Bill Trinen: A Link Between Worlds Overworld is Not Identical to ALttP

Last Friday we posted some new game-play footage of A Link Between Worlds (be sure to bookmark our A Link Between Worlds Walkthrough for this fall), but what we failed to do was point out a few details that Bill slipped out about the game itself. The key detail refers to something that may ease some who have worried about the overworld being way to “exact” in it’s faithfulness to the original A Link to the Past. Apparently, the overworld itself isn’t exactly the same. From that video:

• The overworld is not identical to A Link to the Past‘s
• Nintendo has acknowledged that hieroglyphic Link looks like the Link from The Wind Waker‘s opening
• Runs at 60 FPS
• Link can merge into pretty much any wall
• The dungeon we keep seeing is a new version of the Tower of Hera from A Link to the Past
• The gauge on the left side gets rid of the need to restock items like arrows
• The wall Link ability runs on that gauge and will pop you out of the wall when it runs out

We already knew the game was running at 60fps, which has lead to some really smooth animations in a rather fast paced experience. There are a three details that really stand out to me in terms of getting the clockworks in my brain churning. Firstly, the overworld not being identical to A Link to the Past. Everything we have seen so far has pretty much been spot on with a few bushes, pots, and stumps moved around. I sincerely hope that is not what Bill was referencing when he said it wasn’t exactly the same.

Secondly, it’s interesting that Nintendo is admitting the similarities to The Wind Waker. As most are aware, The Wind Waker takes place on a completely separate branch on the Timeline, so it may be more of an easter egg than anything else. Lastly, the fact Bill is saying that the dungeon we see is actually a new version of the Tower of Hera, despite it being called the Eastern Palace in the demo. The problem with this is obvious: The Tower of Hera is actually at the most northern part of the original A Link to the Past map, and the dungeon itself isn’t called the Tower of Hera, though the actual dungeon design resembles a Tower.

Now it could easily be just a demo thrown together, and The Tower of Hera is still in the north but they threw it in the Eastern Palace location simply for the sake of getting that 3D effect across. It is also possible this is part of the changes to the overworld – where the Tower of Hera no longer exists and instead, its influences have been moved to the Eastern Palace. I am leaning more towards a special Demo section being tossed together, but at this point we don’t really know for sure.

What do you think?