Also, I think your Ice Rod section is kind of disingenuous. It's definitely not the most clear hint of its location - not nearly - and the game could have benefited if it was required to get through a dungeon (let's say that Tower of Hera had fire that you had to put out throughout the dungeon or something). But by the time you're done with the Eastern Palace, you probably have bombs. There are a lot of opportunities for you to find them, especially given that on your first playthrough, when you go to the town to find Sahasrahla, you are inevitably going to explore the town. And if you know to go to the Eastern Palace right away, you already know how to get the Ice Rod.
When many people consider it the best game ever made period. It really does. Personally I find most GOAT list to be a little silly. Off the top of my head there are not very many games that could even qualify, Tetris being one of the few and MAYBE Super Metroid.
When many people consider it the best game ever made period. It really does. Personally I find most GOAT list to be a little silly off the top of my head there are not very many games that could even qualify, Tetris being one of the few.
I mean, most GOAT lists are just personal opinion. ALttP is definitely on my top 10 list, alongside the likes of EarthBound, Portal, Castlevania III, and Phoenix Wright Trials and Tribulations.
You hit on several of the points why LttP is on the lower end of the Zelda spectrum in my book. The problems for me can be broken down into two categories, but their consequences spread throughout pretty much the entire thing.
The first one has to do with the items. There's a lot of them, and they're pretty great. Sadly enough, their utility is really limited, like they designers didn't really know how to use them. The game usually adds a single obstacle in your way as a proof of concept for the item, and then kind of moves on from it entirely. Sometimes this is in the form of a single small puzzle or an item required to harm the boss, or sometimes a combination of both if you're really lucky. When you compare how items work to items are handled in the later entries, all items have a proof-of-concept phase where they show their core functionality, slightly escalated takes on that concept get put to the test both in puzzles and combat (which the game had been visually teasing you with), you get introduced introduced to some out-of-the-box twists on their initial usage, and finally you get like a big final exam that combines everything. The latter usually happens again in the boss battle itself. A Link to the Past usually gets stuck in that proof-of-concept stage, and rarely ever evolves beyond it. This approach makes the dungeons pretty puzzle-starved and featureless when you compare it to any entry after it. Often it doesn't even bother with making you use the newly acquired item in the dungeon's boss fight. Quite a few of the game's bosses are straight up dull sword fights, and the OP does a decent job at detailing the state of the sword-combat in this game. When the developers thoroughly explore the design of the items, it just makes the game world feel interactive in meaningful ways that few other franchises do, so it's sad to see how simplistic and limited it used to be. I feel like Link's Awakening was the first Zelda to properly use its items in the way a modern Zelda game does, and I bet it's because the Gameboy's lack of buttons lead to the sword losing its dedicated button. When the sword became more optional, the designers had to find ways to compensate for interactions with the game world in other ways. This lead to more usage out of your gear, which in turn would dictate what would populate the dungeons.
this is crazy times. I mean, at least LA may use the items in better ways due to the lack of sword button -which is nonetheless a huge annoyance- but whatever lesson was learned from this was lost once the series became 3D
the hookshot alone is way more free form in aLttP than in the 3D Zeldas, where the game needs to give you a very specific point where you can use it and nowhere else
or ... running itself. the pegasus boots have a very specific side effect, jumping back in recoil, and this side effect is necessary in exactly one optional puzzle
modern zelda would have had a tutorial and yeah, escalating puzzles to see if you dominate this side effect
aLttP takes the superior way. it just places an optional door out of your reach unless you figure out the recoil can let you there. no tutorial no handholding, no hints, nothing, just either you figure it out or not. just great puzzle design
obviously there is no disgusting fairy telling you non stop about the recoil in your jump
The fact that your sword and shield are permanently equipped is not a small consideration. It means you actually have to switch items far less than you do in Link's Awakening. The item menu is also quite fast to navigate.
First, thanks for the detailed reply, I like this kind of thing!
But... fast? Then why do I stumble around in it so much, trying to figure out which direction will go where? When you fill in the item grid it's not so bad, but before then selecting the item you want can be confusing. You probably do switch items more often in LA, yes, but it's quicker to do there than here.
And as for having the sword and shield permanently equipped, that LA doesn't do that is one of the elements of its genius, really. This allowed them to put in a significantly better shield, a better sword, AND more use for your other items, without making the game easier because you always need to choose only two things at once.
(Also, why is the map on X instead of Start or Select? That's so odd... put that where it should be and you'd have another button free for a second item slot!)
I find it pretty convenient to have the bomb information visible early in the game when running out can be an annoyance. But the modern convention is fine too.
But when you don't even have the bow yet early in the game, it's weird that this arrow counter is on the screen anyway...
I sort of get where you're coming from on the pleasure of filling in map tiles, but I don't see that having the full map discourages exploration. The map isn't the land.
The map represents the land, though. An empty map is something I want to explore, but a full one already is explored...
Of course, being given the whole map from the start does kind of fit the nature of an overworld that is almost entirely open right from the start of the game, so those two issues kind of tie in together, but I dislike both of them of course.
You still have to go to the Kakariko village to learn who lives there and what they do. The map won't tell you anything about what the Lost Woods look like or what is inside the Death Mountain caves. And in my experience, seeing a few landmarks or geographical oddities on the map actually inspires exploration. Remember, this isn't a 3D game where you can literally see a mountain in the distance.
For me it makes me care less about finding all those corners, because it's already there on the map, so what's the point of finding it all? For another much more recent example of this issue, I dislike how Guild Wars 2 unlocks the map in big chunks because it makes me less interested in exploring everywhere than I am in the great original Guild Wars, where the map slowly reveals as you see things.
But getting back to LttP, besides, with how boring I find most of the overworld's design in this game, it's not like exploring is as fun as it is in the best Zelda games anyway... there definitely is fun to be had, but less than any of the 3d games, or the GB/GBC games either.
I don't understand what you mean by "harder than it should be." How hard should it be?
Ideally it'd be challenging without being cheap or too frustrating. But due to the limited combat options, this game feels cheap sometimes.
Well, again, you have pointed out a difference between the combat design of LttP and later Zelda games, but I don't think you've made a case for why one is better.
I think that being given better tools helped make combat more fun in the later games. If you disagree, why? How is more limiting combat better?
I see this complaint a lot (mostly from LA fans), and I can't say I understand it at all. LttP's map is pretty small. It takes less than a minute to walk the width of it. It is nothing like crossing Hyrule Field in OoT or TP (or the great Ocean in WW). This is a small, dense map. But it trades off a bit of density in exchange for navigability. This is a good thing! I actually prefer searching for secrets in LttP and LBW because I know that I am never more than a minute from testing out whatever idea I have. In Link's Awakening, by contrast, moving around the map is a herky-jerky affair as you cycle through the items you need for each tiny screen (and get the same pop-up message a thousand times for accidentally walking into a stone you're supposed to lift).
I'm sorry, but how is making the map more boring a good thing? Most of the map in LttP serves little purpose; it's just assortments of trees, walls, and enemies that are there for you to repeatedly walk through as you go to the dungeons, and maybe annoy you along the way if enemies score a hit or if you run into one of the roadblocks that requires a hidden item. And then when you get to the side areas, they're small, and you can access most of them right from the start anyway! What does that leave for later on, outside of the dungeons? Not much. It's not very interesting stuff, which is why the boring overworld maps has long been my biggest criticism of this game.
OoT is the LttP style of map done right -- it's got a central area again, but has much more interesting, larger themed side areas that feel like full areas, not the tiny postage stamps too many areas in LttP are, the mountains and maybe also the Lost Woods excepted.
It's pretty important that the layout be largely similar. I mean, warping between specific geographic points is a core game mechanic! It sets up some fun exploration and puzzles!
Sure, but I was just saying, two fully different worlds in a Zelda game would be kind of neat. I liked that small underground world in Oracle of Seasons, for example (and the game has four seasons as well for the main world, for that minor-differences element), or the significant differences between the past and future in Oracle of Ages...
Yes, though, LttP's two worlds are different and it ties them together well through many warping puzzles. I meant that paragraph to mostly be praise for the game.
Yeah, a too simple story, with the minimal payoff such a basic story suggests. (On another note, spending so much time in the ending for NPCs who barely matter in the game is kind of odd...)
I don't believe I've ever heard Misery Mire described as linear before. The Ice Palace isn't exactly a straight-line either.
Part of that dungeon is open, but then if you die late in the dungeon and need to redo it, as the other poster above said, you're stuck going through a long sequence of rooms every time. I mention some of this in my article when I talk about there being fewer shortcuts in this game than in later ones, and that they hadn't introduced in-dungeon warps yet in this game, but that's a really good point, many LttP dungeons end with an unskippable long sequence of rooms before the boss. It's a very different design from the later games, which give you access to the boss without having to jump through such hoops. I like the challenge of getting through something for the first time, but not having to redo that many more times because I'm dying later on in the game! And yes, this has always been a big issue of mine with classic games that expect you to restart them over and over and over until you memorize the whole thing, I grew up on PC games which had saving and have never liked that kind of design.
An NPC you have to meet tells you to explore the caves east of Lake Hylia.
So? I said this in the article, but again, you are told that after the first dungeon. Then the one and only time you ever need to use this item is TEN DUNGEONS LATER, in the bottom of the 11th dungeon. If you don't get it right away, you'll never remember the clue, no chance. Has there ever been a Zelda game with a bigger gap between when you are given a clue for an item you can now get, and the first (and only in this case) required use of an item? If so I can't think of it! Being punished near the end of a game for messing something up near the beginning is terrible design. I know some games did that kind of thing back then (King's Quest did it several times for example...), but it's bad.
The map that you criticized earlier also pretty clearly shows an interesting location there. There are only two obvious caves (and a third hidden one), one shows you the ice rod, and one leads you to it.
And if you could continue to access this clue after it is first given to you, maybe I eventually would have realized that I'd never managed to find the right cave. But I didn't, and the game has no form of quest-log or anything, so the issue is moot. When I got to the boss of Turtle Rock only to find it impossible because I was missing an item, there is no hint of a clue in the game at that time to help you figure out where it is.
I was gonna concede the game could have included the ice rod in Sahasralah's warning at the dungeon entrance, but something about "if I'd stopped playing forever I wouldn't blame myself" makes me wanna say GIT GUD instead.
So if someone kept going in KQIV (or was it III?) after using that required item early, but they didn't know it so they got much deeper into the game before realizing they had to start the whole game over, and said 'forget this!' instead of starting it over, you'd just say "git gud" to them? Yeah, that's a more extreme case than this, but it is the same kind of issue.
I remain perplexed by the fact that you love filling in all the tiles on LA's map but can't be bothered to explore dramatic landmarks in LttP.
For something beyond the Guild Wars 1 and 2 example above, when playing the game back in the early '00s I used to often explore out the minimap on every zone in Diablo II, even though the game doesn't save much minimap-exploration information even in the single player mode that has preset stages, as opposed to the randomized ones of multiplayer. Exploring maps when they reveal as they go is its own reward, but when the whole map is just given to you exploration loses a lot of the fun!
(Yes, that it has a minimap that explores as you go is probably a factor in why Skies of Arcadia is my favorite JRPG ever...)
I mean, it's a strange ring of stones in the middle of the pond. Even without the sign, most players would throw something in.
Don't you need to throw a bunch of stuff in to get the item though? I forget. And it's off in a corner of the map anyway, it's not some well-travelled location.
It's really not. If you're exploring landmarks and talking to NPCs, you're bound to meet the flute boy and his dad. And by the time you reach the boy in dark world, the idea of warping back and forth between worlds should be firmly established in your mind.
The NPCs are so uninteresting in this game, though, that I wasn't paying much attention to them throughout.
It's not required, and you pass by the marker early in the game, so you will naturally be looking for ways to reach it once you get to the equivalent area in dark world.
There are all kinds of things in this game that lead to nothing, though. People who defend these hidden items don't mention that, that not every cracked wall leads to something important, not every sign actually matters, not every secret actually needs to be found. So yeah, there's a cracked wall there, but why should you assume that Ganon hides the item which can kill him in his own pyramid? That's kind of silly, shouldn't it be elsewhere? No, it's probably just a piece of heart or something, or coins, who knows... and I don't want to collect everything in the game, so I'm not trying to find every secret. But no, it's actually that item. Heh. That's a good example of 'hiding something in plain sight' -- it's right there, somewhere you've walked past dozens of times, which makes it easy to forget...
Really though, the other big issue for that wall, if you decide to see what's there regardless of whether it matters or not, is finding the item that breaks that wall. How am I supposed to know that that useless Bomb Shop suddenly became relevant right at the end, and to check in there again? I sure didn't think of that (or even remember that that's what the Dark World Link's House is, probably), until I looked it up in a guide.
of course not every corner hides an important secret. there is no game big on exploration where this happens
the bomb shop not selling the bomb early is a valid criticism, but the super bomb is alluded twice in the game; one in the fortune teller at that point of the game, which mentions the bomb shop has something new, and there is also a NPC that mentions that you need an out of the ordinary bomb to open that specific wall
It doesn't change the point, but it does suggest that you are misremembering things about the game, and that could cloud your analysis of it.
As it stands, the picture I took of being in that room without having the ice rod was the result of me just simply forgetting to go grab it because I was doing a speedrun of the game. When I was playing the game as a kid, I easily found the ice rod because you have the ability to get it much sooner than you can actually get into Turtle Rock (much less actually get through the dungeon).
I think that the big difference between ALttP and Link's Awakening is that Link's Awakening's paths are that much clearer, and the game does not have much in the way of deviation from the path. Link's Awakening definitely doesn't have any Quake or Ice Rod problems, but even with the revealing map, it suffers from relatively lessened exploration.
there is no part of aLttP that discourages exploring. much to the contrary, the way you can traverse quickly around makes exploring fast and rewarding, and if you fail because you don't have a necessary item, it is quick to know when this happens most of the time. there are lots of optional rooms to explore and some of them even contain powerful items, and some of them contain money or health or just a NPC chillin' out there
it's just that the OP has the weird obsession with clearing map tiles, but lacking this pavlovian bell does not mean the game 'discourages exploration'. it just means the OP has a weird sense of what 'discouragement' means
something like OoT does actually discourage exploration in a way, with its gigantic, slow to traverse, largely empty map. if you explore you are risking several minutes of boring traversal for nothing
there is no part of aLttP that discourages exploring. much to the contrary, the way you can traverse quickly around makes exploring fast and rewarding, and if you fail because you don't have a necessary item, it is quick to know when this happens most of the time. there are lots of optional rooms to explore and some of them even contain powerful items, and some of them contain money or health or just a NPC chillin' out there
it's just that the OP has the weird obsession with clearing map tiles, but lacking this pavlovian bell does not mean the game 'discourages exploration'. it just means the OP has a weird sense of what 'discouragement' means
something like OoT does actually discourage exploration in a way, with its gigantic, slow to traverse, largely empty map. if you explore you are risking several minutes of boring traversal for nothing
Plus, if you stumble into the wrong area and need to go elsewhere, LttP lets you correct that by a quick use of the ocarina and off you go.
As much as I like playing the songs in OoT/MM to warp around the world on a aesthetic level, having to actually key in the song and then wait for the animations to play can get a little tiring if I'm trying to maximize my time.
When many people consider it the best game ever made period. It really does. Personally I find most GOAT list to be a little silly. Off the top of my head there are not very many games that could even qualify, Tetris being one of the few and MAYBE Super Metroid.
But... fast? Then why do I stumble around in it so much, trying to figure out which direction will go where? When you fill in the item grid it's not so bad, but before then selecting the item you want can be confusing. You probably do switch items more often in LA, yes, but it's quicker to do there than here.
Not really. They take roughly the same amount of time for the menus to load up and down, but then LA has the added issue of items not having set locations, meaning you need to hunt for the right sprite, as opposed to LttP just having everything in a static spot.
And it's a little silly to disregard just how much LA has you going back and forth to the menu. While I agree that LttP would be even better if you could slot more items at a given time, it wouldn't change terribly much when most of the way the game is designed is where you can go longer without having to swap out your item, in part because a lot of the same items you have to juggle most frequently in link's awakening just have their own buttons independent of the one tool button.
Yeah, a too simple story, with the minimal payoff such a basic story suggests. (On another note, spending so much time in the ending for NPCs who barely matter in the game is kind of odd...)
A lot of those NPCs matter much more than you give them credit. Your uncle is the driving force for your adventure starting, and gives you a more personal attachment to the story. The kindly sage is one of the first friendly NPCs that you come across and is one that you have another personal connection to, him being the guy tasked with protecting the princess. Sahasrahla is your constant support through much of the game. The lumberjack boys, the music boy and his dad, the blacksmith dwarves, and so on are characters that you very clearly witness their stories unfolding throughout the game. Venus is instrumental in your ability to defeat Ganon. And even the thing with the Zoras ties up a story that actually spans games by making it to where enemies that have plagued you for the past three games turned out to be intelligent creatures capable of reason, and their part of the ending suggests that they are opening themselves up to society by marketing their flippers (and setting up for them being redesigned and reintroduced as a more prominent part of the Zelda mythos in OoT).
I can't force you to care about these characters, but the game does give you plenty to actually work with in terms of caring about these characters and making the ending satisfying when it goes back over just how much better you've made the world by showing you how the lives of all these characters you've been interacting with have improved.
Though, I admit that including the Desert Palace as a character was weird.
Has there ever been a Zelda game with a bigger gap between when you are given a clue for an item you can now get, and the first (and only in this case) required use of an item? If so I can't think of it! Being punished near the end of a game for messing something up near the beginning is terrible design.
Link's Awakening actually introduces you to a book at the beginning of the game that you can't do anything with until near the end, and then you can't use the knowledge it gets you until the actual end of the game.
Don't you need to throw a bunch of stuff in to get the item though? I forget. And it's off in a corner of the map anyway, it's not some well-travelled location.
Nope. One item is all it takes to get the catfish to pop up. And it's not like that corner of the map is some far off place. There's basically two places you can actually go explore when you first get to the dark world. One is the area that gets you into the Dark Palace, and the other is the area that leads you to the catfish.
The NPCs are so uninteresting in this game, though, that I wasn't paying much attention to them throughout.
And, yet, if you had, you would have started to see that the game actually does a lot more with them than you give credit.
There are all kinds of things in this game that lead to nothing, though. People who defend these hidden items don't mention that, that not every cracked wall leads to something important, not every sign actually matters, not every secret actually needs to be found.
And yet you insist that it is so important that the game's map do the fill in thing, even though most squares in even the densest Zeldas have nothing important in them.
As it stands, the Ice Rod is specifically placed to where your attention will be drawn to check out the bomb wall because there's a door next to it that, when you explore the room it leads to, shows you that something neat is behind the bomb wall.
Likewise, the cracked wall in the pyramid is something your attention gets drawn to because it's a very distinct feature that looks like a bombable wall but your bombs clearly don't work on it.
So yeah, there's a cracked wall there, but why should you assume that Ganon hides the item which can kill him in his own pyramid? That's kind of silly, shouldn't it be elsewhere?
If we are going to do the thing you're doing where you're going back and knocking on this game with the knowledge that later games introduced improvements, then we can, in all fairness, bring up the fact that later games have fully established that Ganon/Ganondorf is absolutely the kind of person that would sit on that kind of item because he's overly confident in his own power that he doesn't think it'll come back to bite him (it does)
No, it's probably just a piece of heart or something, or coins, who knows... and I don't want to collect everything in the game, so I'm not trying to find every secret. But no, it's actually that item. Heh. That's a good example of 'hiding something in plain sight' -- it's right there, somewhere you've walked past dozens of times, which makes it easy to forget...
And this is your failing. The game reminds you time and time again that key items aren't just found in dungeons and that you need to do some exploring for them. Yes, sometimes exploration is going to lead you to a dead end. Yes, sometimes it is going to lead somewhere you don't get what you were expecting. That's the point of exploring.
Really though, the other big issue for that wall, if you decide to see what's there regardless of whether it matters or not, is finding the item that breaks that wall. How am I supposed to know that that useless Bomb Shop suddenly became relevant right at the end, and to check in there again? I sure didn't think of that (or even remember that that's what the Dark World Link's House is, probably), until I looked it up in a guide.
You are told if when you go by that bomb shop earlier that he's working on a bigger bomb. The game makes it obvious where that bomb is meant for because it's a very distinct landmark that is at one of the spots in the game you are most likely to keep revisiting.
And yes, this has always been a big issue of mine with classic games that expect you to restart them over and over and over until you memorize the whole thing, I grew up on PC games which had saving and have never liked that kind of design.
And I think this is the crux of it all. This is a very specific style of design that you were never in on and one in which just doesn't jell with what you are used to. And that's fine. You are allowed to not like things. But you should perhaps consider that maybe it's not necessarily that the game is doing things wrong here as much as it is doing things that you personally don't like. And that's fine too.
You hit on several of the points why LttP is on the lower end of the Zelda spectrum in my book. The problems for me can be broken down into two categories, but their consequences spread throughout pretty much the entire thing.
The first one has to do with the items. There's a lot of them, and they're pretty great. Sadly enough, their utility is really limited, like they designers didn't really know how to use them. The game usually adds a single obstacle in your way as a proof of concept for the item, and then kind of moves on from it entirely. Sometimes this is in the form of a single small puzzle or an item required to harm the boss, or sometimes a combination of both if you're really lucky. When you compare how items work to items are handled in the later entries, all items have a proof-of-concept phase where they show their core functionality, slightly escalated takes on that concept get put to the test both in puzzles and combat (which the game had been visually teasing you with), you get introduced introduced to some out-of-the-box twists on their initial usage, and finally you get like a big final exam that combines everything. The latter usually happens again in the boss battle itself. A Link to the Past usually gets stuck in that proof-of-concept stage, and rarely ever evolves beyond it. This approach makes the dungeons pretty puzzle-starved and featureless when you compare it to any entry after it. Often it doesn't even bother with making you use the newly acquired item in the dungeon's boss fight. Quite a few of the game's bosses are straight up dull sword fights, and the OP does a decent job at detailing the state of the sword-combat in this game. When the developers thoroughly explore the design of the items, it just makes the game world feel interactive in meaningful ways that few other franchises do, so it's sad to see how simplistic and limited it used to be. I feel like Link's Awakening was the first Zelda to properly use its items in the way a modern Zelda game does, and I bet it's because the Gameboy's lack of buttons lead to the sword losing its dedicated button. When the sword became more optional, the designers had to find ways to compensate for interactions with the game world in other ways. This lead to more usage out of your gear, which in turn would dictate what would populate the dungeons.
This is a really good point. I did think about mentioning the perhaps overlarge number of items on my list, but that doesn't bother me as much as any of the things I did list so I didn't do that, but you make some very good points here. This game throws items at you from the start, more so than many other Zelda games do, but as you say, there is less payoff. Dungeons are not designed as much around their key item, boss fights usually don't even require you to use it, etc... why give me so many items when many of them are under-used? You say this very well here, and I entirely agree. I also agree very much with your point at the end about LA; getting rid of the sword+shield requirement improved the series, and helped them realize better uses for the other items.
And that's not even getting to the items you only need once but might want as a little bonus, like the medallions, ice rod, etc. As items, not keys for one door, how useful are those things then they drain your magic meter fairly quickly, but refilling that meter can be a pain depending on where you are in the game? It works, but it'd be great if the meter slowly refilled over time, or something like that... Magic meter management is another minor issue with this game I didn't mention, but you could. It's nice how LA doesn't have a magic meter at all.
This flows into the second issue for me, which is the world itself. This one is a little harder to unpack because of how far-reaching it is, but the short version of it is that the entire game lacks flavour and character. The simplest example of it is how the game treats its characters. Aside from the staple three cast members, A Link to the Past has very few named characters, and the majority of the characters are stuff like "Flute Boy", "Blacksmith", "Bully", "Lumberjack", "Maiden", "Witch", "Uncle", etc. Some of the named characters, like Sahasrahlavladiblahblibbidometh, are so void of personality that they might as well be called "Old Man" too.
Hmm. I agree that the NPCs badly lack in character, yes; I mentioned this in my list for sure. The point about them not having names is a decent one though, though the flute boy at least does have decent characterization despite not having a name. It does speak to how the designers decided to not go all the way towards putting interesting NPCs in the game, though. If they aren't going to have real names while Link, Zelda, and Sahasrahla do, they are saying something about the relative importance of the other characters.
This same type of blandness extends to many of the dungeons as well. Much like the Zeldas before it, many of these dungeons both look and sound like they were recycled from other dungeons. I understand the need for this on the NES, where audiovisual limitations were a lot stricter, as well in terms of cart size, but there really was no excuse for the Super Nintendo. Attempts at theming were made here and there, like in the water, ice and desert dungeons, and these ended up being the dungeons that stuck with me the most. Sadly enough they also just make the times when they didn't bother stand out all the more.
I did think the dungeons were the best part about LttP, but yeah, I guess some of them are thematically less varied than Zelda dungeons are in later games, yeah. Part of that may be that there are so many of them; 12 dungeons is a lot, for a Zelda game... so they recolor stuff, re-use ideas, and such. LA does a better job of making each dungeon distinct, and they didn't even need color! And then the 3d games are on a different level there.
I genuinely have trouble describing what makes A Link to the Past stand out, or thinking of things it excels at, when taking the rest of the series into account. This is partially because the other entries built on the foundation that this game laid, but also because its quantity over quality approach didn't seem to allow it to aspire for anything more. Luckily Nintendo showed us how they'd do things if they were given another stab at it with A Link Between Worlds. It improved on its predecessor in virtually every single way, and shows how far the series has evolved in terms of item usage, dungeon design and characterisation.
I haven't finished ALBW so I can't compare it to LttP overall, but yeah, item usage, dungeon design, and characterization are improved, yeah. It's just too bad that they decided to re-use the LttP overworld, that was not a good move.
I don't think it's unfair to say that Misery Mire becomes pretty linear once you get the big key. A lot of ALTTP dungeons are structured in such a way that a third of the dungeon is sectioned off, and that last part is pretty straight forward. I'm not sure if that's necessarily a bad thing in itself though. It adds a bit of structure, which improves the flow. Once you get the big key and item, it's nice for the game to make you feel like you're on top of things and hurries you along to the finish line. GAF's very own McBacon is doing a pretty cool series on his Youtube channel called "Boss Keys" on this very subject. Highly recommended if you're interested in Zelda's dungeon design.
Here I disagree, that linearity feels kind of weird in a in Zelda game, considering how after this game have those shortcuts. It makes for an annoying time if you die and have to re-do the same rooms repeatedly.
Describing what happened to me almost exactly (just replace 'door' with 'boss' and you've got it) is not disingenuous, it's descriptive of my experience with the game.
It's definitely not the most clear hint of its location - not nearly - and the game could have benefited if it was required to get through a dungeon (let's say that Tower of Hera had fire that you had to put out throughout the dungeon or something).
If it was required in the next dungeon after that clue, it'd be far less annoying, yes. While I dislike the concept of required items you just have to find on your own in general, it WOULD be a lot less bad if it was needed soon, instead of ten dungeons later, with not a hint in between or a single puzzle that required it until that boss.
But by the time you're done with the Eastern Palace, you probably have bombs. There are a lot of opportunities for you to find them, especially given that on your first playthrough, when you go to the town to find Sahasrahla, you are inevitably going to explore the town. And if you know to go to the Eastern Palace right away, you already know how to get the Ice Rod.
Sure you could find it, the Ice Rod is not too hard to find if you look in the right place. However, that place is out of the way, at the end of a dead-end side path around the side of the lake (that you have to get to by dropping down from the lower-central area, couldn't it have connected to the area by the lake?) that has nothing on it other than the Ice Rod and that other cave next to it that serves to hint at how to get to the Ice Rod. I don't remember if I'd tried to buy bombs yet or not when I was given that clue when I first beat the game, but it's a pretty easy area to overlook, and again, that's near the beginning and if you did miss it the game doesn't punish you for that until almost the very end.
On a related note though, bombs... from a modern Zelda perspective, it's very odd that in this one you can just buy them from the start, and don't need a bomb bag or something...
there is no part of aLttP that discourages exploring. much to the contrary, the way you can traverse quickly around makes exploring fast and rewarding,
"You can traverse quickly around" and "rewarding"? Those two are mutually exclusive terms, at least here, though! What's fun about a map that just lets you explore almost all of it right from the start? Where's the sense of adventure and exploration as you reach new areas, when the are so few new areas to find? Where's the sense of challenge or fun, when most areas are just big open spaces with a few scattered enemies, without the interesting designs or complex area layouts of later titles? Etc.
and if you fail because you don't have a necessary item, it is quick to know when this happens most of the time. there are lots of optional rooms to explore and some of them even contain powerful items, and some of them contain money or health or just a NPC chillin' out there
I just do not care much about finding everything in a game in most games, do not play games just to get better loot -- yes, I know this is a huge draw for many, but for me, sorry, the loot-based gameplay hook doesn't work that well. Maybe that is a factor here, in making me not care to explore just to find stuff since that's not why I play games almost all of the time... if exploration in the game is fun I'll do some item-hunting anyway of course, but I didn't find it as fun to explore in this game as it is in newer Zelda games, so that wasn't a help here.
it's just that the OP has the weird obsession with clearing map tiles, but lacking this pavlovian bell does not mean the game 'discourages exploration'. it just means the OP has a weird sense of what 'discouragement' means
The map tiles thing matters (I like maps, but not loot!), but the bigger issue is about the map's design itself. Letting you explore almost everywhere from the start, with such an open map, was a mistake and hurts this game a lot.
something like OoT does actually discourage exploration in a way, with its gigantic, slow to traverse, largely empty map. if you explore you are risking several minutes of boring traversal for nothing
It's not just about the amount of time it takes to get to a place, you know. It's often not about that at all in fact. Yeah, in an OoT or TP you may waste your time searching for some minor item, but there I find that process fun at least some of the time, and the games never hide required items on you in the same minor locations as major ones, you know which are which.
I find the complaints about hidden items a bit odd. ALTTP does not have a huge map- you can run from one side to the other in under a minute.
There's pretty much something hidden on every screen, and once you have most of the dungeon items, a quick sweep across the map jumping from world to world will gain you the remainder. The medallions- where they are needed, their icon appears on the ground. To me, that was a sign that meant, when I found that item, I knew where to use it. Once I found one, I knew what I was looking for when the same thing happened again. The non-linear nature means that if you can't get into a dungeon, by the time you come back to it you'll have wandered around and have a whole new bag of tricks to try.
Back then I kept a notebook in games like LTTP, Metroid or Secret of Mana, full of things I'd seen that I couldn't interact with yet, or
obstacles that needed a new item/ability to get past. To this day, after 20+ playthroughs there's always one heart piece that I miss in LTTP (as well as skipping several non-essential items). I'm OK with that, the clues are there for the essential stuff. As for the ice rod, if you haven't wandered around the dark world by that point, looking in caves, it makes me wonder how a player has got that far with so little curiosity. ALTTP will stump a player trying to speed run it for the first time, without any interest in heading off the beaten track or returning to simple environmental puzzles (that pretty much all require warping and/or a dungeon item).
That's not a bad thing, it means it's a game that is trying to make the player feel like an adventurer, like they've accomplished something rather than holding their hand all the way through to the end. When I defeated Ganon for the first time, working out how to get past his defences based on various clues before and during the battle, it really felt like a game that needed a bit of thought as well as brute force to succeed. But also a lot of curiosity, and not being in a rush to reach the end. Maybe it's that, in the early 90s when I was playing 2 or 3 games a year, I never wanted them to end and explored every inch of the map as if secrets were under every rock. Zelda was a game where that was a constant possibility
Counterpoint: All of the 3d Zeldas are hot garbage. with extreme handholding and much less creative puzzle designs. They don't encourage exploration and experimentation like the older (or other 2d Zelda games) did. OoT legitimately felt like Baby's first Zelda when it came out.
this is crazy times. I mean, at least LA may use the items in better ways due to the lack of sword button -which is nonetheless a huge annoyance- but whatever lesson was learned from this was lost once the series became 3D
the hookshot alone is way more free form in aLttP than in the 3D Zeldas, where the game needs to give you a very specific point where you can use it and nowhere else
or ... running itself. the pegasus boots have a very specific side effect, jumping back in recoil, and this side effect is necessary in exactly one optional puzzle
modern zelda would have had a tutorial and yeah, escalating puzzles to see if you dominate this side effect
aLttP takes the superior way. it just places an optional door out of your reach unless you figure out the recoil can let you there. no tutorial no handholding, no hints, nothing, just either you figure it out or not. just great puzzle design
obviously there is no disgusting fairy telling you non stop about the recoil in your jump
I don't see how the hookshot is more free-form in aLttP. Like you say, it is used only once in the Swamp Palace to unlock the later part of the dungeon (and to defeat the boss), and then it was pretty much out of the game designer's mind. All of the base-functionality from aLttP's hookshot is present in every single 3D Zelda, like latching on to wooden objects like posts, crates, and chests, collecting items from a distance, and stunning enemies. On top of those standard features, you can now also hook on to specially marked plates, which are used in puzzle design and traversal that uses the Z-axis. Using it extensively in multiple dungeons, opposed to barely using it at all, does a much better show at the item's worth in my book.
When the designers don't bother to show you how can contribute to your journey, you end up with situations the uneasy dynamic between the hookshot and the boomerang. In aLttP, there is huge overlap between your (magical) boomerang and hookshot's functionality, to the point where the hookshot might as well replace the icon of the boomerang. The designers clearly noticed this, because in most games after it, they draw a clear line between the two items. In OoT they split the two items up between young and adult Link. In other games, they give the boomerang multi-targeting features, imbue it with the power of wind to disrupt the game world, let you freely draw its trajectory with a stylus, or simply make it more powerful than the hookshot.
We'll have to disagree on "the superior way", I guess. When I for instance stumbled on that puzzle with the boots, I figured I was just missing another item. The particular puzzle itself is clever, but since nothing lead up to it, it just felt like it didn't belong in the game. Nintendo games of that era have done this particular thing before, like the power-bombable tube in Super Metroid. Moves like that just made me wonder if poorly explained left-field puzzles in otherwise puzzle-starved games were just a way to combat rentals.
Most of the complaints seem to be about the difficulty and the lack of hand holding. It's funny that we've come full circle. I think most of the complaints about ALbW were about the lack of difficulty, right?
Anyways. ALttP was my first Zelda game but I played LA not too long after that so nostalgia wise they are pretty close. I still prefer ALttP for many reasons that you listed as negative points in your posts.
Everyone has an opinion and that's fine.
I did chuckle at the Ice Rod dilemma, though. I never thought that was something people could have issues with.
Everytime I replay the game it feels like the game keeps nagging at me to check out the eastern side of the lake. I thought it was pretty obvious, haha.
When I first played this as a kid I got stuck reaching the big chest in the tower dungeon on the mountain in the light world.
It took me a week to realize I had to switch the holes in the floor and then drop down a level.
Other than that I can't really recall getting stuck anywhere else.
Ive tried for about three years to play through LTTP, and every time I give up on it, mostly because of the reasons the OP talked about. I did finish Link's Awakening and Link Between Worlds, and so I want to go back and play through the "source material" but LTTP does not engage me in a way like either of those two games did.
I did not play any of the Zelda games as a child outside of the first NES game, but the series as a whole isn't my favorite or anything. Even still, I can recognize that Link's Awakening and Link Between Worlds are both "better" games than LTTP.
this is crazy times. I mean, at least LA may use the items in better ways due to the lack of sword button -which is nonetheless a huge annoyance- but whatever lesson was learned from this was lost once the series became 3D
the hookshot alone is way more free form in aLttP than in the 3D Zeldas, where the game needs to give you a very specific point where you can use it and nowhere else
Link's Awakening will always be my favourite in the series, but so much of it is based on ALttP. The Game Boy became the natural home to some "weird" sequels, including Super Mario Land 2, which takes the general aesthetics of Super Mario World and introduces offbeat powerups and level themes. The Game Boy allowed Nintendo to experiment with IPs in a way that they couldn't with their mainline console games.
But... fast? Then why do I stumble around in it so much, trying to figure out which direction will go where? When you fill in the item grid it's not so bad, but before then selecting the item you want can be confusing. You probably do switch items more often in LA, yes, but it's quicker to do there than here.
LA's menu may be a bit quicker, as there are fewer items. But then I don't see how that compensates for the fact that you have to go into the item menu far more frequently than in any other Zelda game.
The map represents the land, though. An empty map is something I want to explore, but a full one already is explored...
For me it makes me care less about finding all those corners, because it's already there on the map, so what's the point of finding it all?
But getting back to LttP, besides, with how boring I find most of the overworld's design in this game, it's not like exploring is as fun as it is in the best Zelda games anyway... there definitely is fun to be had, but less than any of the 3d games, or the GB/GBC games either.
I still don't understand your point about the map. Say a game map includes a strange continent ringed by mountains so as to be (apparently) inaccessible from the sea. You don't want to look for a way in to find out what's there? Or what if there is a giant tower in the middle of the forest? You don't care about climbing the tower because it's already on the map?
In LttP, you need to actually go to Death Mountain to learn the network of caves full of secret fairy fountains, heart pieces, etc. You need to go beyond the witch's hut to find a hidden Great Fairy and Zora's river (not on the map). Turtle Rock is a super-interesting geological formation that you can find early in the game, even if it won't be important until the very end. It's not on the map.
In LttP, exploring the hidden corners of the world gives you early access to the ice rod, the cape of invisibility, the cane of byrna, and the medallions. Many of these are optional, and they are far cooler rewards for exploration than the series ever gave again. Bombos is the most powerful magic attack in the series!
Ideally it'd be challenging without being cheap or too frustrating. But due to the limited combat options, this game feels cheap sometimes. I think that being given better tools helped make combat more fun in the later games. If you disagree, why? How is more limiting combat better?
You've got a lot of combat options. If you feel like the stubby sword attacks are too risky, the game gives you a boomerang right off the bat. Picking up and throwing pots at enemies is often a good option. Later you'll have the medallions and the hookshot.
I actually like the swordplay in LttP. I don't find myself getting hit often, but the stubbiness of the basic attack makes it all the more exciting to get the master sword.
I'm sorry, but how is making the map more boring a good thing? Most of the map in LttP serves little purpose; it's just assortments of trees, walls, and enemies that are there for you to repeatedly walk through as you go to the dungeons, and maybe annoy you along the way if enemies score a hit or if you run into one of the roadblocks that requires a hidden item. And then when you get to the side areas, they're small, and you can access most of them right from the start anyway! What does that leave for later on, outside of the dungeons? Not much. It's not very interesting stuff, which is why the boring overworld maps has long been my biggest criticism of this game.
As I said before, the purpose of LttP's uncluttered corridors is navigability. LttP is not short of screens dense with secrets. Being able to return to these screens quickly, without the tedium of switching items every ten seconds, is a great advantage over LA.
"It's just assortments of trees, walls, and enemies" could describe just about any 2D Zelda game. But LttP makes it easier to pass through these obstacles and more rewarding when you find secrets among them.
OoT is the LttP style of map done right -- it's got a central area again, but has much more interesting, larger themed side areas that feel like full areas, not the tiny postage stamps too many areas in LttP are, the mountains and maybe also the Lost Woods excepted.
Yeah, a too simple story, with the minimal payoff such a basic story suggests. (On another note, spending so much time in the ending for NPCs who barely matter in the game is kind of odd...)
For players who spend time exploring LttP's world and meeting the NPCs, it's actually pretty nice seeing, e.g., the bug-catching kid and the lost man in the mountains.
Anyway, I don't agree that the story is too simple. It's not a text- or cinematic-heavy game. It wants enough story to incite the player's interest in the world and motivate him/her to complete the dungeons. The prologue, the inciting incident (Zelda's telepathic entreaty), and the pivot point (Zelda and Link sent to dark world) do a pretty good job of this! I found it very exciting the first time I entered the mysterious Lost Woods and found the legendary master sword. I also enjoyed getting additional bits of story from the different maidens. And of course the final showdown with Ganon was plenty dramatic, and came with a pretty great payoff in Link finally getting his hands on the triforce and restoring the world of light.
So? I said this in the article, but again, you are told that after the first dungeon. Then the one and only time you ever need to use this item is TEN DUNGEONS LATER, in the bottom of the 11th dungeon. If you don't get it right away, you'll never remember the clue, no chance. Has there ever been a Zelda game with a bigger gap between when you are given a clue for an item you can now get, and the first (and only in this case) required use of an item? If so I can't think of it! Being punished near the end of a game for messing something up near the beginning is terrible design. I know some games did that kind of thing back then (King's Quest did it several times for example...), but it's bad.
I don't know if any Zelda game has a bigger gap between clue for an item and that item's first mandatory use. But then in the original Zelda game you might never come across clues, and it could be pretty random when you came across the items themselves.
As I said, I am somewhat sympathetic to the point that Sahasralah's stone in Turtle Rock should have included a warning about the ice rod. But it's not like his clue is the only reason you would ever come across it. Most players actually want to explore the world (that being a big part of all but one or two Zelda games) and will naturally come across the caves east of Lake Hylia.
So if someone kept going in KQIV (or was it III?) after using that required item early, but they didn't know it so they got much deeper into the game before realizing they had to start the whole game over, and said 'forget this!' instead of starting it over, you'd just say "git gud" to them? Yeah, that's a more extreme case than this, but it is the same kind of issue.
Don't you need to throw a bunch of stuff in to get the item though? I forget. And it's off in a corner of the map anyway, it's not some well-travelled location.
Nope, just one thing (bush, a skull, whatever). It's a location most players will want to examine in Dark World because its light world equivalent has (1) a great fairy, who gives you the magic boomerang and a free shield upgrade, and (2) access to Zora's waterfall. Players usually want to know if those things still exist in Dark World.
You preface with this long explanation of how you're going to break down the game's various flaws, and then proceed to give a lot of opinions and statements of personal preference with little to no analysis. You rely heavily on statements along the lines of "the combat is harder because the sword is shorter, and therefore it's not as good," and "the problem with the map design is, it's not good, at all!" You even make an aside to Majora's Mask about how it's "interesting but flawed due to the time mechanic." OK dude, HOW is that a flaw? The time mechanic is one of the most beloved aspects of that game in the community at large, so you'd best back that up with some analysis. Do you see the connection between all the things I'm pointing out here? You've only mentioned various things and that you don't like them, which is fine in its own right; everyone's got their own tastes. The issue is that you've attempted to present this as some sort of detailed analysis of a game's flaws, and the majority of what you've written comes down to "I don't like it/it's different from a game I do like, and therefore it's a game design flaw." Sorry dude, that's not really how this works.
I like reading opinions and I don't mean to be too hard on you, op, as you obviously put some thought, time and energy into writing all that, but there is some disparity between how you've presented this and what you've actually said.
(Link's Awakening is my favorite game in the series too)
You preface with this long explanation of how you're going to break down the game's various flaws, and then proceed to give a lot of opinions and statements of personal preference with little to no analysis. You rely heavily on statements along the lines of "the combat is harder because the sword is shorter, and therefore it's not as good," and "the problem with the map design is, it's not good, at all!" You even make an aside to Majora's Mask about how it's "interesting but flawed due to the time mechanic." OK dude, HOW is that a flaw? The time mechanic is one of the most beloved aspects of that game in the community at large, so you'd best back that up with some analysis. Do you see the connection between all the things I'm pointing out here? You've only mentioned various things and that you don't like them, which is fine in its own right; everyone's got their own tastes. The issue is that you've attempted to present this as some sort of detailed analysis of a game's flaws, and the majority of what you've written comes down to "I don't like it/it's different from a game I do like, and therefore it's a game design flaw." Sorry dude, that's not really how this works.
I like reading opinions and I don't mean to be too hard on you, op, as you obviously put some thought, time and energy into writing all that, but there is some disparity between how you've presented this and what you've actually said.
(Link's Awakening is my favorite game in the series too)
If you'd read any of his comparable posts, you'd have to known what to expect. Extremely long winded exposition giving the impression of in-depth analysis, but the actual writing is juvenile and surface level in an extreme that borders on impressive.
You wrote a thread title that would incite nothing but drive-by garbage from people who would only read the title. I don't have the time to ban that many people, so I renamed the thread and got rid of the sensationalist slant. If you don't want your thread renamed, don't give it such a sensationalist title next time.
Ban people? What are you even talking about? It's not even that sensationalist. Overrated is a word that gets thrown around a lot. If his post was one paragraph, and the title said "Link to the Past is garbage" fine, but he clearly put a lot of thought and work into this.
Fine, but to me it reads like the classic "old game sucks because newer games improved things from the older ones", specially with things like "the other Zeldas" when at the time there were only two to compare with that were kinda different compared to each other.
"You can traverse quickly around" and "rewarding"? Those two are mutually exclusive terms, at least here, though! What's fun about a map that just lets you explore almost all of it right from the start? Where's the sense of adventure and exploration as you reach new areas, when the are so few new areas to find? Where's the sense of challenge or fun, when most areas are just big open spaces with a few scattered enemies, without the interesting designs or complex area layouts of later titles? Etc.
I just do not care much about finding everything in a game in most games, do not play games just to get better loot -- yes, I know this is a huge draw for many, but for me, sorry, the loot-based gameplay hook doesn't work that well. Maybe that is a factor here, in making me not care to explore just to find stuff since that's not why I play games almost all of the time... if exploration in the game is fun I'll do some item-hunting anyway of course, but I didn't find it as fun to explore in this game as it is in newer Zelda games, so that wasn't a help here.
The map tiles thing matters (I like maps, but not loot!), but the bigger issue is about the map's design itself. Letting you explore almost everywhere from the start, with such an open map, was a mistake and hurts this game a lot.
I think the problem is the OP is playing the wrong series. Zelda is first and mainly about exploration. plot, characters, combat, princesses, triforces and timelines are window dressing. aLttP is so much about exploring that even the error catching routine of the game leads you to a secret area. this is how committed to exploration aLttP is
the map is not completely open at the start. there are still obstacles, things you cannot do, stones you cannot lift, lakes you cannot swim in, doors you cannot bomb. the advantage to this is that once you find a new item, you have a large playfield to use it
every time you collect a new item, your brain should be clicking in 'oooh so that's what this is for' so you scour the map in search of uses of the new item to open new rooms, areas, treasures. the game does this several times, with the arrows, with the bombs, with the medallions, with the hookshot, with the mirror -in what is the best exploration mechanic in the whole series-, and even with the boots
in fact this lack of curiosity is what made you miss the Ice Rod at the start, where nearly everyone else found it by just getting the bombs and immediately going around the overworld bombing everything that looked bombable, because doing so is interesting and fun in and by itself; missing the item is ok and normal, but doing so because you dislike finding items and exploring is...you are playing the wrong games
if you lack this basic curiosity and sense of wonder, if you need a fairy guiding you to every secret and a huge list full of achievements and percentages of completion, then Zelda is not for you. it is literally the center of the game, exploration for exploration's sake. it'd be like playing a fighting game if you don't like hitting people, a fast FPS if you get motion sickness, sim city if you hate designing a city
it can be done, but don't come back complaining that this Chess game you found requires planning your moves ahead
I don't see how the hookshot is more free-form in aLttP. Like you say, it is used only once in the Swamp Palace to unlock the later part of the dungeon (and to defeat the boss), and then it was pretty much out of the game designer's mind. All of the base-functionality from aLttP's hookshot is present in every single 3D Zelda, like latching on to wooden objects like posts, crates, and chests, collecting items from a distance, and stunning enemies. On top of those standard features, you can now also hook on to specially marked plates, which are used in puzzle design and traversal that uses the Z-axis. Using it extensively in multiple dungeons, opposed to barely using it at all, does a much better show at the item's worth in my book.
When the designers don't bother to show you how can contribute to your journey, you end up with situations the uneasy dynamic between the hookshot and the boomerang. In aLttP, there is huge overlap between your (magical) boomerang and hookshot's functionality, to the point where the hookshot might as well replace the icon of the boomerang. The designers clearly noticed this, because in most games after it, they draw a clear line between the two items. In OoT they split the two items up between young and adult Link. In other games, they give the boomerang multi-targeting features, imbue it with the power of wind to disrupt the game world, let you freely draw its trajectory with a stylus, or simply make it more powerful than the hookshot.
you are being unfair to the hookshot. it is used in several other areas, dungeons, random caves, even the overworld. sometimes it is not obligatory, but you do use your hookshot for traversal after its dungeon
it is fair that the boomerang ends up being overwritten by the hookshot for the most part, but the boomerang had its day at the beginning of the game. it is not a tragedy. it is an improvement of the later games to make the boomerang and the hookshot different but sometimes they made it in annoying ways (like in windwaker) or plain old cheating by forcing you to not have them at the same time, like in OoT. don't think the hookshot mostly replacing the boomerang is such a slight against the game
We'll have to disagree on "the superior way", I guess. When I for instance stumbled on that puzzle with the boots, I figured I was just missing another item. The particular puzzle itself is clever, but since nothing lead up to it, it just felt like it didn't belong in the game. Nintendo games of that era have done this particular thing before, like the power-bombable tube in Super Metroid. Moves like that just made me wonder if poorly explained left-field puzzles in otherwise puzzle-starved games were just a way to combat rentals.
isn't the power bombable tube in super metroid shown in the attraction mode? dunno about combating rentals. if anything the humongous empty fields of later 3d zeldas do more to combat rentals by just making games slower
I think it is the "superior way" because at the point you find that door, you are in a position to have collected every item, thus filling up the menu screen. yeah, you may have arrived there skipping some of the optional stuff, but if you didn't, you know that something is up, that the game is asking for a little more
isn't the power bombable tube in super metroid shown in the attraction mode? dunno about combating rentals. if anything the humongous empty fields of later 3d zeldas do more to combat rentals by just making games slower
Even without the attract mode, the game also gives you plenty of context to figure out that you're supposed to bomb it without needing to be told/shown if you actually take the effort to explore and examine your surroundings.
Which, as you said, if you aren't really up for putting in the effort to explore beyond just trying to fill in an automap, then maybe you're playing the wrong kind of game.
Counterpoint: All of the 3d Zeldas are hot garbage. with extreme handholding and much less creative puzzle designs. They don't encourage exploration and experimentation like the older (or other 2d Zelda games) did. OoT legitimately felt like Baby's first Zelda when it came out.
While I appreciate the OPs time and effort to do this write-up, I have some major disagreements.
Firstly, OP does my biggest GAF pet peeve, misusing the word "flaw". Where I come from, a "flaw" is a technical or game design problem. Like the combat is broken, or the story is cringe-worthy, or the soundtrack sucks. None of which is true of ALTTP.
Take OP complaints about story and character. Yeah, the game doesn't have much exposition or NPCs with much back story. That's not a "flaw". The world and characters exist as a kind of puzzle. The game deliberately avoids superfluous information so you can focus on using all of the environmental clues and NPC advice to make progress. It would be harder to remember the clues about how to find the flute if you were also juggling extra inrformation about the boy's name and his favorite beverage. This point is also true of Skyward Sword and Majora's Mask btw, where the overworld is less a sprawling sandbox, and more an environmental puzzle
And that brings us to another of OP's "flaws", that is the way that items are distributed between dungeons and the overworld. OPs examples are items that you will miss if you don't explore thoroughly or pay attention to NPC advice. Well, that's the point of the game. You have to explore thoroughly, keep track of info that you're given, backtrack to older areas with newer abilities, and, in general, think critically about how to proceed. And none of this cryptic or unfair, you have to put on your thinking cap and take your time. Not having Navi or Midna to hold your hand and give you a participation trophy is not a "flaw". And there are plenty of other adventure games out there that do your thinking for you if that's what you want. Oh, and OP doesn't even mention the Fortune Teller, who can get you back on track if you're stumped as to your next move.
Personally, I much prefer Zelda games that split out items between the dungeons and game world. It breaks up the monotony of "now I'm in the hookshot dungeon, when I get out I'll have to use it to find the next dungeon, rinse and repeat".
What else? Combat issues???? LOLOL. ALTTPs sword play is not as complex as Zelda 2, but it's actually pretty refined for its' time and still holds up. Most enemies guard directly in front of them, but your sword sweeps vertically with good range, so you need to find the right angle to pierce enemy defenses. Get the enemy to commit to a certain path of attack, then approach slightly off center. Or spin attack them if you have time. Shoot an arrow if you're not out. Throw a freakin' pot at their head! There are a lot of options and you get to expand your repertoire as you go along. Compare that to most 3D Zeldas where the combat is "lock on, strafe for a bit, roll from their attack, jump slash". Again, Skyward Sword id the exception here and its' combat is more like Zelda 2 or ALTTP.
Personally I find most GOAT list to be a little silly. Off the top of my head there are not very many games that could even qualify, Tetris being one of the few and MAYBE Super Metroid.
