The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
…aka. The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods (Japan)
Story
Hard times have fallen on Hyrule. An evil wind blowing from the mountains forced the king to appoint the shadowy wizard Aganhim to his side. Now the wizard has overthrown the king, and started kidnapping the descendents of the seven sages that sealed Ganondorf away many years ago. Princess Zelda is one of those descendents, and now she has gone missing too.
Link, a young Hylian boy, receives a psychic message from Zelda. Following his uncle into the castle, he must rescue princess Zelda from the castle dungeon.
Gameplay
Link's adventure starts in his bed, but you will soon find yourself inside Hyrule Castle armed with a sword and shield. Fight your way through the enemies and solve the puzzles to find Zelda. Only then does the true game begin.
Hyrule is a large, open world, populated by creatures and people of all shapes and sizes. As you explore, you will be given tasks to complete. Your key task at first is to collect the three pendants and gain the Master Sword so you can fight Aganhim. Upon completing this task you will be drawn into the Dark World, home of Ganondorf, where you must find all of the kidnapped maidens.
These items are found at the end of mazelike dungeons, each with a weapon hidden inside. These weapons are often used to help you solve puzzles and fight the boss battles inside the dungeons, as well as access new areas in the overworld. The dungeons are giant, enemy-filled puzzles, and they are necessary to completing the game.
As well as the main quests, there are many sub-quests to complete. Helping people out and exploring will yield rewards such as extra health, weapon upgrades, items and more.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past + Four Swords
A remake of A Link to the Past was released on the Game Boy Advance. The only significant change to the main game is that the text has been retranslated from the original Japanese, improving the ties to the later games in the series. The game also came with a new multiplayer mode: Four Swords.
Four Swords
There is a new multiplayer option called "Four Swords". When Zelda is kidnapped, Link pulls out the legendary Four Sword, splitting him into four. Up to four players take control of a Link as they battle through dungeons, helping each other solve puzzles and collect trasure on their way to the climactic battle awaiting them.
In two of the houses in Kakariko Village, you can find portraits of Mario hanging on the walls.
The portrait also appears in one of the houses in the Village of Outcasts in the Dark World.
Chain Chomp
In the Turtle Rock dungeon is an enemy that resembles the Chain Chomps from Super Mario Bros. 3. They are black iron balls with teeth, attached to stumps by a chain.
Fire Bar
The game also features rotating fire bars, which appear to be based on the rotating Fire Bars from Super Mario Bros.
Following a recently translated interview from 1991, a few interesting facts about the enemy cameos came to light.
Chain Chomp (Wanwan) had been sitting around as concept art for a while when both the Super Mario Bros. 3 and Legend of Zelda teams picked it up:
Q. By the way, there were several characters in this game that also appeared in Mario. Was that your idea, Mr. Tezuka?
Tezuka: We'd had concept art for Wanwan lying around for awhile. We'd put it aside thinking we might make use of it if we could, but someone discovered it and ended up using it for their own purposes.
The Fire Bars were designed originally for The Legend of Zelda, but were adopted into Super Mario Bros. and eventually dropped from the Zelda game:
Q. There were Fire Bars, too. I was wondering if there was some trick to the order of the creation process.
Tezuka: To tell you the truth, Fire Bars were originally made for Zelda. They were a lot of fun, so we used them in Mario too.
Miyamoto: Now that you mention it, it was Mario that did the ripping off. There were things we couldn't use in the first Zelda, you see, but as time passed and the statue of limitations was about to expire, we thought about using them again and ended up implementing them in this game.
Nakago: They were originally made for Zelda 1.
