The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Over the Thanksgiving break I collected up and took home our old Super Nintendo. I now have a big TV in my bedroom, and I've begun going back through the greatest video game ever made, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

It's amazing to me that in all the years I've been playing video games, I've still never encountered one that I thought was better than this one. It may well be a bias on my part; after all, this was the first video game we ever owned. At the time, there was something truly magical and mysterious and foreign about the world of video games, so this maiden voyage probably made a disproportionate impact. With that being said, I can still sit down today and enjoy every minute of replaying this classic.

The LoZ franchise has always been strong. For many people, the original NES Zelda game is still a high-water mark in early home gaming. Later on, when 3-dimensional game design started to take off with the N-64 and the Playstation, the Zelda game Ocarina of Time rose to the forefront as one of the most loved and highly-regarded games of all time. In between those, though, the Super Nintendo dominated the world of home gaming. And along with a handful of other ultra cool classics, A Link to the Past solidified one of the definitive gaming franchises.

There are other games that I really love playing. There are more challenging games, better looking games, and more exotic games. But when it comes right down to playing something that combines all that is best about video games, for me this is it.