Hands-on impressions of A Link to the Past 2

Only 24 hours since the first announcement of what fans are calling A Link to the Past II and already we are starving for more information. Well YouTube reviewer GameXplain and Adam Sessler for Rev3Games have recently posted their hands on videos of the gameplay providing us with just a little more information. They play the same temple seen in the Nintendo Direct but they do elaborate upon the little elements of the gameplay and provide some explanations for some of the more interesting aspects that were previously unknown.

Jump inside to check them out for yourself.

Within the videos we learn a few new details about the game not made apparent yesterday. We see that the controls are no longer performed through stylus control like in the two most recent Zelda handhelds, but through the circle pad for moving Link and a return to buttons for swinging the sword and using items and such. You swing the sword with B, put up your shield with L and use items with Y and X. Item use (such as arrows and pounding the hammer) deplete the green meter (magic? stamina? both?). But the “turning into a drawing” ability also uses up this same meter. The second screen is primarily used as a map and to swap out inventory.

When I first saw the video yesterday I was convinced that the temple we saw was the Tower of Hera on Death Mountain. Now that he says it is a tower, I am really thinking that is it. Theories aside this was pretty informative as it game us a lot more info than what we saw on the Nintendo Direct video. One thing I was happy to hear was that the controls were moved back to the gamepad and not the touchscreen. Honestly I think I learned quite a bit just seeing the 3DS in their hands and seeing how it was played than in the previous videos of just the top screen. Those views of the bottom screen were very informative.

Source: YouTube