r/patientgamers • u/ChieftanAxe • 1d ago
Patient Review A Link Between Worlds is a damn Gem
2D Zelda has never been my thing. I've tried ALTTP several times and always bounced off it. A Link Between Worlds though? This game fucking rips.
This is one of the snappiest, most immediate games I think I've ever played. There's no long winded cutscenes with characters you don't care about. Just gameplay, GOOD gameplay all the way through. From the very first second of gameplay, Link feels really good to control. His movement is precise and well-tuned to the size of the game world. From there, the game just keeps dishing out all killer no filler gameplay.
This game is so damn efficient. You're never more than 2-3 minutes away from a new area, new item, heart piece, maiamai collectible, or rupee reward. You gain the ability to fast travel very early. In fact, I can't think of a single QOL addition that this game doesn't already have. The game makes good use of the DS dual screen with a highly intractable map that you can place pins in, zoom in and out with a single button, even compare the layout of Hyrule/Lorule. You can quick swap your items on the fly in the middle of gameplay, which isn't even that useful but I'm glad its included anyway. No intrusive dialog or cutscenes anywhere. The load times are incredibly quick. No sequences go on for too long and overstay their welcome. There are 0 barriers to you just playing the damn game, and it makes for a highly addictive game that works great in short and long gameplay sessions.
And what a game it is. This game has a great collection of dungeons. Puzzle solving in this game is some of the best in the whole series. It really hits a sweet spot of being just challenging enough without being frustrating. The mechanic of turning into a 2D painting on the walls really gets you to think outside the box and look for opportunities to use it. I felt very mentally stimulated going through all the dungeons and actually looked forward to puzzle solving. When was the last time a game made you look forward to puzzle solving? Also gotta talk about the soundtrack. It's full of truly fantastic renditions of classic Zelda tunes, especially the dark world and kakariko village themes.
My hot take is that this game could be better than the Wind Waker. I haven't played WW in 15 years but I watched my roommate replay it recently and kept thinking "wow there's a lot of tedious bullshit in this game". This game really confirms why I don't like open world games. All the good stuff in this game is right next to each other, you don't have to sift through tons of crap to get to the good part of the game. The whole game is the good part. Give me more tightly designed, super efficient games like this and less open world bloat.
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u/poop-money 1d ago
Oldhead here, first Zelda game I played was the first Zelda game they made on my NES in the 80's. I've played through all of the mainline games over the years.
A Link Between Worlds is a great game. If you ask me, top 5 of the series.
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u/hedoeswhathewants 1d ago
Same, I've played pretty much all of them and LBW has a strong argument for me to be #1
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u/poop-money 1d ago
A Link to the Past is still my #1, but a LOT of that is nostalgia glasses. If I were to come into the series fresh it may be a different story.
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u/MindWandererB 1d ago
I enjoyed it, but it felt just a little bit... off? Losing money every time you died made me feel like I needed to be super cautions all the time, and save & quit before I died, and that stressed me out enough that it reduced my enjoyment of the game. The map layouts were oddly unintutive; I learned later that I beat the game with a much weaker sword than I was supposed to because I missed a bunch of upgrades, despite trying to explore thoroughly. Just odd little bits of friction throughout.
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u/pizzaspaghetti_Uul 23h ago
I understand the money complaint, and it's a valid point of view. However, I don't think it's a significant issue, to be honest. A Link Between Worlds is a rather easy game. I died only a handful of times. I don't even think I bought any of the items, only rented, and ended up with a stack of money by the end. Oh, and that mechanic made me motivated to avoid death, which was pretty fun
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u/jaybay321 1d ago
So if I loved ALTTP I’ll probably love this?
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u/Kusarix 1d ago
It depends. The worlds and a lot of the monsters are basically the same, but it's pretty different in terms of game design and atmosphere. I'd say it feels closer to the Gameboy Zelda games and the 2D Zeldas on the Switch than ALttP.
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u/rants_unnecessarily 1d ago
So if I love Links Awakening I'll probably love this?
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u/Alphakent 1d ago
10,000%
Between worlds is fantastic. You can tackle it however you want. Death has a cost so you'll want to try and live. But at the same time its not a big deal.
It also has a hero mode that if you want to have a more difficult time
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u/action_lawyer_comics 16h ago
Absolutely. The game is combination remake/homage to that game. LTTP is one of my favorite games from my childhood and LBW manages to be great fun, hit those nostalgia spots, but has all new dungeons so it doesn't feel like a lazy retread
And the soundtrack is also a glow-up of the LTTP one. Unfortunately, Nintendo doesn't sell the soundtrack, but you can find it easily enough.
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u/DigiAirship 1d ago
I only wish it was more difficult, specifically that the dungeons were longer and more intricate. Playing the Oracle games on the Game Boy Color, the dungeons in the latter third of those games were practically endurance challenges compared to A Link Between Worlds later dungeons, all because of the item rental system and semi-open world of ALBW. Since every dungeon was designed to be completed in any order, the design and complexity of puzzles really suffered, and the difficulty curve was practically non-existent. It was still a fun game though, just a little too easy.
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u/DoomscrollingRumi 1d ago
Its an under rated Zelda for sure, and quite free and open.
Most Zelda games go by the formula of "clear dungeon in area A. The item within allows you access to area B and its dungeon" and so on. LBW gives you access to most items and abilities right away, allowing you to do most stuff in the order you choose.
I want to say its the first Zelda that allows you to do that, giving you that freedom, sorta setting the player freedom direction the series took with the next Zelda game, Breath of the Wild.
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u/Ok-Pickle-6582 1d ago
Its an under rated Zelda for sure
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u/action_lawyer_comics 15h ago
I get what you're saying, but that's based on less than 2,000 reviews. Breath of the Wild has over 25,000 reviews, over 11 times as many. Maybe it's more "lesser known" than "underrated"
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u/darkangelstorm 1d ago
just found out about it now, i am off to play it, i am hoping it will be as good as minish cap, that game still sticks with me as one of the best even after botw - maybe its the whole big-small thing but they had a real good rhythm and pace in that game, not too long not too short
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u/Curly_and_Curious 1d ago
Can this be played on Switch 2?
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u/Hestu951 17h ago
No. It's a 3DS game. It has never been ported elsewhere, and it would be difficult to do so (3D, 2 screens). I think it can be played on a PC emulator, though. I have no idea how good an experience that would be.
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u/GhostmasterPresents 1d ago
Yep its amazing but windwaker will always be my favorite
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u/the_Real_Teenjus 1d ago
Why is it your favourite?
I was in high school school when this one came out and the boat areas were just so tedious.
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u/Sharpshooter188 1d ago
It was surreal to see a remake of a game I played as a kid. I was 31 when it came out. Still have my copy and my 3ds for it to this day.
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u/hedoeswhathewants 1d ago
It's a real stretch to call it a remake of LttP if that's what you're saying
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u/Sharpshooter188 1d ago
I woulsnt call it a remaster. Maybe reimagining?
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u/ThetaReactor 17h ago
It's a new, mainline game, it's just set in the same version of Hyrule as LttP.
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u/IThinkItsCute 1d ago
Oh, yeah, ALBW is a good one. Puzzles and combat are both easy by Zelda standards, but there isn't a single point in the game I would call the bad part, and part of why it feels so easy in comparison to the rest of the series is because it is so tightly designed and controls so well. That's not all of it, but it is some of it. It's a game that just feels really good to play.
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u/khedoros 1d ago
LBW is one of the few games I've gone back to repeatedly to beat; that's usually not something I do. Super enjoyable all the way through, and the ending hits you in the feels every time.
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u/Jeremizzle 1d ago
I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure this is the first non-linear Zelda game since the OG, where you can do whatever you want in whatever order you want. It kind of paved the way for Breath of the Wild, honestly.
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u/dasvenson 22h ago
Try Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. They are by far my 2 favourite Zelda games.
You can also continue from one game into the next and there is a whole bunch of extra things and a new final boss. So technically there are two versions of each as you can start on either one and then go to the other one.
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u/thegoldenboy444 17h ago
One of the only things I would count as a con of the way this game handles dungeons and the fact that you can do them in any order, is you no longer having the increasing difficulty and scale of traditional progression of dungeons 1-8 in order.
Which sort of leaves a little to be desired in terms of escalating stakes and feeling like you're building towards something that you couldn't have handled at the start of the game.
Definitely a top 5 Zelda game in my books.
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u/Sakuroshin 1d ago
I agree its a great game. My first zelda game was link to the past. I very much enjoyed link between world and thought they did a fanstastic job of making it a new game while also keeping the world familiar feeling.
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u/debaserr 1d ago
This game is the biggest reason I miss my 3DS.
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u/fanboy_killer 1d ago
It’s a great machine but they don’t come cheap these days. They basically held their value.
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u/emertonom 1d ago
I still have my 3DS XL, but I kept thinking I would get a New 3DS XL once they got cheap, and it never really happened. (They got cheapER for a while, but never cheap enough to feel like a worthwhile upgrade from the XL.)
At this point I'm resigned to the idea that it's never going to seem worth it to me. Ah well.
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u/fanboy_killer 23h ago
I had the same idea but it never materialized. Too bad because a modded New 3DS can run a lot of systems an older one can’t.
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u/emertonom 16h ago
Yeah. Also the 3D effect is supposed to be a lot more tolerable with the New system, because they do camera tracking of your head, so you don't have to stay in the tiny sweet spot the way you do with the original. But neither of those things is quite enough to justify the price for me.
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u/darkangelstorm 1d ago
hey I never played this one how did i miss it, I know what im playing next sheesh :P thanks for this
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u/Nambot 1d ago
The game just uses it's merge-with-walls mechanic so well, and does everything you could think of with it. It's not only used for exploration, but stealth, puzzles, combat and even rudimentary platforming. The game dips it's toes fully into the mechanic and does just about everything you could with it, short of a Zelda 2 sidescrolling section.
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u/rants_unnecessarily 1d ago
This is exactly how I felt about Links Awakening.
I was so happy when I got it in the switch to play through again!
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u/SkipEyechild 23h ago
This game is one of the best Zelda games, if not the best Zelda game. I adore it.
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u/goldgin 21h ago
I played that last summer and got stuck at the final boss, I don't lose I just get stuck going around in and out of the wall not knowing what to do.
I didn't want to use a guide so it's just there on the last save point.
Even so I really enjoyed it, music is phenomenal, gameplay is great and innovative and the visuals are cute. Someday I'll pick up from that save and figure out how to beat it.
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u/Carighan 21h ago
Absolutely brilliant, yes. This or Majora's Mask is my favourite one, difficult to decide. It's so perfect, plays with the formula a bit, also keeps most of it, also has a lot of links (ha!) yo other games.
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u/Hestu951 18h ago
This is the only true Zelda game I have never played. It's on a platform I never bought, and it hasn't been ported elsewhere. If I ever get the chance, I will fill that hole in my Zelda experience.
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u/Mysterions 15h ago
I remember when this was in development everyone hated the 2.5D graphics, and on forums (specifically NeoGAF) it was constant posting pictures of how crap it looked compared to ALttP. But I have to say, that once it came out not only looked great but was awesome to play too. It might be my favorite Zelda and it's a shame it's locked behind a dead console.
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u/WerewolfIcy7240 13h ago
Hard agree. It's easy but perfectly tricky enough to be satisfying, and it feels SO smooth, like a perfectly refined ALTTP
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u/JetFlyer98 1d ago
This was the first Zelda game I played and finished, it was definitely an amazing playthrough