Kotaku – A Link Between Worlds impressions

A Link Between Worlds already seems to be a hit amongst the gaming community, even before it’s been released. Even with the short E3 demos last year, people had outstanding opinions of the new title, but now that certain, lucky individuals have had the opportunity to sit down with the game for a few hours, floods of impressions are streaming in.

Hit the jump to see what Stephen Totilo of Kotaku says!

The new Zelda does not feel like a game to skip.

I’m not sure what kind of person would want to skip a Zelda title, but still, the first line of Stephen’s article summarizes his overall opinions of the game. In the five hours he was able to spend with A Link Between Worlds, it sounds fantastic. If he was a Nintendo representative he could have sold me the game.

The first big questions we’ve all had about A Link Between Worlds has been about how Ravio’s shop works. If you’re like me, you were probably skeptical about how being able to rent items affects the game; new features are kind of scary to an established franchise. But as Nintendo’s consistently shown, Zelda games can see new features implemented with great success.

Very early in the game, you meet a character named Ravio, who will allow you to rent just about any item in the game: bombs, bow and arrow, whirling thingamajig that tosses you in the air, etc.

This is not a microtransaction system.

This is not a prelude to the confusion of carrying the wrong item into a dungeon.

Rather, from what I’ve experienced, this is a way to finally—FINALLY—give experienced Zelda players a way to dig into one of these games more aggressively without handholding.

And that last bit is really exciting to me. Veteran Zelda players will often say that the series has been affected too much by the desire to make games accessible to everyone, even if that means alienating experienced players. But hopefully this time around Nintendo’s found a way to rekindle the adventurous spirit of yore.

Also, this piece by Stephen really convinced me that A Link Between Worlds wasn’t going to rely so heavily on what’s been established in A Link to the Past, and that this was truly going to be a new experience. After all, apparently they’ve done something special with bees.

There’s plenty more to read about in the original Kotaku article. I strongly suggest you take a few minutes and read Stephen Totilo’s impressions, which are spoiler free, to hopefully ease any concerns you might’ve had about A Link Between Worlds.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

Source: Kotaku