As some might know I'm a very recent entry in the Zelda fandom, my first game being A Link Between Worlds. Hooked ever since, I've played most of the canon by now and, while waiting for Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass to arrive, decided to give one of the older games a try on the Wii U virtual console.
Now I've heard a lot of people saying A Link to the Past is their favourite Zelda ever and it still holds up well some 23 years later. But I honestly just can't get into it. It's not the graphics or the sound that turn me off (I expected those), rather it's the quite cumbersome control scheme. The hit detection of the sword is really shoddy and moving around itself I find pretty unrensponsive. I also couldn't find anything else of interest (I've played up to the conclusion of the eastern palace) that other, more recent games didn't just do better.
Now I'm not here to bash the game, and seeing as how old it is, the controls not being as fluid as newer entries in the series is kind of expected. What I'm wondering is, am I missing out because I ditched the game now that Spirit Tracks has arrived? Is there more to it than nostalgia?
Again, not trying to be an asshole here - basically I want people to sell the game to me.
It's definitely interesting to see how someone sees one of my favorite games of all time having only recently played it, instead of experiencing it when it came out.
A Link to the Past remains one of my favorite games of all time, never mind one of my favorite Zelda games of all time. And it isn't just nostalgia. Sure, I would be disingenuous if I said no part of me loves the game because of the memories I had with it, but there is definitely a lot more to it than just memories.
I think one thing that is important to mention, and
@Curmudgeon touched on it, is that people who played this game a long time ago
played this game a long time ago. What I mean by that is, the things you were unhappy with (namely, the controls, hitbox, etc..) are things we already experience and are used to. When I go back and play the game, I don't have to relearn the controls. They're engraved into my knowledge already. I've played the game a dozen times, in various incarnations, and I can say that I hardly notice the clunkiness of the controls.
The game holds up to this day despite the controls because of everything else the game had to offer. The story was intriguing, the Light/Dark World dichotomy, the exploration, the item collecting, the music, the level design, and artistic beauty. As much as I love Minish Cap and Link's Awakening, as a whole package, I'd take A Link to the Past over any of them any day.
I'm not sure if you're going to go back and give it another try, but in either case, if you want to see a
shameless plug playthrough of this game, check this out. There's a reason why I chose this as a my first ever game to play on YouTube, and it's because it's such a timeless classic.
It not only starts many of the gameplay mechanics that we still have in current Zelda games, but it starts a lot of the time-honored traditions in the series that you, as a new Zelda fan, will grow to love. It's a fun game, it's an important (in terms of Zelda as a whole) game, and despite it flaws, I think, it still holds up even after all this time.