The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past - Reception

Reception

A Link to the Past is one of the best-selling SNES games, with 4.61 million units sold worldwide, and has had an exceptionally long stay on Nintendo Power's top games list: when the SNES list was finally retired, A Link to the Past had more than five consecutive years in the number one spot. It was re-released as a Player's Choice title in North America, indicating that it has sold a minimum of one million copies there.

A Link to the Past was critically acclaimed upon release for its graphics and gameplay, and has since been recognized by critics as one of the greatest video games of all time. In 2005, IGN editors placed it 11th in its "Top 100 Games", while readers voted it to 5th place. The following year Entertainment Weekly chose it as the best game of all-time. Members of GameFAQs ranked it the 4th best, and readers of Japanese magazine Famitsu ranked it 31st in a 2006 poll. It also placed 3rd in Electronic Gaming Monthly's list, 23rd in GameInformer's, and 3rd in a best 200 Nintendo games list by Nintendo Power. In July 2007, readers of the magazine Edge voted it sixth in a poll of the 100 best games of all time. ScrewAttack placed it 2nd on their list of top 20 Super Nintendo games. It was awarded Best Sequel of 1992 by Electronic Gaming Monthly. The game placed eighth (the second-highest Zelda game on the list) in Official Nintendo Magazine's "100 greatest Nintendo games of all time" list. In 2009, Game Informer put A Link to the Past 12th on their list of "The Top 200 Games of All Time", saying that it "remains a blast today". The game was reviewed in 1993 in Dragon No. 198 by Sandy Petersen in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Petersen gave the game 5 out of 5 stars.

A Link to the Past & Four Swords for the Game Boy Advance received positive reviews and sold over 1.81 million units. IGN praised it for being a faithful conversion of the original, but noted that the audio did not sound as crisp on the Game Boy Advance, and found the frequent sound effects tiresome. The game holds the top spot of Metacritic's all-time high scores for Game Boy Advance games with a score of 95. In 2007, IGN named A Link to the Past & Four Swords the third best Game Boy Advance game of all time. GamePro's Star Dingo called it a "masterpiece," as well as an "important part of the Grand Renaissance of the Second Dimension." He also praised the overworld for its secrets and "quirky random characters," adding that playing it required patience and exploring. Star Dingo praised the port of A Link to the Past's ability to retain its visuals. He specifically praises its "clean sprites," calling its overworld a "colorful, happy place," sarcastically calling it kiddy. He also questioned how the series' cartoon style was abnormal for the series. Star Dingo called the sound effects "indelible," though he noted that they were "a little dated." UGO Networks compared Four Swords to The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons, calling it "similarly gimmicky". They commented that the best Four Swords brought was its sequel, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. CNET praised both the original A Link to the Past release as well as the Four Swords multiplayer mode, calling the former a "great handheld port of one of the greatest games ever released for Nintendo's 16-bit system", while describing the latter as "an exciting, replayable multiplayer experience".