The Legend of Zelda is my favorite video game series. For years, Ocarina of Time was my favorite game of all time, and the seminal N64 classic didn't get bumped off my top spot until the equally monumental Breath of the Wild overtook it in 2017. This is a series that I adore, but somehow, I've never finished the series' most widely loved 2D game, A Link to the Past.

Each time I try the 1992 SNES adventure, I want to enjoy it as much as other Zelda fans do. I've returned to my old Game Boy Advance copy multiple times, expecting to finally get it, and I've done the same thing in recent years after it was added to Nintendo Switch Online. But I still can't get myself to fully appreciate it in the way the industry at large seems to.

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I have a theory for why that is. The older 2D Zelda games expect you to hold much more information in your head than their newer counterparts. In the 2D Zelda games before Phantom Hourglass, navigating the overworld is much more difficult than finding your way through a dungeon. That's because Nintendo treats the overworld like one big dungeon. You don't just travel through Hyrule, you solve it.

zelda NES overworld

Here's what I mean. When you get to a dungeon in a Zelda game, you know that you have everything you need to solve any puzzle contained within it. (Except in A Link Between Worlds where you need to rent specific items for specific dungeons). So, even if you're really stuck, you know that all the materials you need to solve the dungeon are at your disposal. You may be missing the solution, but you don't lack the power to find it.

Older 2D Zelda games extend that ethos across the entire map, not just the dungeons. I'm currently playing through Minish Cap on NSO, so let's take an example from that.

In Minish Cap, to access Castor Wilds, you need to cross a swamp, but if you try to walk through the stagnant water, you'll sink. To get the item you need, you need to go to Hyrule Town and find a shoe store, shrink down to Minish size, climb up on the cobbler's workbench, and speak to some Picori who will reveal that the sleeping shoemaker will only wake up if you go get a different item at a witch's cabin deep in the woods to the southeast.

The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap Overworld Map

To access this cabin, you need to go to Lon Lon Ranch, where you'll find the ranchers, Malon and Talon, who are locked out of their house. You need to shrink down, Stuart Little your way into their house, retrieve their key, and give it to them. Now you can pass through their house as you please and reach the woods.

Eventually, you find the cabin, which the Minish have helpfully marked on your map. The witch is selling a mushroom that functions like smelling salts — just what you need. But, to get it you have to have 60 rupees, and if you don't have that (say, because you thought you needed to buy the 300 rupee boomerang in town) you just have to go around cutting grass and killing Octoroks until you save up. Then, you buy the mushroom, take it back, get the Pegasus Boots from the cobbler, run across the swamp goo, and boom, you're there.

That's a lot of steps. It's a very involved process that takes you all across Hyrule, from Castor Wilds in the far west to the Minish Woods on the other side of the map. There's little signposting to get you on the right track, so you can spend hours bumbling around, trying out faulty approaches.

That kind of trial and error is fine when you're in a small, contained dungeon, but it works less well when you have the entirety of the game's area to sift through for hints. It makes returning to these games an interesting prospect. I'll be damned if I use hints in the actual dungeon, but I'm using a walkthrough like a GPS to get there in the first place. It's as if the most difficult part of an escape room was figuring out how to start your car.

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