i totally adore the first zelda game and regard it as a classic. i never owned a link to the past on the snes, but i did end up renting it back in the day and playing it. i remember playing through a few of the dungeons in the dark world (maybe about 3 of them), but i never finished the game. i never got into the game that much. which is somewhat surprising because i was very excited by the nintendo power coverage of it. i read the entire zelda comic series that was released serially in nintendo powers and i remember it being pretty good.

i do think that a link to the past is very well designed game, there’s just some aspects to the game that prevent me from loving lot.

#1, it’s annoying…i remember enemies in zelda1 mostly wandering around randomly and there were lots of them. it was manageable though because enemies didn’t lock onto you the moment they saw you. in zelda3 (link to the past) the enemies do just that. they rush you as soon as they see you…now this isn’t a hard rule there are several exceptions, but in the overworld map it certainly feels like the majority of the enemies are link-seeking missiles. i’m not complaining about this because i think it makes the game difficult, i’m complaining because it’s really annoying. you have to walk back and forth around the overworld quite a bit and constantly getting pelted/rammed by crap gets tiresome. you don’t gain experience in these encounters and you certainly don’t need the rupees (since they’re basically everywhere), so what’s the point in having so many overworld enemies? i wish this aspect of the game had been tweaked a bit more.

#2, another complaint about enemies. enemies in dungeons respawn every time you change floors. a lot of dungeons have like 6 different floors and you have to move back and forth between floors quite a bit to solve the dungeon. having to fight the same enemies x10 because you can’t figure out how to open a single door is a real exercise in frustration. i’m almost certain it wasn’t like this in zelda1. i recall clearing dungeons of enemies in zelda1 and walking around empty rooms thereafter. this made it much easier to focus on the solution for the dungeon instead of being distracted by simply trying to stay alive fighting the same enemies over and over (and barely any dropping hearts). i think this was a big design mistake in zelda3 because it detracts so much from the puzzle portions of the dungeons.

#3, the wallmaster (the hand thing in dungeons). why does it appear that frequently?? arghhh.

on actually playing the game, i haven’t had to resort to online help that often as the game is a lot more straight forward than zelda1 was.
a few instances where i was lazy or actually needed help:
in the swamp palace, the door behind the waterfall (i could have figured this out if i had looked more closely at the map)
location of dwarf partner (this was out of pure laziness)
solution for purple treasure chest that follows you (i had no idea where to go for this)
pulling the tongue on the statue in the ice palace (god i hated this dungeon)

when zelda3 doesn’t outright tell you where to go or mark the location on the map, there are often key indicators by the landscape on where secrets may be.