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I don't understand why so many love ALTTP

Joined
Feb 1, 2020
This is a game I would really love to enjoy, but I can't.

I think the combat is pretty awful in general. Your shield is useless for most of the game since it can only reflect arrows and non-energy projectiles. The sword doesn't swing in a 180 degree angle so it's possible to have enemies attack you from a position where you can't attack back. This wouldn't be an issue if you could swing in a diagonal direction, but you can't so...And then there's no knockback. This means enemies can often just hit you, move to stand on you, and keep hitting you.

My second issue is with the dungeons and the items. Gear aside (because it's automatically equipped and you never "use it" the same way you map items to buttons), the items are pretty bad. I don't think their idea is bad, rather, the items are not utilized well. For example, other than the dungeon you get it in, I have not used the boomerang at all, because there's no real reason to use it over the bow or anything else. Sure, it can stun some enemies, but you can just charge a spin attack and win from that. There's not many enemies that threaten you from a distance. The bow isn't that useful; I don't find the boomerang useful either. Sure, the hookshot is occasionally used in the overworld, but it happens so rarely that I can count in on one hand. Then you have the fire and ice rod, neither of which are used hardly at all in the entire game (the fire rod is decently useful in the ice dungeon, but that's the only place you are likely to ever use it). The hammer, again, is used to find 3 heart pieces, a warp, and cross the bridge in the Dark World, but again, the item is rarely used outside of its own dungeon (total of 5 times). The Canes and Magic Cape suffer the same issue where they are never really used outside their own dungeon. That leaves the mushroom, which is just a trade item, so I have nothing to say about it. Then you have the magic powder, but again, that's not much of an item and it's mostly just used to get fairies, so I have little to say about it. The medallions are essentially the equivalent to the spells in OoT, so I don't really think of them as items. You have the shovel, flute, net, and lantern. The flute is used a lot, but it's more of a piece of gear, along with the rest of them. The Book is also the same, along with the Magic Mirror and Bottles. Overall, I find the items fine ideas, but they aren't really put to full use which I definitely find to be an issue within the game.

My third issue is with the dungeons (and their items, which I will expand upon). I know I might be biased because the music is the same across all of the dungeons, but I find that many of them kind of feel similar. Here's what I mean. The first dungeon I have no problem with. It's a generic dungeon meant to introduce the player, so I understand why it was kept simple. The second dungeon has a sand "theme", but other than different enemies and sand on the ground, I don't feel like the dungeon is anything special; the enemies don't have a weakpoint that the dungeon item exploits and they're no different than other enemies. Tower of Hera is again, not that different. Sure, it has the changing blocks, but so do the majority of the rest of the dungeons in the game. It has pitfalls, but again, that's common in the rest of the dungeons in the game and isn't unique in any way. That's it for the light world dungeons. They're just the start of the game, so I suppose I can cut them some slack for not being very unique, but the first 3 dungeons of OoT all do a much better job of using their items and being more unique (i.e. you use the Deku Sticks/Nuts and the slingshot a lot in the Deku Tree, you use the Bombs and Bomb Flowers a ton in the second dungeon, and you use the boomerang a lot in Jabu Jabu's Belly). For the Dark World, I think things get even worse. Dark Palace is slightly better as you have to use the hammer to defeat some enemies, but you only have to use the hammer a few times before it's over. I think it may be the best of the Dark World dungeons though. I think the Water dungeon is pretty good as well, the water mechanic is pretty good. However, the hookshot leaves a lot the be desired, you only use it 2 times in the dungeon and then for the final boss. Thieves Town is pretty awful imo, the enemies are not unique, there are no unique mechanics. It really has nothing that makes it stand out. Skull Woods is ok, the idea of running around a dungeon split into mulitple ideas is interesting, but aside from that and wallmasters, it's pretty barren. And this is my issue with most of the dungeons:

Most of the dungeons in this game have the same music. The first 3 dungeons are (excusably) similar, because they're trying to teach the player how to play. But the Dark World dungeons often are all very similar, aside from a few small things and aesthetics. Ignoring aesthetics, the only difference between something like Thieves Town and the Dark Palace is the use of the hammer, which isn't even used that much in its own dungeon. Look at OoT's Water Temple (3DS version of cousre)-you constantly use the Iron Boots and the Longshot. It's used from the start of the dungeon, and gives the dungeon an identity other than just looking different. Meanwhile, I feel like ALTTP lacks this distinctiveness between its dungeons because they are all fairly similar apart from aesthetics. You get the items fairly late into the dungeon, which means that they all function similarly until the last quarter of the run, and that really makes the feel quite homogenized to me.

The story is also....not really there. I know a lot of people think it's great, but it's really not. Your uncle dying really means nothing to me because you're not given any backstory or experience with him before hand. And other than that, the story is minimal and doesn't impact the game.

To be fair, I think the overworld is great, but find that the combat is pretty bad, the dungeons are lacking, and the story is...something.

I dunno, I respect that the game was a masterpiece at the time. However, this feels like a game that only people that are nostalgic for it should play (unless you're a huge Zelda fan and just want to play all of them), because it really doesn't offer anything that other titles or ALBW doesn't (other than difficulty, at least for ALBW). I understand a lot of people will say "of course it's not as good today, it's not fair to judge it by today's standards". But then why go back and play any older games? I think Majora's Mask holds up very well, but it's a 20 year old game, but it doesn't change the fact that it still plays well to this day. The fact is that some games still hold up today despite their flaws, and those are truly great games. I don't feel like a LTTP does this. The genius design concepts were there, but other titles that came soon after did a much better idea fleshing them out. I respect the game and recognize that it was a masterpiece for its time, but I don't believe it has stood the test of time, and thus does not deserve to be placed among better games like Majora's Mask and Link's Awakening.
 
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thePlinko

What’s the character limit on this? Aksnfiskwjfjsk
ZD Legend
I 100% agree, I think LttP is insanely overrated. I made a very similar thread to this in my blog here, and I think it’s easily the most “meh” game in the series. Not the worst, by any means, but certainly not the best.

I would argue however that I think it’s a better game than LBW.
 
Joined
Feb 1, 2020
I 100% agree, I think LttP is insanely overrated. I made a very similar thread to this in my blog here, and I think it’s easily the most “meh” game in the series. Not the worst, by any means, but certainly not the best.

I would argue however that I think it’s a better game than LBW.
I agree to a point. I think it's probably the game that I would rank the lowest because I simply see no reason to go back to. Every game past it does what it does but better. Again, time has not been kind to it.
 

Azure Sage

March onward forever...
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Honestly, I didn't hate it, but I also had a lot of frustration because of combat. I agree with your points there. The hitbox on Link's sword is so tiny and then enemies have hitboxes as stretched as a Plesioth's hipcheck. Made for a lot of very annoying skirmishes in the overworld when I was just trying to get from place to place and then end up half dead by the time I get there. That's really very inconvenient if you're trying to do something important.

Generally, I wasn't very impressed with the dungeons or bosses. I did think some of the items were neat, but also not all that memorable. I only played through it once and tbh I might not bother again. Good game, but it sure shows its age.
 

mαrkαsscoρ

Mr. SidleInYourDMs
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Most of the dungeons in this game have the same music.
yo not gonna lie, this is one of my most glaring issues w/ link to the past and a part reason why I rate link's awakening above it, depending on how you see it, for 8 - 10 dungeons, we get the same, stupid, annoying tune playing for all of them, I hate it
 

Bowsette Plus-Ultra

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At least for myself, ALTTP that made Hyrule as colorful and vivid in game as it was in the comics and the cartoon. Until the SNES, Zelda was confined to the realm of 8-bit, and 8-bit isn't the prettiest kind of graphical rendering.
 

Jirohnagi

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ALTTP was a hell of a formative game for people when it released it also shaped (to a degree) OOT which was massively successful. Main reason i enjoy the game is that it is so open you can go where you please in the Dark World for any of the Dungeons and complete the dungeons in any order, that and the game has it's own randomizer setup which makes the game infinitely more playable
 
S

Seadragon

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The 3 intro dungeons of LttP all are pretty different visually. It's not my favorite Zelda game, but it might be in my top 5, I do think the world has pretty good atmosphere and colors. The gameplay is also pretty solid for a 2D top down game.
 

Castle

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ALttP was a considerable expansion on the first LoZ, but even though OoT scaled back on content by comparison it did outshine ALttP overall so I don't think that is why ALttP is commonly regarded the same way as OoT even though ALttP was very formative for its time.

Does ALttP have some issues? Yeah, even for its day I suppose although it may not have seemed that way at the time. But it would seem that any criticisms of ALttP have to be made from a perspective looking back. There are a lot of things to consider when doing that, however.

ALttP doesn't have enough story? LoZ has no story except for the title screen scrawl. AoL has virtually no scripted narrative - again other than backstory - although it does feature a bit more complex town and NPC interaction compare to the first game. So by comparison to its predecessors, ALttP has a ton of story which is arguably rivaled in depth only by Link's Awakening.

No unique dungeon music themes? Remember the previous games all had the same theme for dungeons. This was a limitation of the hardware that ALttP didn't have, but it still remained a somewhat established convention at the time.

Items don't have enough applications? Remember that puzzles didn't feature in the series as strongly as they do today. Puzzles really only got started with Ocarina of Time. Before that whatever passed for puzzles was limited to secret walls and switches. Items were almost exclusively combat tools back then. Also the first and second games featured a lot of one-use items or items with very specific contextual uses.

I'm not saying that ALttP is outdated and thus can't be compared to modern titles. It was just a different series back then. I'm also not saying ALttP isn't worthy of the criticism. It's not my favorite Zelda game by a long shot.

Ultimately, I would posit that ALttP occupies this sort of transitional space between modern Zelda and the early games. It's a bridge between modern Zelda and classic Zelda. It possesses hints of the new formula and ways of modern Zelda while still retaining features of its predecessors. It can be a somewhat awkward position to occupy.
 
Joined
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ALTTP was the second game I ever completed. For me it has fond memories. So maybe it has more of a nostalgia value today but has much less to offer the modern gamer who has come to expect so much more. I have a copy of the game on my 2DS XL that was bought as a download from Nintendo at next to nothing. I can see me playing it again.
 

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