While the heroic young elf-boy Link may be best known for his many home console outings (the most recent being the excellent Wii adventure Skyward Sword), the many handheld Zelda games have often been somewhat overlooked. And that's not really all that fair. Often taking a more inventive approach to the "go on an adventure, explore dungeons, solve puzzles, save the princess" format, the handheld Zelda games have never been afraid to try something different, with the two DS outings, Spirit Tracks and The Phantom Hourglass both using the Touch Screen to control Link rather than the +Control Pad and buttons - a decision which divided the game's fan base almost equally. For his latest 3DS outing, though, Link's set to innovate in a slightly different way, as The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is a brand new adventure, with a retro kind of feel.
Ditching the 3D over-the-shoulder view found on the home console games in favour of the top-down view of days gone by, A Link Between Worlds harks back to the days of the Zeldas of old, when the controls were simpler, and the game worlds flatter. Wandering around the grassy fields of Hyrule, sword and shield in hand, you'll come across the familiar, annoying green slime monsters that look like a cross between a wobbuffet and the insides of someone's nostril, hack at the long grass in the hope of discovering a stray rupee, which form the game's currency, and chop any signs to pieces if they dare so much as look in your direction. Starting out in the demo surprisingly heavily armed, young Link had a variety of weapons at his disposal with which to explore the badlands of Hyrule. You can slash with the sword with a press of a button, block with your shield by holding the R Button, while Y lets you use an item from your inventory - in the case of the demo, either a giant mallet, a bomb, or a Fire Rod, each of which has their own special purpose.
Cut the grass, get paid for your effort, dodge the slime monsters with the googly eyes. All in a day's work.
The demo we played at Nintendo's recent showcase event in London was divided into two halves - the first, wandering around the open grassy fields of Hyrule, while the second took place in one of the game's many new dungeons. While both offered a distinctly different style of experience, with the over world section being more about exploration, with countless secret caves, passages, and items waiting to be discovered, while the dungeon focused more on experimentation and logic, as you attempted to unravel its many puzzles, perhaps one of the only things that wasn't included in the demo was any semblance of a story. Which was a little bit odd. The plot has always been an important part of any Zelda game, with an epic overarching quest for you to follow, but as things stand, for A Link Between Worlds, we still have no clue what the tale's going to be about. While the smart money would be on young Link having to once again rescue Princess Zelda, who'll undoubtedly have got herself into some sort of trouble with chief bad guy Ganondorf, there's been precious little official detail released on the plot so far - which is unusual to say the least.
But back to the gameplay. With the fields fully explored, the grass freshly cut, and having taken in the sights and sounds of Hyrule Castle, it was off to the dungeon section to try out the game's brand new features. With more of a focus on logic than just hacking at everything in sight, the dungeons have always been a Zelda game's strong point, and A Link Between Worlds would seem to be no different. One of the main new features here is the ability to transform at any time into a 2D chalk drawing on a wall. To do this, all you have to do is walk up to a vertical wall and press the A Button, at which point you'll be magically turned into a 2D sprite, who isn't affected by gravity - and is essential solving some of the game's puzzles.
Get yourself up to the right level, press A, and shimmy across the wall through the windows. Logical puzzles are awesome.
Things started out simply enough. Standing on a platform, we gazed over at a ledge which had a treasure chest on it, but had no way of reaching it. Having only little legs, Link can't jump - but his new ability means he doesn't have to. Facing the wall and pressing A, we turned ourselves into the chalk drawing, and shimmied across the wall, popping out again when we reached the platform. The key thing to remember here is that when you flatten yourself against the wall, you'll always stay at that height - you can't drop down to another level, and you can't climb any higher, unless the piece of wall you're standing on moves - so figuring out where to transform in order to reach your goal is essential. Especially as the dungeons here are a lot more vertical than they've ever been before.
With the game being exclusive to the 3DS, it'd almost be surprising if there wasn't some sort of flash gimmick designed to take advantage of the console's glasses-free 3D - but in reality, it's not as jarring as you'd expect. Effectively designed in layers, the dungeons are designed to be navigated almost as a vertical maze, with Link repeatedly firing himself up to higher levels, or falling through holes down to platforms below, as you struggle to reach the top. Helping the levels burst out of the screen if you make use of the glasses-free 3D, we were initially a little bit worried about the idea, as the first trailer Nintendo released for the game made it seem as though you'd have to make use of the 3D in order to make out the difference between the layers - to tell whether something's on the same level as you, or a few dozen feet below you. It's something Nintendo had made a mistake with on Super Mario 3D Land previously, where the bonus levels looked flat when you had the 3D switched off, but revealed hidden depth with it switched on, effectively requiring you to use the 3D in order to make your way through - but we're pleased to say Nintendo have made no such mistake here. Judging the difference between layers is as easy with the 3D off as it is with it on - much to the relief of the 5-12% of the population who can't do 3D at all.
As mentioned above, though, the verticality is a big "new feature" for A Link Between Worlds, and also plays a large part in how the dungeon's puzzles play out. Across the various rooms, you'd often come across giant smiling springy pads that could be depressed with a quick whack of your hammer (in every sense of the word - they'd squish into the floor, and end up with a sad face too), which you could then stand on in order to be fired up to the next floor - but figuring out the right pad to use to be fired where you wanted to go was more of a challenge than it sounds. Equally puzzling were the blue and red barriers which littered some of the levels. Effectively dividing some floors up into a maze, you could lower or raise each section of wall by smacking a red or blue beacon with your sword - but actually getting past them was a little bit trickier. With several layers of fencing stood up against each other in certain places, and no way of lowering them both at the same time, you had to be a little bit clever if you wanted to get past. Whacking the switch to lower the wall section nearest to you, you then had to stand on the lowered wall, and whack the switch again to lift it up, letting you scoot across to the wall, where you could switch into your 2D form, and make your way outside. There's an awful lot of logic involved in the puzzles in A Link Between Worlds, and you'll be racking your brain to figure them out.
Raising and lowering the sections of wall was a key part of the dungeon.
But just as we were starting to really get into the demo, having figured out the basics of the dungeon, our time in the stage ran out (the demo was limited to just ten minutes), and we had to move on. Needless to say though, our brief session with The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds has put our mind at rest about a lot of our concerns - and now we're even more excited than we were. With no real reliance on the console's 3D effect, some real brain teasers in the dungeons, and a great retro-style look about it, all we need to know now is what the story's going to be about. With the game scheduled for a release before the end of this year, we can't imagine it'll be too long now before the info starts flowing a bit more freely. In the mean time, why not check out the trailer below:
