The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

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The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Zelda A Link Between Worlds Logo.png
Logo of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Original title ゼ ル ダ の 伝 説 神 々 の ト ラ イ フ ォ ー ス 2
transcription Zeruda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Toraifōsu 2
Studio Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development (planning and development)
Monolith Soft (support design)
Publisher Nintendo
Senior Developer Eiji Aonuma (Producer)
Hiromasa Shikata (Director)
composer Ryō Nagamatsu
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 North AmericaNorth America 22nd of November 2013

European UnionEuropean UnionNovember 22, 2013 November 23, 2013
AustraliaAustralia

JapanJapan December 26, 2013
platform Nintendo 3DS
genre Action adventure
Age rating
USK released from 6
PEGI recommended for ages 7 and up
PEGI content
rating
Game contains violence

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (OT: Jap. ゼルダの伝説神々のトライフォース2 , Zeruda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Toraifōsu TSU ) is the Japanese video game company Nintendo developed and out given action adventure - video game for the handheld Nintendo 3DS . It was released in Europe and North America in November 2013, and in Japan in December.

The game is the 17th title in The Legend of Zelda video game series . It is strongly based on the series part A Link to the Past and continues its story a few centuries later. New game elements in the Zelda series that can be found in A Link Between Worlds include the function of transforming the character into a graffito, as well as a new item system that gives the player more freedom of choice. The game also has a bird's eye view.

The Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development studio, directed by Hiromasa Shikata, was responsible for developing A Link Between Worlds . Planning for the game began right after the completion of Spirit Tracks , the previous handheld part of the series. The actual development phase started at the end of 2011.

With a metascore of 91 out of 100 points, A Link Between Worlds is considered one of the best 3DS games. The trade press particularly emphasized the puzzles as well as the flow of the game and the speed of the game, while some publications criticized the graphics and the strong similarity to A Link to the Past . According to some critics, the game introduces innovations to the Zelda range without neglecting the series' traditions. And yet the opinions of the trade press regarding these innovations were rather mixed. By March 2014, the manufacturer said it had sold over two and a half million copies of the game.

Game description

action

A Link Between Worlds is set in the game world of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past ( SNES , 1991; ALttP for short ) and is set six generations after the events of that title. According to the timeline of the Zelda series , the events from Oracle of Ages / Oracle of Seasons ( GBC , 2001) and Link's Awakening ( GB , 1993) took place between the two games . On A Link Between Worlds thus follows the plot of The Legend of Zelda ( FDS / NES , 1986/1987).

At the beginning of the plot, the protagonist Link, who lives in the kingdom of Hyrule as an apprentice to the blacksmith, witnesses a magician named Yuga who is up to mischief and turns people into portraits. Sahasrahla fears that Yuga wants to track down the descendants of the Seven Wise Men, who long ago banished the evil Ganon, in order to use their power to bring the demon back to life. So she tells Link to stop the magician. Link is supported in his mission by a traveling merchant in a rabbit costume named Ravio, who moves into his house and in return lends him useful equipment and gives him a bracelet.

When Link comes across Yuga again in the course of the game, he turns him into graffito . Thanks to Ravio's bracelet, Link can move around on the wall in this two-dimensional state and thus escape. Then Yuga takes Hyrule Castle. In order to overcome the magical barrier he has erected, Link obtains the master sword with which a legendary hero had defeated Ganon many years ago, and faces the evil magician again in the castle. This transforms Princess Zelda into a painting and escapes through a crack in the wall into another dimension. Link follows him and finds himself in the kingdom of Lorule, a kind of parallel dimension to Hyrule.

In Lorule, Yuga makes use of the strength of all seven wise men who are now locked up in portraits and lets Ganon rise again, who merges with him. Just before he can kill Link in a fight, Hilda, Queen of Lorule, appears and stops Yuga. She asks Link to save the Seven Wise Men. To do this, he has to cross seven temples in Lorule, track down the portraits and touch them.

The Triforce

After completing this mission, Link returns to the castle, where Hilda tells him about the story of her kingdom. As in Hyrule, there was once a divine artifact in Lorule, which is known as the Triforce and fulfills all of its owner's wishes. As wars for the Triforce threatened to fragment the kingdom, the royal family destroyed the Triforce of Lorule. As a result, the kingdom is on the verge of its downfall. To avert this, Hilda made the decision to get to the Triforce of Hyrule with the help of Yuga by a ruse. Link tries to prevent this and fights the magician. However, Yuga is no longer controllable by Hilda; he acts on his own to claim the power of the Triforce for himself. Link eventually defeats Yuga. Then Ravio appears, who turns out to be a resident of Lorule and convinces Hilda to abandon her plan. Link and the freed Princess Zelda return to Hyrule. There they want a second divine relic from their Triforce for the parallel kingdom, so that peace breaks in again. Finally, Link brings the Master Sword back to the Lost Forests from which he obtained it.

Gameplay

In A Link Between Worlds, the player takes control of the Link character . The game world is mainly shown from a bird's eye view and is - apart from minor changes - identical to that of the prequel . The dungeons distributed across the game world have been completely redesigned.

To complete the plot of the game, the player must visit all dungeons, traverse them successfully and face their boss opponents . For this, for exploring the game world and for solving puzzles distributed in the dungeons and in the game world, pieces of equipment (" items ") are required. The health of the game character is visualized by hit points in the form of hearts, the number of which decreases after enemy attacks and falls into lava, abysses, etc. After losing all hearts, the game over follows .

Wall concept and parallel world

When the game progresses at a certain level, the player has the option of transforming his character into a graffito at the push of a button, provided it is on a wall. The player can then steer Link horizontally along the walls. This technique makes it possible to overcome obstacles, to slip through cracks in a wall to the other side, to get from one ledge to another or to “hold on” to moving platforms. If Link is in the painting state, the energy display goes down steadily. It temporarily limits the character's ability to paint, because this state ends automatically as soon as the display has expired.

Also after a set progress, the player can travel back and forth between the two worlds Hyrule and Lorule. This is made possible by dimensional portals in both worlds in the form of cracks in walls, through which the playing figure can wander, whereupon it appears at the corresponding point in the parallel world . Similar to A Link to the Past with a world of light and shadow, Lorule is a world based on Hyrule and modified in many details. It behaves in the opposite way to Hyrule: the surroundings, the residents and the buildings are counterparts of those from Hyrule, and there is a gloomy atmosphere in Lorule.

Item system

In A Link Between Worlds , the player borrows the items relevant for the adventure from the dealer Ravio in exchange for a fixed number of rubies, regardless of the game progress . This is the fictional currency of the Zelda universe that Link receives from defeated opponents and is hidden in many parts of the game world. This means that all items are theoretically available to the character at the beginning of the game. The player can decide for himself which items he needs. If the character dies, he loses all items and has to borrow them again as soon as he continues the game. Later in the game it is possible for the player to purchase items so that he does not lose them after the game character dies. This allows the player to largely determine the order of the dungeons himself.

The use of items such as arrows and bombs is not limited by a supply, but solely by an energy meter. This decreases with the use of most items as well as the wall ability and automatically refills after a short cooldown .

Aesthetics and graphics

A Link Between Worlds uses a graphic style based on A Link to the Past , which - unlike its predecessor, whose graphic consists of sprites - is calculated in real time using three-dimensional polygons . The game supports the optional autostereoscopic, glasses-free 3D effect of the Nintendo 3DS. In addition, it runs in both 2D and 3D mode as the first part of the Zelda series to be calculated in 3D at a stable frame rate of 60 frames per second . According to the manufacturer, this allows for a more solid 3D effect.

History of origin

A Link Between Worlds was developed by the Software Development Department 3 of the Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development (EAD) studio in Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto, Japan . The department head Eiji Aonuma , who was involved as producer , and the director Hiromasa Shikata , who made his debut as project manager with the game, were responsible for the project. Senior programmer Shiro Mouri and lead game designer Kentaro Tominaga acted as assistant directors . The Zelda -creator and EAD manager Shigeru Miyamoto was general producer of the title. Other influential developers in the Zelda series such as Takashi Tezuka or Toshihiko Nakagō held supervisor positions. Ryō Nagamatsu acted as composer . The Kyōto-Studio of the Nintendo subsidiary Monolith Soft supported the development team in the design and implementation of the characters, environments and dungeons.

Start of the project (end of 2009 - October 2010)

The Zelda chief developer Shigeru Miyamoto rejected the first draft of A Link Between Worlds .

After completing The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks ( DS , 2009), the majority of the Zelda team was assigned to work on Skyward Sword ( Wii , 2011) at the end of 2009 . At the same time, at the end of 2009, planning began for a new Zelda game for the next Nintendo handheld, the Nintendo 3DS, which was released in March 2011. The team responsible for the planning initially only included Shikata, Mouri and one other programmer.

Half a year after the planning work began, the team presented Miyamoto, who is responsible for approving new EAD projects, with an idea in which communication was the central theme. Miyamoto rejected the concept because he thought it was out of date. Planning then started from scratch. Shikata spontaneously came up with the idea that the character of the new game should be able to transform into a mural.

Within a day, Mouri programmed a prototype for this idea. Unlike the final product, this early prototype used the third-person perspective and the link from Spirit Tracks as a placeholder for the character . Miyamoto finally approved this prototype. Two weeks later, in October 2010, the three-man team was disbanded and assigned to work on the EAD productions New Super Mario Bros. U ( Wii U , 2012) and Nintendo Land (Wii U, 2012). The Zelda project was therefore initially put on hold.

Revival of the project (from November 2011)

Eiji Aonuma, the game's producer, continued development of the project in November 2011 after a one-year hiatus.

In order to meet the target publication period for the end of 2013, Aonuma resumed work on the new handheld Zelda in November 2011 after the completion of Skyward Sword , the development of which had previously been idle for a year. Tominaga, previously a game designer for Skyward Sword , temporarily took over the direction of Shikata .

One of the goals of the development team was to incorporate the 3D effect of the 3DS into the game in such a way that it has a constructive effect on the game principle . This resulted in dungeons in which the height differences between two levels play a large role. Another guiding principle during development was to rethink the conventions of the Zelda series. In the context of this, Shikata came up with the idea of ​​leaving the choice of the dungeon sequence to the player from a certain level of progress. To make this possible, the team devised a system in which the player should buy his equipment in a shop within the game. The loan function was inspired by Aonuma's hobby .

Aonuma explained in an interview in October 2013 why the development team opted for a less linear gameplay.

“When we created Skyward Sword , […] it came to mind that maybe the users have started to get bored with Zelda , the traditional Zelda . So we'd like to try and change that up. We thought then that it would be more important to implement a kind of hand-holding system, where users would always know what they were supposed to do. But maybe it's different - perhaps it's also fun to just get lost in the game and try to figure out what to do by themselves ... ”

“When we were doing Skyward Sword , it occurred to us that maybe players are getting bored of the Zelda series, the traditional Zelda formula. So we wanted to try to change that. At the time, we believed it was more important to have some kind of hand-hold system in place so that players always know what to do. But maybe it's completely different - maybe it's also fun to get lost in the game and find out for yourself what to do. "

- Eiji Aonuma : IGN, 2013

Development as a continuation of A Link to the Past (from mid-2012)

Since the launch of the 3DS, Miyamoto Aonuma had repeatedly suggested that a new edition ("remake") of A Link to the Past be developed with three-dimensional graphics for the handheld. Aonuma was critical of the idea because he preferred to develop a new game based on the SNES classic. The idea of ​​conceiving the 3DS- Zelda as a continuation of A Link to the Past did not arise until May 2012, when Miyamoto again threw the suggestion for an ALttP remake into the room at another internal presentation of the project and the development team combined this idea with the already developed concept of the new game. The positive response to a level suggested by Miyamoto in Super Mario 3D Land (3DS, 2011), which is intended as a homage to the Zelda series and is played from a bird's eye view, confirmed the developers in this decision.

Although Aonuma agreed with the proposal, the development team was initially skeptical. To illustrate his idea of ​​the game, Aonuma remodeled the game world of A Link to the Past with the help of software within a few days as a proof of concept in 3D and presented it to Miyamoto in July 2012. The latter agreed, as did the development team, so that the implementation of the concept could begin. First, the developers experimented with a bird's eye view. In order to be able to depict the game figure not directly from above, but at an angle, despite the overhead perspective, so that its face and body can also be recognized, all objects and figures were pulled slightly backwards in relation to the game world. When Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros. U were completed in late 2012 , the original team rejoined the project and Shikata took over the direction. At that time, the development team grew significantly.

Painting-Link was originally intended as a simple 2D version of the link from Spirit Tracks , but towards the end of 2012 the team decided on an avant-garde design. It was only at this point that the script writers wrote the plot of the game; According to the game's credits , this was done by Nintendo employees Tatsuya Hishida and Mari Shirakawa, who had not previously been involved in any other Zelda game.

At times, the Zelda team worked on the new edition The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD (Wii U, 2013) and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (working title; Wii U, Switch, 2017). At the beginning of October 2013, the development team that last consisted of more than 90 people completed work on A Link Between Worlds .

music

The video game composer Ryō Nagamatsu of the EAD Sound Group wrote the soundtrack for the game, making his debut for a Zelda game. For reasons of musical aesthetics and because of the speakers on the 3DS handheld, the team decided against video game music played by an orchestra . Even so, according to the producer, the music in the game should sound like it was played by real instruments.

The soundtrack includes reinterpretations of pieces from A Link to the Past , which originally come from the pen of Nintendo composer Kōji Kondō . Arrangements of well-known pieces from the series that Nagamatsu himself played on a flute and backed with guitar tones created by a synthesizer can also be unlocked in the game . The figures link and Ravio were from the Japanese seiyū Mitsuki Saiga synchronized while Ayumi Fujimura said Princess Zelda and Seiro Ogino the antagonist set to music Yuga. The title does not include speech output . Only the exclamations of the characters are set to music.

publication

Announcements

Since April 2011 Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma expressed the possibility of a continuation of A Link to the Past for the 3DS in several interviews . The trade press initially interpreted these statements as expressions of wish. In September 2011, Aonuma confirmed to the video game magazine Game Informer for the first time specifically the development of a new Zelda game for the 3DS. In June 2012, Miyamoto said in an interview that Nintendo was currently deciding between a sequel or remake of A Link to the Past and a remake of Majora's Mask ( N64 , 2000) for the 3DS.

On April 17, 2013, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata presented A Link Between Worlds to the public for the first time as part of a broadcast of the “Nintendo Direct” web show . He affirmed that it was not a remake of A Link to the Past , although the game world was taken over from this game. Nintendo released the first trailer for the game on the same day . In June 2013, the manufacturer presented a new trailer during the E3 game fair and announced the game's final western name.

title

Preliminary logo from the “Nintendo Direct” presentation from April 2013

When it was announced in April 2013, the manufacturer temporarily named the game simply as The Legend of Zelda . Alternatively, the video game press referred to the game as Zelda 3DS or A Link to the Past 2 before the final title was announced .

In Japan the game is called ゼ ル ダ の 伝 説 神 々 の ト ラ イ フ ォ ー ス 2 , Zeruda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Toraifōsu 2 , which can be translated literally as "Triforce of the Gods 2". Since A Link to the Past was published in Japan as Kamigami no Toraifōsu , the analogous translation of the Japanese title is " A Link to the Past 2 ".

To emphasize that it is not a remake, but a new game, the manufacturer named the game in the West with the subtitle A Link Between Worlds . If the name is interpreted as an allusion to the title of the prequel, the name of the character and the feature of traveling back and forth between two worlds, this title can be translated as “A Link Between Worlds” or “A Connection Between Worlds”. During the development, The New Legend of Zelda was also discussed as the title , parallel to New Super Mario Bros. (DS, 2006), which is a reinterpretation of the concept of the first Super Mario games.

Launch

Special edition of the 3DS XL in Zelda design

A Link Between Worlds was released in Europe and North America on November 22, 2013 . In Australia , the game was released on November 23rd and in Japan , Nintendo released the game on December 26th. In all regions, the manufacturer released the game both in stores and as a full-price download from Nintendo eShop . In addition, a special edition of the Nintendo 3DS XL in the Zelda design including a download code for A Link Between Worlds was released worldwide parallel to the game .

The original soundtrack for the game has been available at the Japanese club Nintendo since September 2014 . The official soundtrack has been available at Club Nintendo for Europe since January 2015. It contains a total of 105 pieces as well as an accompanying booklet.

On October 16, 2015, new copies of A Link Between Worlds will be released at a lower price as part of the “Nintendo Selects” label .

Sales figures

According to the Federal Association of Interactive Entertainment Software (BIU), over 100,000 copies of A Link Between Worlds had been sold in Germany by January 2014 . In the United Kingdom , the game debuted at number 9 on the video game charts determined by the market research company GfK Chart-Track for the week of market introduction. In Sweden the game debuted at No. 1 into the charts in Norway at No. 2 and in Finland ranked 8th

According to market research firm NPD Group , A Link Between Worlds was sold around 280,000 times in North America in November 2013. In addition, the 3DS-XL bundle that came with the game sold around 125,000 times during the month of release. As of January 2014, North American sales rose to 715,000. In Japan, the game was first on the weekly video game charts when it was launched, according to market research company Media Create, with around 225,000 sales.

The following table gives an overview of the game's global sales, split between Japan and overseas. The data comes from official Nintendo financial reports and includes both download and bundle sales.

Sales figures
was standing Global Japan Overseas
Dec 31, 2013 2.18 million 0.33 million 1.85 million
31 Mar 2014 2.51 million 0.47 million 2.04 million

reception

Preview reports

In June 2013, Samuel Claiborn from the English-language video game website IGN expressed concerns about the game world of A Link Between Worlds . Since this was taken from A Link to the Past with almost no changes , he feared that the traditional sense of adventure and exploration for the Zelda series would be lost and that the game would only be aimed at newcomers to the series. Claiborn saw no equivalent replacement for the quasi-identical upper world in the feature of being able to step on walls.

The video game journalist Jeremy Parish criticized the graphics of the game in a game preview published in early November 2013 for the English video game website USGamer. Especially in cutscenes optical defects would clear which reduced the drama of the plot. To compensate for this point of criticism, Parish compared the graphics of the title with its game concept. He praised the control of the character, which is particularly fluid and quick and reacts well to the player's inputs. A Link Between Worlds is the Zelda game with the best flow, Parish continues. He summed up his opinion of the game in the title of his report with the words "Looks Like Crap, Plays Like a Dream" (for example: "Looks like shit, plays like a dream").

Reviews

The video game journalist Keza McDonald summarized in the game review for IGN in November 2013 that A Link Between Worlds could convince with its challenging gameplay, its puzzles and innovations. On the other hand, McDonald described the plot, the characters and the game world as flat and lacking in identity. Since the game shakes the foundations of the Zelda series, it is more than a simple sequel. McDonald praised the game world, which rewarded exploration by the player, as well as the novel and varied puzzles within the dungeons. She also noticed that the player acts more independently than in the previous parts. A Link Between Worlds does not support the player with a detailed tutorial , but with the level and puzzle design. So the game goes back to the meaning of adventure and exploration in the first Zelda games.

Andy Robertson of the English language Forbes Magazine refuted the original concerns in November 2013 that A Link Between Worlds was merely taking material from the prequel. The game is "one of the most lovable and convincing" ("one of the most endearing and compelling") that he has played recently. In contrast to previous Zelda games, the level of difficulty is lower, noted Robertson. Although he criticized the fact that the game would have more dungeons can tolerate that the act "a little too much fairy tale and not enough Legend " ( "a little too much fairy tale and not enough legend") was, and criticized the low replay value , relativized These points of criticism, however, because they do not only apply to this game, but to the entire Zelda series.

In January 2014, Carsten Göring wrote in a report for the German news website Spiegel Online that A Link Between Worlds feels fresh despite the inclusion of many tried and tested elements from the Zelda series. He described the game world as compact. Stephen Totilo, an editor for the video game website Kotaku , named the game's dungeons among the most elaborately designed mazes in a November 2013 review on Nytimes.com . He also welcomed the fact that the game gave the player more freedom and was thus going back to the older Zelda titles. Susan Arendt of the video game-focused website Joystiq criticized the game's boss fights, which were too reminiscent of those from A Link to the Past and not challenging. They are the only elements of the game that Arendts said they didn't feel fresh.

In the review of the English-language video game website Eurogamer published in November 2013, the editor Christian Donlan criticized in particular the strong similarity to A Link to the Past and the graphics, which in his opinion are worse than those of the SNES prequel: How strong is A Link Between Worlds to the series' roots that many of the surprises inherent in it would be toned down. Therefore, for series connoisseurs, the game is less about exploration, but more about re-exploration, so that the game leaves the feeling of a new edition. Donlan also expressed criticism of some central features of the title: The parallel game world Lorule, for example, is too simple, too small and has too few puzzles. On the positive side, he highlighted the controls as “unique” (“peerless”) and praised the dungeons.

The British game magazine Edge complained on the one hand that the graphics of the game are rough and simple, on the other hand the frame rate of 60 fps made possible by the simple graphics ensures a very smooth gaming experience. The magazine also praised the “glorious orchestral arrangements of classic melodies” (“glorious orchestrations of classic themes”). Martin Gaston of the English game website GameSpot said that the 3D effect improves the gaming experience by giving the game more depth and character. According to him, Super Mario 3D Land is the only game in the game repertoire of the 3DS that uses the 3D effect of the handheld a little better than A Link Between Worlds .

Criticism of the item system

The critics have dealt particularly intensively with the item system. According to McDonald, A Link Between Worlds links a well-known game world with major innovations within the Zelda series. The new item system increases the importance of exploration in the game, leaves the player more freedom of choice and makes the game less linear. Therefore, the novelty, which at first glance seems minor, has a major impact on the overall game. Since the game character loses all items that have been borrowed due to the new system after death, screen death represents a particularly great threat to the player.

The Edge criticized the item system as being unbalanced. The magazine noted in its review of the game that experienced players would rarely face a game over. The loss of the loaned equipment is therefore not a major threat. The alternative - to buy the items at high prices - also appears to be badly balanced, since the character can get enough rubies very quickly. Other redundant ideas of this kind would tarnish Nintendo's achievement of creating an adventure that can be determined by the player with A Link Between Worlds . The Edge welcomed the fact that the developers had to replace routine processes in the dungeons with surprising elements to make this possible.

In his Eurogamer review, Donlan made mixed comments on the item system. It is disappointing and reduces the " thrill " of finding new items while exploring a dungeon. At the same time, it is a clever idea that gives the developers new possibilities in terms of game structure. Donlan also welcomed the decision to let the player buy the equipment through a virtual currency instead of using a so-called micropayment for this purpose . In addition, the item system creates a greater threat within the game, which the author described as one of the easiest Zelda games to play .

In a review for the German-language game magazine GamePro , Kai Schmidt criticized the item system because, in his opinion, it diminishes the fascination of receiving new pieces of equipment and using them to conquer previously insurmountable passages of the game world.

Rating mirror

reviews
publication Rating
4players 92%
Computer picture games 1.25
Destructoid 6.5 / 10
Edge 8/10
Eurogamer 8/10
Famitsu 38/40
Game Informer 10/10
GamePro 87%
GameSpot 9/10
IGN 9.4 / 10
Joystiq 5/5
Nintendo Life 10/10
Nintendo World Report 9.5 / 10
Official Nintendo Magazine 94%
N zone 90/100
Polygon 9.5 / 10
Nintendo Online 9/10
The Escapist 3.5 / 5
The Daily Telegraph 4/5
Meta-ratings
GameRankings 91.32%
Metacritic 91/100

The review aggregator website Metacritic has determined an average rating (“Metascore”) of 91 out of 100 points for A Link Between Worlds from 81 reviews. At GameRankings , a comparable conceptually website that the average score is 91.11%, starting from 54 reviews (as of April 2014).

The table to the right of this text contains a selection of ratings used by various video game websites and magazines to rate the game.

Awards and leaderboards

A Link Between Worlds has been nominated at several award ceremonies and received some awards. The following table provides an overview of the game's nominations and awards.

Award ceremony category result Date of nomination
or award
BIU Sales Award gold Won Feb 11, 2014
DICE Awards 2013 Adventure game of the year 2013 Nominated Jan. 17, 2014
Handheld Game of the Year 2013 Won 0Feb 6, 2014
Game of the year 2013 Nominated Jan. 17, 2014
Game Developers Choice Awards 2013 Best game design 2013 Nominated 0Jan. 9, 2014
Handheld Game of the Year 2013 Won 19 Mar 2014
Game Informer Best of 2013 Awards 3DS Exclusive Game 2013 Won 0Jan. 7, 2014
gamescom awards 2013 Best action game Nominated  Aug 2013
Best mobile game Won  Aug 2013
GamesIndustry Innovation Awards 2013 Innovation in game design Nominated 14 Mar 2014
GameSpot Game of the Year 2013 Game of the year 2013 Won  Dec. 2013
GIGA mouse 2014 Best game for children from 10 Won Oct 10, 2014
IGN's Best of 2013 3DS Game of the Year 2013 Won  Dec. 2013
Action-adventure game of the year 2013 Nominated  Dec. 2013
Best music of 2013 Won  Dec. 2013
Game of the year 2013 Nominated  Dec. 2013
Lara Award 2014 Best mobile game Won May 15, 2014
Spike Video Game Awards 2013 Handheld Game of the Year 2013 Won  Dec. 2013

The following list provides an overview of leaderboards that A Link Between Worlds has been included in.

  • Computer Bild Spiele, “The best games of 2013”: 2nd place
  • EGM, "EGM's Best of 2013": 3rd place
  • Entertainment Weekly , "Top 10 (and 3 Worst) Videogames of 2013": 8th place
  • Forbes, "The Best Video Games Of 2013": 6th place
  • Joystiq, "Top 10 of 2013": 2nd place
  • M! Games , "The Games of the Year 2013": 7th place
  • MTV , "The 10 Best Video Games Of 2013": 4th place

Meaning within the Zelda series

IGN's Keza McDonald said in October 2013 that A Link Between Worlds was rethinking the series 'conventions like no previous Zelda game, even though it was closely linked to the series' past as a continuation of the SNES Zelda offshoot . The game frees itself from the structural corset of the Zelda games of the last ten years.

In his game review, Game Informer editor Dan Ryckert names several elements as innovations for the Zelda series. This includes the concept of borrowing or buying items. In the previously released Zelda games, there is an item hidden in each dungeon that the character has to collect in order to complete the dungeon. Due to the new item system, a non-linear course of the game is made possible for the first time in the history of the series , because in previous Zelda games the order of the dungeons is strictly specified. In addition, Ryckert names the energy display, which is now the basis for all items, as an innovation, since the character in earlier Zelda parts has a supply of items such as bombs and arrows instead of them. Another innovation is the map that is available in dungeons from the start ; In previous Zelda titles, a dungeon map is only available to the player after he has collected it in the labyrinth.

Aonuma said in an interview in September 2013 that the development of the next Zelda game, which is to be released for the Wii U in 2015, will benefit from the experience his team has gained through A Link Between Worlds and The Wind Waker HD . He did not say which elements from A Link Between Worlds should flow into the new product. In an interview published in March 2014 by the British Official Nintendo Magazine , Aonuma was satisfied with the game concept of A Link Between Worlds . The game has set up new guidelines for Zelda games from a bird's eye view, which must be taken into account when developing further series offshoots.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The name of the character can be freely chosen in the game. The default name is "Link".
  2. ↑ As a download, A Link Between Worlds occupies 5440 blocks, the equivalent of around 680 megabytes of storage space.
  3. ↑ Computer Bild Spiele rated with German school grades : 1 is the top grade, 6 the worst.
  4. ↑ The rating of Famitsu is made up of four individual ratings by four editors. In this case the individual ratings are 10/9/10/9.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Alexander S .: In short: Who is developing The Legend of Zelda 3DS? In: Nintendo-Online. April 18, 2013, accessed March 1, 2014 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Monolith Soft was involved in Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. In: Nintendo-Online. November 15, 2013, accessed March 1, 2014 .
  3. ↑ a b Andrew Goldfarb: Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Mario Party 3DS Release Dates. In: IGN. August 28, 2013, accessed March 1, 2014 .
  4. ↑ a b Burak Cakir: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds will be released on November 22nd. In: Nintendo-Online. October 1, 2013, accessed March 1, 2014 .
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