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Link's Awakening vs A Link to the Past


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Poll: Link's Awakening vs A Link to the Past

Which do you like more?

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#1 Jenny

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Posted 07 October 2017 - 05:13 PM

These days I usually see people ask whether Ocarina or A Link to the Past is the better game, but I rarely see Link's Awakening mentioned despite myself considering it a great game.

 

So which do you personally like more, and why?



#2 The Satellite

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Posted 07 October 2017 - 05:23 PM

It's like picking a favorite child.

 

Link's Awakening has the best atmosphere and story in the series I feel (Wind Waker might be the only competitor), with some lovable quirkiness to it. It's well-designed, it's a great adventure, and said story is an unconventional one that stands out in the series. Only real complaints are minor in the grand scheme of things. Menus are clunky, I hate being reminded about heavy/strange rocks, and the Piece of Power/Guardian Acorn music shouldn't exist as it's a repetitive loop that overrides the better music.

 

A Link to the Past though. Very few technical problems, a fairly open adventure that encourages and even rewards exploration, a sense of having its own mythology beyond itself... And two worlds that interact with each other in neat ways. I also still find it the smoothest Zelda to play; Link feels great, combat and item usage is simple, and menus are fast. Makes for a streamlined experience that truly complements the gameplay, with so few unnecessary interruptions. There's also something to be said for the view from Death Mountain, fueling your imagination, making you wonder what lies beyond. That's one of my favorite aspects of any work of fiction.

 

So I have to pick ALttP here.


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#3 Cukeman

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Posted 07 October 2017 - 06:05 PM

I always SAY Link's Awakening (by a hair), but honestly they're so close it might as well be a tie.

 

•Link's Awakening has a personal and emotional connection between characters and story, but A Link to the Past has an interesting epic-scale history/fate of Hyrule gleaned from dozens of NPCs enriching the world to feel large.

• LttP has more weight in the sense that the dungeons feel really dark and the Dark World is foreboding, while LA is more playful and whimsical- both are great in their own way, can't say either is better in that respect.

• Both have great music.

• LA was the first game in the series to have music specific to each dungeon, so it wins there.

• LA was the first Zelda game I played fully and I loved it the first time around. It only got better when I played LttP and realized that nearly everything on Koholint is based on Link's memories from LttP. Making it the first "Termina" type experience.

• LA clearly wins the overworld contest for me, with lots of routes and tucked away areas to explore, LttP is pretty straight-forward about getting from one place to the other across a straight stretch of ground, while LA has neat navigational aspects to solve through exploration. (LttP does have the dual world method of exploration for circumventing topography, but it's mostly for optional goodies)

• Link's Awakening has a trading quest and a button shield and bomb arrows.

• LttP has the Triforce, Ganon, Hyrule and end music.

 

LA has a few new mechanics, more engaging overworld design, has a more personal/emotional story and I prefer it's flavor, but all of those things are just a slight win in my eyes. LttP is epic dual world Hyrule on a grand scale.

 

So yeah, I say LA... barely.


Edited by Cukeman, 07 October 2017 - 06:07 PM.

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#4 Koh

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Posted 07 October 2017 - 07:41 PM

Link's Awakening was the first game to have platforming sections mixed with topdown (Zelda 2 doesn't count, since the topdown overworld is only for travel), which I think is awesome and something I'm doing in my Zelda-like game.

 

AS mentioned above, LA was the first one to have unique themes for each dungeon, and it was the first to have an enhanced arrangement of the Zelda 1 dungeon theme.  This adds so much to the atmosphere.



#5 Anthus

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Posted 07 October 2017 - 07:53 PM

Unpopular opinion time:

Link to the Past, by a long shot. I look at LA as LttP lite with a different story, which is totally okay, but I'd rather just play LttP. It's longer, has a bigger screen, I find its world more interesting, and as TS touched on, it is a very smooth experience. The beginning is kind of slow, but other than that, I like the pacing, and snappiness of the controls. The story is also better, imo, and it feels more like an epic adventure where as LA feels like a collection of disjointed stories, and then at the end, you find out none of it even mattered anyway cause it was all a dream. I honestly find that ending to be way overrated, and do not exactly consider it a compelling story. Furthermore, LA is slow, and feels kind of clunky when directly compared. Like, you can tell there weren't enough buttons, and they had to be really creative with the controls. As far as GB Zeldas in general, they are rather low on my personal list, and I like the small changes the Oracle games made. I prefer Seasons cause, frankly, I'm not a fan of the GB Zeldas "puzzles" really.

 

That's not to say LA is bad. It's just.. not as good as LttP for me. :P


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#6 Norzan

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Posted 07 October 2017 - 08:13 PM

^

 

Not really an unpopular opinion because ALTTP is consider by many to be the best Zelda game. But yeah, i also prefer ALTTP a lot more than LA.

 

LA is not bad, it's actually pretty solid specially for being in the GB, but it's not exactly one of my favorites. The story is probably one of the weakest elements, did people really find this story compelling? The game does a rather bad job at making you care about the island inhabitants with the exception of Marin, because barely anybody has any sort of character development.

 

There were several things they could have easily done to make inventory management much less of a nightmare. Making the bracelet context sensitive and the shield on at all times would have make wonders to mitigate this major issue. Because seriously, half of the playthrough you are staring at the inventory screen, just switching items.

 

The bosses are terrible. Like, did anybody tested Angler Fish during development? Didn't anybody noticed just how pathetic easy it is? You can literally just stay right near him and slash his weak point repeatedly. The rest of the bosses are just lame and easy too.

 

The dungeons are fine until you get into the last two which are easily the worst. They take too long and have way too much backtracking.

 

I found the overworld just bland and rather dull. Don't remember much from it and i 100% the game 3 or 4 times.

 

ALTTP on the other hand is just much more consistent. The story is standard but gets the job done and pretty much everything else just has much more consistent quality.



#7 Koh

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Posted 07 October 2017 - 08:23 PM

 

The bosses are terrible. Like, did anybody tested Angler Fish during development? Didn't anybody noticed just how pathetic easy it is? You can literally just stay right near him and slash his weak point repeatedly. The rest of the bosses are just lame and easy too.

 

This one I don't see as a knock against LA actually.  But on the series as a whole, heh.  No Zelda game is hard except Zelda 2, and Zelda 2 is hard for the wrong reasons XD.


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#8 Norzan

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Posted 07 October 2017 - 08:26 PM

This one I don't see as a knock against LA actually.  But on the series as a whole, heh.  No Zelda game is hard except Zelda 2, and Zelda 2 is hard for the wrong reasons XD.

Well yeah, but ALTTP Helmasaur King and Trinexx alone are harder than all of LA bosses combined. They just went too far with the LA bosses in terms of difficulty and by too far, i mean they made them way too easy.


Edited by Norzan, 07 October 2017 - 08:29 PM.

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#9 Anthus

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Posted 07 October 2017 - 09:26 PM

I'm also pretty biased. I grew up with LttP. I never played LA till years later, after OoT, and after the OoX games. I have however, managed to finish it once but I have started probably a dozen different attempts over the years.. I don't remember much of it. I don't remember many of the bosses. I don't remember many of the dungeons. I remember feeling always annoyed, basically. I really think for what they game was trying to be though, it does a good job. It was hand helded Zelda, and the first one at that. Considering that, they did a decent job with the limitations.

Kind of off topic, but I really wish these 3DS versions would do more than just straight port them. Hell, they don't even use 3D. It'd be nice if for each game, they'd think "Hey, how can we optionally make this better?" If LA was released as an enhanced eshop copy, I'd give it a chance again, and probably like it a lot more. The saving, the item management, the inventory screen, the bracelet, the shield, the acorns, it all just adds up, and makes for a frustrating pace breaking experience.

I don't want to offend fans of the game, I know it is near and dear to a lot of you. I know LttP isn't perfect, but it does 2D Zelda best, imo.

#10 Cukeman

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Posted 07 October 2017 - 10:30 PM

I for one certainly felt a strong connection to the world and characters of Koholint. They all felt much more alive to me than the NPCs in LttP which tended to be signposts rather than characters with personality. I liked what they told me, but (with a few notable exceptions) it was mostly history, rather than personality.

 

From Link's romance with Marin almost becoming official, her and Tarin's finding you and nursing you back to health, saving Tarin from his Tanooki transformation as you get lost in the woods, saving Papahl from starving alone in the mountains, taking care of Madam Meow-Meow's pet bow-wow, the innocent children playing happily around town unaware that their world will become no more, helping Prince Richard recover his family's castle, helping the Boo visit his old home before passing on.

 

It doesn't matter that it was all a dream because, to Link (and to me), that world was REAL, we didn't know 100% if it actually was a windfish dream or not until the end, for all we knew waking the egg could have unleashed a disaster on a real island and destroyed it. Haven't you ever had a dream so vivid it felt real?

 

It was so real to Link that his heart is heavy upon waking up, and Marin was real enough to him that the wind fish gave her life and granted her wish to fly and see beyond the sea.

 

So yeah, LA resonated deeply with me.

 

Sure it was a dream (or a real island created by a dream), but in LttP Link undoes the whole game and sets things back as if they'd never happened, kind of like a dream (except Ganon was destroyed), but I don't think that made LttP's adventure feel unimportant. 


Edited by Cukeman, 08 October 2017 - 03:40 AM.

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#11 Shane

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Posted 08 October 2017 - 04:02 AM

For me, Link's Awakening was an easy choice. It's dungeon design felt more streamlined, it's overworld felt more exciting to unravel and there's no comparison with the story as Link's Awakening manages to make one of the best stories in the series alongside Wind Waker IMO. Music has more variety, the graphical style had more charm to me in Link's Awakening and it just felt overall more engaging. I feel A Link Between Worlds improved a lot of the concepts I just didn't enjoy about A Link to the Past. That isn't to say I found ALttP to be a bad game, I'm enjoying my current playthrough quite a bit and there's definitely some design choices that are better than Link's Awakening (such as the messages notifying you about certain objects), but I feel on the grand scheme of things I feel Link's Awakening is easily my favorite of the two. Also A Link to the Past has a ton of easy bosses too, maybe not easy compared to LA's Angler Fish, but for example, the Mouthla battle, just unleash some bees and you're good to go (my favorite method).

 

The whole dream aspect of Link's Awakening is brilliant because it's so thought provoking. Is it morally right of Link to destroy a world, despite it being a dream in the eyes of him and the Wind Fish? If you think about it, the nightmares were merely preserving their own world and existence. They aren't exactly terrorizing anyone except keeping the Wind Fish (and to an extent, Link) asleep. So in a way, this is one of the few Zelda games where both sides have justified causes and it's less two dimensional and black and white. And for a simple Gameboy game, it's pretty impressive. That's how I see it anyways.


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#12 Adem

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Posted 08 October 2017 - 07:13 AM

Link's Awakening is one of my all-time favorite Zelda games. While I can thoroughly appreciate A Link to the Past for what it is and what it achieved, LA was just a more memorable experience for me. I'm now currently listening to the soundtrack for a heavy dose of nostalgia, which is all but helping me make an objective decision.



#13 Eddy

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Posted 08 October 2017 - 07:16 AM

Actually quite a hard choice for me honestly. I'm probably going with Link's Awakening though, but both games were really solid IMO. I think it's just something about LA I find a bit better, probably the true ending is what got me the most. Of course there are a few things I find frustrating with LA, like the powerups constantly disrupting the flow of the game, and having to be told that you can't lift pots or break crystals without the pegasus boots, but other than that I don't have much problems with the game.

 

As for ALTTP, I recently played through it last month and it was quite fun actually. I definitely like many things about it, but I just felt like I enjoyed LA more. I guess it just stuck with me more than ALTTP did lol. So yeah LA is my pick.



#14 Nicholas Steel

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Posted 08 October 2017 - 10:33 PM

I like LA's items, the ability to change both item slots, the drastically better utilization of height as a mechanic (LttP has... ledges you can jump off? whoopdedoo) and the greater emphasis on puzzles that are actually something I could consider to be a puzzle.

 

That being said, LttP Randomizer is pretty sweet. Vanilla LttP gameplay is pretty bleh after the first playthrough.


Edited by Nicholas Steel, 08 October 2017 - 10:34 PM.


#15 Dark Ice Dragon

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Posted 09 October 2017 - 02:54 PM

I really can't decide, i love both.

But i must say that is great that peoples are still asking what was the best even if one was made for SNES and the other for GB.

Being made for SNES, Alttp had more possibilities of LA, but LA had a lot of a nice new ideas ( bow-wow,fly whit the rooster, more than a  songs for ocarina )




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