It's not just what games you play, but when you play them.
Take a look at anyone's list of favorite games. Hell, take a look at mine. It's bound to have glaring omissions and staggering inclusions, picks to make you scratch your head and suspiciously eye what the list-maker puts in their coffee. It's these choices that make up our taste and inform us as gamers; not just the games we choose, but when we chose them and how we let them affect us.
Let's take a gander at my list again. Here, you'll find a few discrepancies from standard convention. For example: I think that Donkey Kong Country 2 is a more satisfying platforming game than Super Mario World. I also think the glitchy, limited, Wild West-feeling of Pokémon Blue is a more adventurous game than any of its polished future entries. Such is my gooey nostalgic core.
More importantly, given the topic of today's entry, I think that Ocarina of Time is a better Zelda game than A Link to the Past. Not super controversial, considering that many game critics vie between these two for the spot of Best Zelda Game. Thing is, I'm not ever sure if I can grasp what makes A Link to the Past a good Zelda game. A good Super Nintendo game, maybe, but no one ever goes into A Link to the Past without knowing its heritage.
It all comes does to when I started playing Zelda games. Ocarina of Time came out in November of 1998, when I was the tender age of 11. I had fun exploring the Kokiri Forest, chatting up Saria and showing the town bully, Mido, who was boss. I routed the Ghoma Queen from inside the Deku Tree and felt pretty good about myself, and everything was going according to plan.
Then, I left the woods.
Leaving the Forest brings you to Hyrule Field, the gigantic connecting area between Ocarina of Time's many areas. Not a particularly noteworthy place; mostly trees and bushes, and vaguely hilly. Except that it was so big. Expanding in every direction, past what the draw distance could render, Hyrule Field blew away my expectations for how big a video game environment could be—so big, that day shifted to night in the game before I could reach Hyrule Castle. I could explore wherever I wanted, visit whatever towns I chose, all while my small-child imagination brewed up what kinds of adventures I could be having when I wasn't playing the game.
This is what gives me trouble with playing A Link to the Past. There was never a moment of awe, a gob-smacking sense of wonder, I never "got" it. Most of the elements are in place: puzzles, dungeons, bosses, exploration. None of it clicks in 2D, though. I never find myself "in" the game the way I did when I first stepped into Hyrule Field. I find that going from screen to screen breaks the immersion for me, reminding me that I'm controlling a dude onscreen instead of going on adventures myself.
Funny. I say that I can't find 2D Hyrule adventurous, but I feel like the biggest explorer who ever lived on the 8-bit plains of Kanto Region in Pokémon Blue (so adventurous it didn't even have a name until much later). This, despite a weekly cartoon that had every opportunity to dwarf my portable onscreen quests. Actually, I think the cartoon had the opposite effect; showing me what I was "really" doing when I was taking a short stroll from Palette Town to Viridian City. The young imagination is a tenacious one, and 8-bit gaming is the best at harnessing it; how else do you explain the popularity of Minecraft among today's youth?
It's certainly not for the combat, either. And, no, it's not like saying "I like 3D Zelda but not 2D Zelda" is on the same level as "I like 3D Mario but not 2D Mario." Even if I did start playing Mario games with Super Mario 64 (which is almost true), the simple act of controlling Mario in 2D is great fun, enhanced by terrific level design. The simple act of telling Link to swing his sword at something is not inherently fun, in spite of how well-designed some dungeons can be. Combat in Zelda games, for me, is all about Z-Targeting, tense one-on-one duals, and brilliant victories, despite how rarely it is actually any of those things.
I even find the original Legend of Zelda on the NES more accessible than Link to the Past. Perhaps it's that sluggish pace, the minimally detailed environments, the raw, unrefined gameplay. I can get behind that, I can fill in the gaps myself. I've been trained, through so many hours of Gameboy-playing, to grasp 8-bit gaming. There's much less onscreen, so my imagination needs to pick up the slack, and Link's quest to rebuild the Triforce feels much bigger. This is what narrative ownership used to mean; before I channeled my first decisions through Commander Shepard, I charted my first course in The Legend of Zelda, and I did it my way.
There's very little in the way of self-filled gaps with 16-bit gaming. There's expanded awe, like during Final Fantasy VI's opening credits, during which a troupe of soldiers trek across a blizzard toward a snow-bound town, but nothing in the way of the "I imagined it like this" free association involved in 8-bit. If I can't make my own adventure like on the NES, and if I can't be dwarfed with amazement like on the N64, then why am I even playing A Link to the Past?
Perhaps I need to wade in and try A Link to the Past's dungeons again. After all, most Zelda games use the same formula; good dungeon design ought to transcend dimensions. If I can be receptive enough to what the game is trying to do, maybe I can see the baked-in Nintendo goodness that has imbued the Zelda series since the NES. If works for Ocarina, it ought to work for Link.
Perhaps.
At any rate, my backlog is extensive enough at this point, and there's no use starting Twitter arguments over Zelda preferences until I can find time to finish the thing; as of writing, I got four or so dungeons into A Link to the Past and quit out of frustration a few years ago. I never got hooked, so I didn't stay around. Maybe when I try again, I can see the game everyone has been clamoring over since 1991.
Maybe.
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