1992 – Super NES (Nintendo)<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\nIt seems like forever ago, but seeing screens of “Zelda III<\/em>” didn’t really get me that excited.\u00a0 I mean, I knew I loved the first two Zelda <\/em>titles, but not quite enough to warrant as much excitement as would a new\u00a0Mario <\/em>or Mega Man<\/em> game.\u00a0 With them, you more-or-less knew what to expect, whereas The Adventure of Link<\/em> was quite different from its predecessor.\u00a0 Who knew what Zelda III<\/em> would end up like?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\n
Well, it ended up being a big pile of awesome-sauce, on top of a huge slab of awesome-steak.<\/div>\n
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To begin with,
A Link to the Past<\/em> was the first title in the series to introduce the concept of a parallel dimension for Link to travel to.\u00a0 Where the Light World was brightly coloured\u00a0and full of joyful NPC’s, the eventual journey over to the Dark World showed a bleak and depressing side of Hyrule that struck an emotional chord with gamers.\u00a0 Characters\u00a0you’d come to enjoy interacting with in the Light World\u00a0became animals or beasts, while\u00a0shacks and villages were abandoned in favor of thief hideouts or haunted houses.<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\n
While it was somewhat of a bummer to see Hyrule in that kind of state, it opened up a world of possibilities for puzzles by travelling back and forth between the two worlds.\u00a0 The developers exploited it perfectly, and have tinkered with the “alternate dimension” a few times since then (most notably
Ocarina of Time<\/em>).<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\n
We managed to snag a\u00a0copy of this one shortly after it came out.\u00a0 It was Spring, and I remember the feeling that came with Summer vacation looming\u00a0just\u00a0around the corner.\u00a0 It was a rare treat to get a game when it wasn’t my birthday, or Christmas, so I was going to enjoy the heck out of this game.<\/div>\n
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I played through it, tried my best to explore every nook and cranny of the Light and Dark Worlds, but still ended up a bit short on collecting *everything*.\u00a0 I did beat the game, however.\u00a0 Not long afterwards, my mom was asked by a friend’s mom if they could borrow the game.<\/div>\n
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Alarms went off in my head;\u00a0 there was no way I was willing to part with it after the
Mega Man 3<\/em> fiasco.\u00a0 Furthermore, this guy was more of an acquaintance than a friend.\u00a0 In fact, I was scared of\u00a0him!\u00a0 Not that he was a bully, but he was somewhat intimidating to me, and other kids.\u00a0 With some convincing (“Here, I’ll write your name on the game, so they know it’s yours.”), I relented, and the cartridge was his for about three weeks.<\/div>\n\u00a0<\/div>\n
I get it back, everything is good.\u00a0 I turn it on to continue my exploring and—THEY DELETED MY SAVE FILE!\u00a0 Why the heck couldn’t they create a save file from slot #2, or even #3??\u00a0 I was livid!\u00a0 All the side-quests I had completed, all the heart containers\u00a0I had\u00a0found…\u00a0 all gone.\u00a0 What could I do, though?\u00a0 I knew I couldn’t complain to my mom, because she knew I had already beaten the game.\u00a0 I couldn’t complain to the kid who borrowed it, because he certainly didn’t care.\u00a0 I would just rant about it with my friends.\u00a0 Those who knew him weren’t surprised, either.<\/div>\n
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I was left fuming, but I did get to re-play the game because of it.\u00a0 It’s a fantastic game, so looking back, even though I was mad at the time, perhaps he was doing me a favor.<\/div>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/a-link-to-the-past-boxart-us.jpg\" "\\"Zelda")
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