A Link to the Past vs A Link Between Worlds | Which Is Better?

A Link to the Past is one of the most storied video games of all time. Its successor/remake/follow up, A Link Between Worlds had some big shoes to fill. Does A Link Between Worlds for the Nintendo 3DS live up to its predecessor, or does the SNES classic reign supreme. One thing is for sure, 2D Zelda is amazing, and here's hoping we get another new game soon.

"While I have great respect for ALTTP, my answer to the 'Favorite 2D Zelda game' question is a different game entirely… Well, maybe not entirely. My favorite 2D Zelda game is set in the same world as ALTTP, but released over 20 years later for the Nintendo 3DS. After sitting down and fleshing out my thoughts on both games, I’m arguing that 2013’s A Link Between Worlds is the clear best top-down Zelda."

That Nintendo Quality Zelda Retrospective
The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past
The Legend of Zelda A Link Between Worlds

#LegendOfZelda #ALTTP #ALBW

[anapoda]

a link to the past didn't simply change the zelda games, it impacted all adventure games of that era

[adamcrux]

One of the worse offenses of Zelda fans is thinking there are any bad Zelda games. The bigger picture is that there are NO bad Zelda games. Literally all of them are amazing in their own right. I'm not including the Zelda games not made by Nintendo like the CDI release.

[Doodle]

This video was great A Link Between Worlds is my favorite Zelda game and has the best ending in the series in my opinion I just love running around the world and using items to explore it feels so open and fun It’s an underrated Zelda game

[chrisjohnson]

I remember playing a link to the past and being blown away once you get the 3 pendants and beat aghanim and then realize there's basically a whole other game.

[Kire]

I beat A Link Between Worlds on launch day in about 12 hours I've never felt the urge to go back to it unlike A Link to the Past which I go back and playthrough every few years

[michaelcroteau]

Link to the Past was my favorite SNES game when I got it. Any game that came with a MAP? And the graphics were so clean and smooth. It had just the right level of difficulty.

[saricubra]

I prefer A Link To The Past, because i like the difficulty it gave me. It has a dungeon that is basically the Water Temple before the Water Temple, testing my spatial awareness.

If i want a good Zelda story or narrative, i would play Twilight Princess. If i want pure focus on Zelda exploration, maybe Tears Of The Kingdom.

Also, i find more satisfaction in Metroidvania style of exploration from A Link To The Past than mindless freedom, finding heartpieces and doing minigames in A Link To The Past is so insanely rewarding, only Twilight Princess gets close for the 3D games.

[aaronp]

Magic problem in lttp: Ice rod or ether then hammer makes high chance of full mag refill

I felt the stamina meter made things feel too cheap. I actually like managing resources

[cornpop]

Really good video. Entertaining enough to watch to the end and some great points all around, I agree the 3D functionality is sorely underappreciated (on the 3DS in general) and I personally cant play without it on, its not the same!

[Paradox-xmzq]

The thing about A Link Between Worlds for me is that it's too easy. I know Zelda isn't really known for being a particularly hard series, but I'd go as far as to say that A Link Between Worlds is the easiest Zelda game of all time. The Ice Ruins is one of my favorite dungeons in the series, but the other dungeons in the game feel too easy and too short. Many of them are so small that they almost feel like mini dungeons (Turtle Rock). The item rental system also hurts the difficulty curve because they have to design dungeons around only requiring one item. On the other hand, A Link to the Past definitely has much more challenge, but very few puzzles in that game are actually clever. The game has much more focus on combat, and the only really clever puzzle the game has is where you have to push a block to a lower floor in the Ice Palace. Most of the difficult puzzles in this game come down to finding the room in the dungeon where you have to kill all the enemies to make a key appear, or pushing one specific block to make a door open. Both are good games, but I'd say the pinnacle of 2D Zelda is the Gameboy era (Link's Awakening, Oracle of Seasons/Ages, and Minish Cap)

[vivalanina]

I remember beating a link between worlds on an airplane! It really ramped up the intensity of the ending

[jerr.]

I love both games, but I feel like LttP does let you experiment with magic. One of the best items in the game is the magic powder. It turns unkillable stuff like anti-fairies and fireballs into fairies and turns a lot of enemies into magic jars making your meter pretty much unlimited. Between the Bombos Medallion and the powder you become an unstoppable force of nature

[wildcatterry]

A Link Between Worlds is my favorite. My first wife and I met in our late 20s and we both liked ALttP as kids. When ALBW was announced we were hyped and when it released we each got our own copies so we wouldn’t fight over it. We tackled dungeons in our own order and helped the other if we needed help where the other had already been. It was awesome. After she passed, it vaulted even higher for me for sentimental value. She would’ve sank so much time into BotW and Tears on the Switch for sure. No worries though, I got over 200 hours in each.

[Turo]

Agreed 100%. I have no nostalgia for A Link to the Past and first played it before I played A Link Between Worlds and while it was definitely a great game, it did show its age in pretty much all the ways you described and it was immediately noticeable to me after having experienced games like Four Swords Adventures and Minish Cap first.

Nothing against A Link to the Past, but I do firmly believe nostalgia plays a huge factor with a series like this because it just didn't really measure up or wow me in a post Ocarina of Time world. It's a wonderful game for sure, but it's just missing something for me and that's where I think A Link Between Worlds really delivered for me. It takes what made A Link to the Past special and gives it that extra flavor and charm we've come to expect from Zelda games.

[TwinFlyDSW]

LTTP will always be my personal fave as I grew up with it on SNES. I completed LBW fully but I do not believe I replayed it again. It was fun by I just did not feel the urge to replay. I was rerunning LTTP (Switch) often during the wait for ToTK and I play that more often than I play OoT. One thing I discovered years later on LTTP is the dark world basically had an easy mode and hard mode. Hard mode (linear) is to follow the intended path which gradually grants you access to more of the over worlds with each treasure acquired. This is how played it all those years back as the light world conditioned me to the linear approach. Easy mode (free flow) is to go through all the dark world dungeons (save Ganon's tower) to get all the dungeon treasures without encountering the boss. Now you are able to explore both over worlds for all other items/spells and heart containers. You then return to the dark world dungeons overpowered for a final boss rush (taking little damage whilst dealing out immense damage) leading to up to Ganon's tower and the endgame. Great game design.

[charismatic]

I understand how influential and nostalgic Alttp is for people, but Minish Cap is the most underrated Zelda game of all time, not just 2d Zelda. Idk if it's because it was made by Capcom, or because it was made in the era where 2d Zeldas were relegated to secondary handheld games in the series, but it's just better in every way than Alttp imo.

[NeufAtora]

Summary: I fucking love metroidvanias.

After years and years of open world games, one of the biggest reasons I enjoy A Link to the Past to this day is its relatively linear nature. As you said, it forces you to become familiar with the major areas of the map, and I personally really enjoy finding and making notes on spots in games that aren't traversable until I get the right item. It gives me the sense that the location has either been forgotten to time and I'm the first explorer to stumble upon it in years, or something mysterious has happened there and the being responsible doesn't want me to figure out what. In other words, I get a feeling of wonder and intrigue that can't be answered immediately, and the question of what will help me persevere past keeps me engaged.

Along with that, while I do really enjoy A Link Between Worlds and think it's incredibly well-made, my biggest gripe with it is that you have immediate access to every item. Finding the items you need to traverse LTTP's Hyrule in dungeons gives me the feeling of someone or something having created the dungeons they're in specifically to hide a treasure, similar to how the ancient Egyptians created pyramids as guarded tombs. They implemented all these traps to try and stop any intruders, but like any good olden builder would do, they needed a way to access everything themselves and have a way out. The world is then slowly overrun by monsters of Ganon's direct creation or indirect influence, and so the dungeon masters (for lack of a better term) retreated into their dungeons to protect themselves, only to have the monsters force their way in anyway and eventually kill the creators, thus leaving the items locked in their dungeons. LBW nullifies that completely; in a funnily ironic way, the openness of its gameplay leads to more linear enjoyment in the ways I get the most out of them. While I like the idea of Ravio being Lorule's Link and so he already has all the items, it just says to me "someone else already had the fun you wanted to have."

You brought up how LTTP is a slow burn, and it's funny how two people can look at the same thing but have vastly different reactions to it. In this digital world, it's all too easy to just look up any question and receive a million different answers in less than a second. There are also far too many choices for everything in my opinion. A dominant feature in AAA games for over two decades has been an open world, regardless of whether it actually enhances the gameplay or not. I'm thinking of when Grand Theft Auto III was first released, and almost immediately tons of studios started making their game worlds open. I don't think I can accurately describe how nice it is to sit down and have an adventure where I don't get to do everything right away, where the openness of the world is the reward rather than the expectation, where I'm not bombarded with a million different choices. That is a huge reason why LTTP and the Metroid series are some of my favourites.

[adroharv]

Link to the Past shall always be the best for many including me. Such a tremendous masterful game and I wouldn't rate Two Worlds as being on that same page despite still being an excellent game

[cooltaylor]

The spin attack is more of an "ascended bug". You can do a very similar attack in Zelda 1 by spinning in all directions during a sword thrust.

It's kind of like wall jumps in Mario games.

[TheFirehands]

I liked Link Between Worlds better because Ive played Link to the Past multiple times already but Link Between Worlds was like a sandbox love letter where you can go any where with the items.

Kinda like "here, youve already beat LTTP multiple times so here is a love letter game with new mechanics"