for Zelda: Link to the Past was fluid and it the enemies were tougher than those of previous entries.

It seemed like battling foes in the Dark World was more difficult than fighting enemies in the Light World in Link to the Past. The real-time combat was an impressive feature in Link to the Past and players could do a variety of things including collecting magic bottles and hearts while solving various puzzles in different dungeons. Despite, how challenging Link to the Past was many feel that it paled in comparison to Zelda II in terms of overall difficult due to how unforgiving it was. If anything Link to the Past was more fun and had a lighter tone than Zelda II which was apart of its appeal. While Zelda II felt dark and oppressive Link to the Past felt lighter because it was a prequel in terms of storyline. Zelda II: Adventure of Link never got an official canon sequel because the game was supposed to be the final entry in the Fallen Hero Timeline. Zelda: Link to the Past ended up being the prequel to numerous future entries within the series like Oracle of Seasons & Ages, Link’s Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom.

The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past ended up being one of the best selling video games on the SNES reaching over 4.6 million copies worldwide. As cool Link to the Past was back in ’91 we never got to see another 16-bit Zelda game in America afterwards. Link to the Past from ’91 has become one of the most iconic Zelda games of all-time and has managed to gain a massive cult following over the past three decades. Zelda: Link to the Past was a 2D action-adventure game that has aged gracefully since the early 90’s. Zelda: Link to the Past is considered to be one of Nintendo’s best SNES games from the 90’s outside of the Super Mario Bros franchise. If anything the success of Link to the Past helped put the Zelda series on map before Nintendo released the critically acclaimed Ocarina of Time game for N64 in 1998. The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past is nothing short of a 16-bit masterpiece that deserves more praise for being one of the greatest 2D action-adventure games of the 90’s.