The Best Nintendo Game Every Year 1983 - 2024
34. 1991 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
And so, in 1991, Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog. Nintendo was about to have some real competition and, for a little while, even become the #2 company in the console space. Fighting back in their honour, however, was what would start to shape itself as one of the Big N’s most important properties.
A Link to the Past fleshed out everything that came before so naturally that it almost feels obvious, adding the likes of the Master Sword and a lot of the real history and lore of Hyrule.
A Hyrule that was not just gorgeous and vibrant but full of surprises. The biggest of which was the shock that the game had two massive maps. Most impressively, swapping from one to the other only took a couple of seconds, and yet - like the top-down POV of the first game had done before - forced players to think about their exploration in a totally fresh way.
It’s hard to nail down everything A Link To The Past did right as, like the original game, it was so often about a feeling. There was so much pure joy oozing from every pore of Link’s 1991 adventure that it is still felt by fans both old and new today.