The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the third game in the Legend of Zelda series, designed by Nintendo and released for the Super Famicom and Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game consoles. It was released in Japan on 21st November, 1991 as ゼルダの伝説 神々のトライフォース (Zeruda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Toraifōsu, literally The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods), and in North America and Europe in 1992.

Plot
Shigeru Miyamoto has yet to make an official statement about the true chronology of the Zelda series. However, according to the text on the back of the game's packaging, A Link to the Past follows the adventures of Zelda's and Link's ancestors, referring to the characters from the two NES games The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Thus, A Link to the Past takes place before the events of the first two Zelda games. The story of the Triforce and the banishment of Ganon by the seven sages is a rough outline of the story of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. References to the Imprisoning War and The Great Cataclysm places A Link to the Past after Ocarina of Time in the Zelda timeline.

Long before the period during which the game's events occur, stories were told in Hyrule about a Golden Land, with unknown powers and controlled by an omnipotent and omniscient Triforce. Once the vile Ganon gets into the Golden Land, he aholds the Triforce and turns it into the Dark World. To lock Ganon there, the Seven Wise Men created a seal to the Dark World, which can only be broken by the Wise Men or their descendants. This story became a legend, and it is told to the player as the game unfolds.

Right before the game starts, the wizard Agahnim, who had achieved an important advisory role in the kingdom, gets rid of the King of Hyrule and starts searching for seven maidens, descendants of the sages, in order to send them to the Dark World and break the seal.

At the beginning of the game, a young boy named Link receives a telepathic message from a girl named Princess Zelda. She says that she is locked in the dungeon of the castle, and Link goes to rescue her. On the way, however, Link finds his uncle severely wounded in the sewers, and receives his uncle's sword and shield before his uncle dies. Link and Zelda escape the castle via a secret passageway to a Sanctuary where Zelda stays while Link collects three pendants needed to free the Master Sword from its resting place.

Link retrieves the Master Sword only to learn that Zelda has been taken to the castle by Agahnim. Link goes to the castle to rescue her but arrives too late; she is the seventh girl Agahnim needed to break the seal. Zelda disappears into the Dark World and Link and Agahnim do battle. Agahnim falls but sends Link into the Dark World.

Once in the Dark World, Link finds himself standing atop a great pyramid where the castle stood in the Light World. The only way to destroy Ganon's Dark World (and subsequently save the once-peaceful Light World) is to defeat Ganon and take the Triforce from his clutches. In order to do that, Link must first rescue the maidens (including Zelda) from seven dungeons within the Dark World.



Once the girls have been freed, Link fights Agahnim one more time before confronting Ganon inside the Pyramid of Power. As in the first Legend of Zelda game, Ganon can only be slain with the Silver Arrows. When Link touches the Triforce, his wishes cause the Dark World to disappear and peace returns to the Light World. His quest completed, Link returns the Master Sword to its resting place.

Characters

 * Link: A young boy who lived with his uncle in a lone house outside of Hyrule Castle until one stormy night when he would be contacted telepathically by Princess Zelda. His uncle, also hearing the call, urged him to stay behind while he investigated the situation, yet Link followed and soon found his uncle on the brink of death within the castle walls. Realizing he was the princess' only hope, the aged swordsman bestowed upon Link the secret sword arts of their family before losing consciousness. Link's destiny was then revealed to be the protector of Zelda, and after her eventual re-capture by Agahnim, he was forced to enter the mysterious Dark World to rescue her and save Hyrule.
 * Princess Zelda: As a descendant of the royal family of Hyrule, Zelda's ancestors were the very people who sealed away the fabled Golden Land years ago, and she has thus become a target of Agahnim as a catalyst for re-opening that very world. She is captured before the start of the game, yet is rescued by Link before she and the other maidens can be sent to the Dark World. After hiding in a church safe house while Link searches for the legendary Master Sword, Zelda is captured by Agahnim once again, and is at once sealed away in a magic crystal at the top of Death Mountain.
 * Agahnim: A mysterious sorcerer who arrived at the Hyrule Kingdom not long before the beginning of the game. Although his motives were at first unclear, he gained favorable reputation with the royal family by ridding them of a number of problems plaguing their kingdom using unknown magic. He later developed an interest in the wise men who sealed away the mythical Golden Land ages ago, and realized that once this land was found, he could have all of its power for himself. He then placed a spell on the knights of the land, putting them under his direct control, and ordered them to find the descendants of these sages of lore, not the least of which was Princess Zelda herself. After murdering her father, King Hyrule, Agahnim was about to send Zelda to the Dark World when Link intervened, and escaped to the other world himself.
 * Sahasrahla: An aged, learned man who happens to be a descendant of the seven wise men. Link meets him early in the game, and Sahasrahla informs him that in order to obtain the Master Sword, he must release its magical seal with the power of the three pendants. Whenever Link finds a Triforce-shaped glyph on a wall inside of a dungeon, Sahasrahla is able to communicate with him telepathically, and regularly offers advice on how to approach a certain situation.
 * Link's Uncle: A former knight in service to the royal family of Hyrule, Link's uncle has been his caretaker for sometime, and taught him how to effectively use a sword. When he is summoned to the aid of the princess, he takes off for the castle, only to be critically wounded by the palace guards. He tells Link the secrets of his family's sword techniques, and urges him to protect Zelda. After Ganon is defeated, Link's uncle is shown to be alive and well.
 * Early in the game, Link's uncle says "Zelda is your..." before falling unconscious. This caused some people to speculate that the full sentence would have read "Zelda is your sister", possibly in relation to the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (less popular sentence endings included "ally" and "only hope"). The Japanese version of the game confirms that the translation of the sentence should have read, "Zelda is your destiny". The later GBA release would alter the text to read "It is your destiny to save Zelda".

Gameplay
A Link to the Past featured gameplay much closer to the original The Legend of Zelda than its immediate sequel Zelda II: Adventure of Link. Though not completely ignoring the changes made to the gameplay in Zelda II, A Link to the Past was largely a throwback to the original Zelda. Instead of building on Zelda II ' s overhead/sidescrolling hybrid system, A Link to the Past returned to the original's formula of both exploration and combat taking place in the same environment, with an overhead perspective. A Link to the Past also did away with the RPG-style leveling system implemented in Zelda II, and although the concept of a magic system was retained, it was closer in nature to the items system of the original Zelda than the magic spell system of the sequel. Despite the return to an earlier style of gameplay, A Link to the Past continued to move the series forward. Many new items and techniques were created for this game, most of which would continue to appear in later incarnations of the series. Some new items in A Link to the Past that would continue to appear in the series include the Hookshot, the Master Sword, and the Pegasus Boots. The Hearts that increased the player's maximum life points in the earlier two games were split into pieces of heart, four of which make an extra life point. Most of them are hidden, allowing for replay value to players who want to collect all of them. Another innovation was the multi-level dungeon, which allowed for Link to climb stairs to traverse floors, and even fall through holes in the floor and land in lower levels. A Link to the Past was also the first appearance of what would later become a major Zelda trademark: the existence of two parallel worlds that the player could travel between. The first, called the Light World, is the ordinary Hyrule where Link grew up with his uncle. The second was once the Golden Land, a place of light and purity and home of the sacred Triforce, until Ganon corrupted it with his evil power and changed it into a world of darkness and despair: the Dark World. Everything in the Light World looks fairly normal, while the Dark World is true to its name by being dark and depressing; the water is a dull shade, the grass is dead, there are skulls everywhere, and the trees have distorted faces. Even people change forms when entering the dark world. Each location in the Light World corresponds to a similar location in the Dark World, generally either with much of the same physical structure, or its exact opposite (e.g. a desert in the Light World corresponds to a Dark World swamp).

Unlike The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, where there is only one location at which Link can travel back and forth in time, A Link to the Past allows Link to travel from the Dark World to the Light World at almost any outside location by using the Magic Mirror item, thus creating a "portal" to the Dark World. Once in the Light World, the player can only return to the Dark World by stepping into that portal (which will then disappear) or by using one of the eight warp tiles hidden around the world. Walking through the gateway of Hyrule Castle after having defeated Agahnim will also send the player back to the Dark World. This flexibility enabled a variety of puzzles that exploited slight differences between the Light and Dark Worlds.

The Game Boy game 'Oracle of Ages', makes use of parallel worlds as well, one being the present and the other being 400 years in the past. Much like the Magic Mirror, Link can use the Harp of Ages to travel between the two. The Harp either generates power to create time portals, warps Link from the past to the present, or simply from whatever age he is currently in to the other. The latter two are adaptations of the Magic Mirror and portals.

Chronology
The true chronology of the Zelda series is an issue of much debate among fans. According to the text on the back of the game's packaging, A Link to the Past follows the adventures of the ancestors of the Link and Princess Zelda from the NES games The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

The Nintendo 64 game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time arguably serves as a backstory to the events of this game. Several of the maidens that Link rescues in A Link to the Past describe Ganon's rise to power, and their stories contain many plot elements portrayed in Ocarina. One refers to him as a thief named "Ganondorf," the first time that he is called by that name in the series. In Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf steals part of the Triforce, as chronicled in A Link to the Past, and only after Link defeats him at the end of Ocarina of Time does he turn into "Ganon," the giant, pig-like monster that Link fights in A Link to the Past. At the end of Ocarina of Time, Ganon swears to Link that he will return one day to exterminate his descendants. These references likely place A Link to the Past after Ocarina of Time in the Zelda timeline. However, it is not clear how the Triforce ends up in the Sacred Realm with Ganon between the events of Ocarina and A Link to the Past. It is possible that a future release may shed some light on this matter.

Another piece of lesser known yet invaluable information includes Ganon's weapon, a trident which is found in The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures is apparantly the one Ganon uses in this game.

Development
At the time, most SNES game cartridges had 4 Mbit (512 KB) of memory. This game broke the trend by using 8 Mbit (1 MB), 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 SNES by limiting the color depth of many (but not all) tiles to 8 colors instead of the SNES's native 16-color tiles. The tiles were decompressed at runtime by simply adding a leading zero or one bit to each pixel's color index. Memory was saved by eliminating duplication: The Light World and the Dark World are almost identical and only the differences were saved, otherwise they would have needed to wait for a 16 Mbit ROM.

Link to the Past was the first Zelda game to feature a counter, after you beat the game, that registers how many times you died on your file (with some work, you can finish the game with 000). However, the SNES version added to the counter every time the user selects "Save and Quit", so the only way to achieve 000 is to go through the whole game without dying or powering off the system. The GBA remake fixed this, such that saving and quitting does not advance the counter.

Music
The music was composed by Koji Kondo. The overworld theme of the original Legend of Zelda, or "Hyrule Overture" theme, was carried over to A Link to the Past and played in the Light World, redone in SPC700 style. Many tracks from A Link to the Past resurfaced in later Zelda titles, especially Ocarina of Time. The original soundtrack for A Link to the Past is entitled "Sound and Drama", all A Link to the Past songs are featured, and a bonus track is also included. The soundtrack has 2 disks, disk one has about 44 minutes of playtime, and disk two plays for about 54 minutes.

Regional variations
The English language localization includes a number of changes to the original Japanese game. The most common type of 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 of the game, which was changed from Triforce of the Gods to A Link to the Past. The font used in the game to represent an unreadable language, Hylian, originally had designs of a vulture and an ankh. These designs were based on Egyptian hieroglyphs which carry religious meanings, and were altered in the English version.

The localization also made changes to plot included in the manual. The priest Agahnim became a wizard, and his background, which originally implied that he was sent by the gods, was altered to remove any celestial origin.

The Chris Houlihan room
The Chris Houlihan room is a secret room in A Link to the Past. Chris Houlihan was a subscriber to Nintendo Power magazine, who won a contest, in which the winner's name would be included in a secret room in the game. The Chris Houlihan room has a message on a tile on the wall, and 45 blue Rupees (225 Rupees total). The Chris Houlihan tile was removed in the Game Boy Advance version of the game, and the room was renamed the Top Secret Room. However, the Top Secret Room is not known to be accessible outside of emulation. There are a number of known ways to reach the room through ordinary play, and the Pegasus Boots are the only item required to do so. One has to start the game at the Sanctuary and dash through the woodlands into a secret cave as quickly as possible. There is a time limit required to access the room. Here is a detailed description of how to consistently reach it.

1. Start your game at the Sanctuary and Dash (pegasus boots) out of it. 2. Dash down past the courtyard area, and left to the next screen. 3. Dash a little to the left, then dash down into a woodland area. 4. Move slight down and to the right, so that your dash path is clear of the stump. Stop short of the tree, and move left to dash down again, once again only slightly. Dash right onto the next screen. 5. Now at Hyrule Castle, dash right slightly, then dash way down. Make sure you're up against the fence, then dash right for a long way, past guards and to the familiar area of the game's beginning. 6. Now dash up the path and cut out the bush with the hole under it and climb in. 7. Chris Houlihan Room!

Reception
The game is hailed by many (especially of its generation) as Nintendo's finest hour and the greatest video game of all time. It is also noted for its exceptionally long life in Nintendo Power ' s top games list: when the SNES list was finally retired, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past had more than five consecutive years in the number one spot. Because of its astounding success, it was re-released in 2002 on the Game Boy Advance with a new multiplayer expansion, entitled The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords.

Although Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was well-received by the market, it was stylistically a major departure from the first game - being a 2D side-scroller rather than a top-down view - and as such, greeted with a less than enthusiastic response. Therefore, A Link to the Past returned to build on the original NES The Legend of Zelda ' s gameplay. Despite its return to an earlier style, A Link to the Past greatly expanded on the game mechanics of the original, introducing many of the features of gameplay that are hallmarks of the Zelda series to this day, such as multi-level dungeons, the Master Sword, the hookshot, and a dynamic environment with parallel worlds. Along with Ocarina of Time and Link's Awakening, many fans consider A Link to the Past to be one of the finest games in the Zelda series.

Technical notes
At the time, most SNES game cartridges had 4 Mbit (512 KB) of memory. This game broke the trend by using 8 Mbit (1 MB), allowing the Nintendo development team to create a remarkably expansive world for Link to inhabit.

A Link to the Past features two fully-explorable worlds; in addition to the overworlds, the Light World has five dungeons and Dark World has eight. Each palace has from two to eight floors, and most floors have several rooms. Moreover, many entrances on the overworld lead to more places to explore; cave mouths (sometimes needing to be bombed to open) lead to caves, all houses with doorways can be entered and explored, and sometimes bushes or gravestones conceal a hole that leads to secret places. In short, the game's world was very large and intricate for a game of this time (and in fact, was larger than the worlds of several subsequent Zelda games).

The game also premiered a simple graphic compression method on the SNES by limiting the color depth of many (but not all) tiles to 8 colors instead of the SNES's native 16-color tiles. The tiles were decompressed at runtime by simply adding a leading zero bit to each pixel's color index.

Versions
A Link to the Past was also made available for the Satellaview, the Japanese add-on for the Super Famicom. The game was completely unchanged, except for being converted into a downloadable format. A Satellaview-exclusive sequel, Kodai no Sekiban, was released in 1997.

In 2002, Capcom ported A Link to the Past to the Game Boy Advance. The Game Boy Advance version was released in North America on 2 December 2002 and in Japan on March 13 2003. This port was packaged with a Capcom-developed multiplayer Zelda game called The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. The two games worked together; extra features could be unlocked in one game by completing tasks in the other. Additions to A Link to the Past include voice clips, an additional dungeon, an additional end sequence for clearing the new dungeon, and the ability to unlock a continuous spin slash attack. Other changes include an easier puzzle in the fifth dungeon of the Dark World and a text overhaul.

Comics

 * Further information: Manga from The Legend of Zelda series

A comic book miniseries by Shotaro Ishinomori based on The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past appeared in Nintendo Power magazine beginning in January 1992, and ran for 12 issues. Many portions of the game were omitted, and several new story segments were added.

A new character named Roam was introduced, who was a knight with the ability to take on an avian form. While at first meeting Link as an enemy, the two quickly became allies and joined forces to help take down Ganon. Roam has a large nose, a common trait in Shotaro's designs.

Soundtrack
A soundtrack to A Link to the Past, entitled The Legend of Zelda: Sound and Drama was released in Japan. All of the game's themes are featured, and a bonus track is also included. The soundtrack has 2 disks, with disc one being 44 minutes long and disk two plays lasting 54 minutes.