A familiar indulgence: the first hour of The Legend Of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...rt-610x343.jpgYou’ve seen it all before, of course. From the second Link is jolted from his slumber with an insistent ‘Hey!’, A Link Between Worlds is an exercise in fan service, delivered with relish. Its first hour is a steady, indulgent flow of references to, and tropes from, adventures past.The map is a tighter, more economical version of A Link To The Past’s, its enemies and furniture near-identical; props and characters pinched from Ocarina, Link’s Awakening and Majora’s Mask are jammed into one dense, self-referential jumble. And the setup is always the same, of course – there’s a damsel in distress, a flame-haired antagonist, magical trinkets to seek out and legendary sages to rescue. The first dungeon introduces the same old light-the-torch, hit-the-switch puzzles and leads out into a boss battle that feels like a top-down tribute to one of Ocarina’s more memorable encounters.If it continues to rely so heavily on its illustrious past, A Link Between Worlds will be a divisive game. Like those two other component parts of Nintendo’s own triforce, Mario and Pokémon, new Zelda games must always balance expected facets of play with the new; remixing and referencing bygone games is expected – maybe even demanded by longterm fans – but that can’t carry a new game in its entirety.Even Ravio, chief among this game’s supporting cast, is dressed up as the purple rabbit Link transforms into during A Link To The Past, but at least his function is one of this game’s newer parts. Where traditionally items are earned at the end of each dungeon, Link can rent most of the expected set of tools – bow, hammer, boomerang, hookshot and so on – from Ravio and his oddball flying familiar right from the game’s opening hour or so. Dungeons can, therefore, be tackled in different orders. It’s a new quirk which removes the rigidity of games past, but hardly feels revolutionary.

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