The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

This game has been posted several times over the past few weeks, so it'd be easy for me to say "check those other posts as I mostly agree with them." But someone else already did that, so I guess I'll put some effort in. First off, I played The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and posted it on the Blog way back in 2009, and while I liked it, I certainly didn't love it. So when I found out the next Zelda game would be a direct sequel taking place in the same location, I wasn't enthused about the whole thing. But now that I've played A Link Between Worlds, I can see those fears were unfounded- the game is excellent. Yes, the game takes place in almost the exact same environment as Link to the Past, and much like that game had its Dark Hyrule, Link Between Worlds has a reverse Hyrule called Lorule (Har, har). But while locations like the desert and Death Mountain are still in the same places; and the game follows the three dungeons, then master sword, then six more dungeons in the dark world format as the previous game, everything here feels fresh. I chalk that up to two major changes. First, one that was heavily advertised as the gimmick to sell the game, Link can flatten himself onto walls to cross over chasms or squeeze into tight cracks. This may seem like a cheap gimmick for a few puzzles, but it's integrated into the game incredibly well. You will spend a lot of time plastering yourself to walls to solve puzzles and get around both in dungeons and out in the overworld. The game really feels like it wouldn't have worked at all without this gameplay feature, which to me was a huge success. The other big change here was the completely revamped item system, which really sets the game apart from every other previous Zelda game and removes almost all of the game's linearity. Basically after you get the master sword and first venture into Lorule, you are given the option to start renting items. They're fairly cheap, but you need to rent them again each time you die. So right from the start you can acquire every item you'll need to get through the rest of the game. This means you can tackle the remaining levels in any order you want- all are roughly the same level of difficulty, and each one begins with a little puzzle letting you know which specific weapon will be needed to finish it. So not only can you play through the dungeons in any order, you can also skip them entirely and focus only on exploring the overworld, which is packed with secrets and great mini-games. These were the biggest complaints about the direction recent Zelda games had taken- boring overworlds and too much linearity, but A Link Between Worlds does away with both of them. The complaints here are few- the game finishes up a little too quickly to feel like an epic adventure, and since most levels were similar in difficulty, the later ones felt much easier as I had gained more and more upgrades throughout the game. Still though, A Link Between Worlds feels like the game that has finally shaken up Zelda's formula and I'm excited to see where the series goes from here.