1. Legend of Zelda - A Link to the PastGame- What is the game?As the title shows, it's a game of Legend of Zelda franchise, with such a massive popularity, thatalso a lot of non-gamers know something about it. The subtitle below suggests that this game inparticular occurs in the past, like some sort of a back story (at least in my opinion). It wasproduced in early 90s by a Japanese Nintendo game company. A Link to the Past is also one ofthe first LoZ games, which are definitely successful, because of continuously expanding series.- What type of game it is?It is an old Role Playing adventure game settled in a fantasy world of horrific pixel monsters,immoral evil rulers and princess-kidnapping society. Classic.- What do you do in the game?We play as a young elven boy named Link. The story starts when he's fast asleep and has amental call of Zelda. She tells him to rescue her from the lowest part in the dungeon. After the

2. message Link wakes up. Then we are able to pick up a lamp, go outside and destroy the mothernature's children in hope we will obtain some green gems hidden in these poor bushes.Every now and then we get a message of princess ordering us to hurry up and sneak into thecastle. We do so (as it is the only one available destination in this moment) without wonderinghow the hell the fearsome wizard doesn't notice us entering thereand why didnt Zelda choseanyone else whos stronger, smarter and more handsome than me.In the sewers we encounter our dad, who before told us not to leave home. He gives us a silverbee sting and useless plate, so we can irritate guardians and monkey around thinking we are socool and awesome.As we progress further into the story, there are more ferocious monsters awaiting for our flesh.Therefore we have to remember that real heroes do not allow any beast to make their innardsbecome outards. At the very end of slaughter and princess rescue we may happily enjoy thefame (until the next game where we its likely everyone has forgotten us).Research- The look of the gamePixelated simplicity and limited range of colours. There is very little sidescrolling as we walk. Wejust walk onto the edge of a screen to arrive on another part of the map. Backgrounds containmostly greens and browns, which gives a lively feeling to the game. Characters appear tiny andcute, though it doesn't mean I'm not scared of some of them. Even as being an old game, 3. sprites of buildings and landscape are seem to be detailed. I enjoy the basic animations of smaldetails such as flowers and rain.The graphics cannot be obviously compared with games nowadays, but we have to rememberthat visuals aren't the most important part of a game and it doesn't need to look overly realisticto please the eye.- Mechanics of the gameAs in every old-school pixel RPG, there are only four possible ways of moving, respectively -North, South, East and West. In the version playable on computer I used only few buttons on akeyboard: arrows (of course), A (for magic power/additional weapon and skip texts), Z (forfighting with a sword), X (for picking and throwing pots and bushes) and S (to see the map).It creates an impression to be so trivial and super-easy for advanced gamers, making them notwilling to play anymore. In practice however, its more complicated when, for example, you wantto approach a boss, and we have to develop a strategy.- EnemiesAs far as I have played through the game, the only enemies ecountered were soldiers in thecastle. They appeared in different colours, which I believe classified them onto easy-to-kill(green armour), a-little-bit-tougher (blue armour) and oh-I-think-I'm-scared (the first 'boss' indark armour, guarding Zelda in the prison). There sure are other guardians and morechallenging enemies to battle. When the princess was rescued, she also mentioned the wizard(in case we forgot him while asleep), who owned the castle and kidnapped her.- Enemy mechanicsThe enemies were wandering mindlessly on castle corridors in the same four-direction possibleorder, just like me. What I noticed, most of the time they gave an impression to not notice me atall, sometimes even when I was next to them stabbing with my shamefully small stick called asword. However, when they did somehow notice me, the animation showed their madexpressions and soldiers ran fast to get me. Fighting with them was easy, but what annoyed mewas a fact that when accidentally I stepped on one, I received damage as well (as if they hadspikes all over them).- Characters development 4. Its probably the most crucial part of any game. People look at them first for the final judgmentwhether to play this or abandon before even buying a game. And I have to admit they did apretty good job with characters of Legend of Zelda.LinkThe very first non-human hero. He has a girlish look (as the fact of being an elf), but we cantsee this cuteness due to several tiny squares hes made of. And dont be misleaded by hisfragile body (and hair dyed hot pink), hes a hero and fought with thousands of beasts beforemany of us were born. With his Santas elf costume and mighty stick hes unbeatable. Beware!(I would also remind that majority of people who dont play games very often think that his nameis Zelda)ZeldaEvery young hero story must to have a beautiful princess, whos only fate is to be kidnappedand then rescued at very end. However in this case we came for her just at the beginning,though I was too scared to survive for the next turn of events. Who knows if she had beenkidnapped again?Wizard AgahnimA villain plays probably the most important role ever. It is he, who triggered all events andcaused Link to awake as hero and be so popular and loved by everyone (except monsterspoor creatures). In my opinion an elf owes a thank you for him, even as he doesnt perceive itin this point of view. Every of you owe that to him, and every other villain; without them wewouldnt have games and protagonists at all.Links Father (?) 5. Okay, he is only a background character, though he has his own few seconds of fame. Whosdad would be so forgiving of denying his orders of staying at home and not leaving it until theday time? Instead applying a sort of punishment he gave Link dangerous weapons and let himfight with dangerous enemies right, I think it is a punishment (overly) enough.- World 6. The world on a map seems to be small and narrow, which is true, due to limited memory space.It gives an impression of being too square-ish; it's normal for the games made that time,although it suits well to the four-way mechanics (and you dont want to imagine the frustrationand difficulties if the world would be round). On the map above we can see the castle and a littlebelow it our house. There is also one and only town and few more houses settled.Nowadays it wouldn't be acceptable to design strangely angular forests, mountains and lakes.This game however has its own charm and looks really interesting, so we dont bother muchabout these issues, also all the locations are unique, none of them is a copy of another.For me the whole thing looks like an alternative, creative eco version of a computer microchip(just look at those rectangular straight patches).- Music and soundtrackThe soundtrack was probably the worst aspect in this game. Consecutive squawks of technoancestors could easily cause me an instant headache (if played too loudly). It created amonotonous feel which made me bored at the very first stage of the story. I understand thelimits they have faced in the earliest computer-made sounds, but its just not my cup of tea. 7. Evaluation- Evaluate what you found?I found that this game would be suitable for retro game lovers and people who enjoy completingquests and slowly approaching to the final boss after defeating all those minions. The narrativeis what drives this game and what people find most interesting about it. Originality is whatcharacterises the games on the first consoles.This particular game has developed through the years and is currently played on the modernday consoles. I think the overall design was very good, though because of the limited memory,the backgrounds look very similar. This meant that the longer time you spend playing the game,the more repetitive and lifeless it feels.- Look at what you saw and played and evaluate it.I have saw and played enough to judge this particular game. I enjoyed it a bit, mostly thegraphics and easy to follow storyline. I personally like the character design. Its really characterdriven; you can see the characters develop more, especially Link who started as nobody andbecomes a hero.What I would change is music. I found it to be very repetitive and tedious and there seems to beno point when there was silence. Apart of the rain there seems to be no natural sounds; this feltrobotic and unrealistic. I must confess I like it, and if I wouldnt have the overwhelming fear ofcompeting with pixelated monsters I could play the whole game. Old games give me themelancholic impression of early creativity and are sure original.