It's Link to the Past only now Link has a voice because Nintendo was obsessed with adding voices to all of the SNES games they ported to GBA for some reason. The music is also worse too. There's the Four Swords thing too I guess, but I don't really have any desire to play it.

I always waver back and forth between how I feel about Link to the Past. I think I've settled on "it's good but those last four dungeons suck massive cock." I still think it is among the weakest of the top-down Zelda games, only preferring it to Zelda 1 and the DS games. The other ones just simply took everything this game established and improved on it.

The controls leave a little to be desired, taking a game built around four face buttons and adapting it to two face buttons wasn't exactly a smooth process, and some of the text changes aren't great, but it still an amazing game at its core. Being a largely unaltered SNES game it looks pretty good for a GBA game, and ALttP has great music in any port of it.
Four Swords is a fun little game , but trying to find other people that have the game was always a challenge when trying to play multiplayer GBA games. Engaging mechanics and decent replayed ability if you can manage to play it.

Goateddddd. The first masterful Zelda and it hasn't dropped in quality since. My first Zelda experience and it went so hard. Killing foul beasts with newly unlocked weapons and trinkets was sick, exploring and trying to collect every heart piece was sick, the Dark World reveal halfway through the game was oh so sickening. The added voice lines for Link in this GBA version was something I never knew about but it does add a certain life to the game I must admit. Plus there's a whole nother game latched on this has gotta be the superior version.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords COMPLETED 11/10 I finished this game a while ago but I wanted to talk a little about it. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was the first game in the Zelda series that I got to know, but I only finished it years later since at the time my reading wasn't good. I finished the games in the series countless times. This year, 2024, I started finishing this game again, but in the GBA version with Switch Online, the game emulation is wonderful! Everything is very responsive. I love the small universe that this work is made up of, both exploring the World of Light that is Hyrule and the darkness that is Ganon's world. It's interesting to explore all the dungeons, it's a pleasure to search through each little secret.

And watching the credits always makes me want to cry because it reminds me of the happy moments of my childhood. Many players are missing out on the fun of playing a game looking for epic journeys and shocking twists and endings that were like a high-production movie. I feel sad about this, they are missing out on the greatest pleasure of enjoying an adventure.

Link To the past, we start with Link sleeping in his bed, during the early hours of the morning with Zelda's cry for help and Link going to her and rescue her. The main objective is to collect the 3 pendants and wield the Master Sword, to soon discover that Zelda was kidnapped along with 7 other maidens and we have to go to the world of darkness defeating each boss and rescuing 8 crystals where each girl is sealed so that in the end we will have enough strength to defeat Ganon.

Here in the GBA version we have a new feature, the Four Swords, a short adventure with 4 stages plus a special one which is the tutorial. The game presented with a story, this game is canonical! And our goal is to defeat Vaati, the wind demon who escaped from his seal and captured Zelda.

Here the central mechanic of the game is Link wielding his 4 Swords and being cloned, hence the name of the game The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords is impossible, I said impossible! You can play alone, at least 2 people must play together. I played with some friends since I wanted to finish this game 100%. Here in the game, everything is focused on cooperation, divided into areas such as the forest, the Ice Palace and the Fire Mountain, and finally the Vaati Palace. Your goal is to collect the keys with the fairies from the fountains and finally enter the Palace. After finishing the game once, you will be able to access the Four Swords Palace in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It is an extra added to this game exclusively in this version. It is a Boss Rush special. The bosses take a lot more life. It has new attack patterns. It is a great challenge. A new extra is also added, which is that you have collected at least 10 medallions in Four Swords. In A Link To The Past, we will have a new quest where, in the woodcutter's house, he will give us a cage and will say riddles where we have to use our net to capture creatures that he will say. When you do this riddle, upon completion, you will gain your supreme technique with the sword. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords is a wonderful game and its definitive version. I loved having this experience again. I love this game in every possible way! I had a lot of fun revisiting the locations and especially playing Four Swords with friends. I'm a lone wolf player, but with this game it was fun to play with friends.

So that's my review, it's a bit more superficial, but this game is perfect for me. I love revisiting it whenever I can.

A Link to the Past set in stone a lot of what the Zelda series is known for, for better or worse, until Breath of the Wild decided to go go back to the first game for inspiration. Much like many other SNES games like Super Castlevania IV and Megaman X, Link to the Past seems less like a sequel and more like a remake using the new technology available to carry out the original vision. However, unlike those games, the combat hasn't had any dynamic changes made from the first. 2D Zelda combat is, to put it kindly, servicable. Most battles are just trying to loop to the side of an enemy and use your sword, maybe using the designated item if needed. Especially upon entering the Dark World, the damage enemies do begins to make the game pretty difficult. But the simple, punishing combat actually incentivises you to take the time to uncover secrets, whether that be a sword upgrade or piece of heart. Plus, it's honestly is refreshing to have a Zelda game where potions are actually useful. I found a number of the dungeons suprisingly complex for so early in the series, sometimes having you exit to the overworld or go between dark and light worlds to advance, though accidentally going through a one way door and having it close behind you can be really annoying, especially in the larger dungeons. I also appreciated how not all dungeon items were needed in that same dungeon (or at all), it somehow made finding each of them more satisfying. Despite some frustrating moments and puzzles sometimes being obtuse, Link to the Past holds up suprisingly well.

There's a lot about how this is worse than the SNES version, and in general, I would agree. However, there are a few things where there are improvements, and it will be hard to go back from those.
1. Items have more interactions. The magic boomerang can cut bushes and tall grass. The fire rod and lantern can burn bushes. The silver arrows can break pots. It will be hard to go back to the original from these.
2. The flippers allow you to briefly dive to avoid damage.
3. There is a warp point added to the top of Death Mountain once you unlock Turtle Rock, which is amazing. The hookshot shortcut in the Dark World, east of the castle crossing the river, is also more obvious.
4. The Ice Palace's layout has been slightly altered to make it much less of a chore.

Finally, there is the 4 Sword Dungeon. This is a counterpart to the Tower of Ganon, featuring a boss rush of the first 4 dark world bosses, but with new abilities, and finishing off by fighting Shadow Link. This is a GREAT dungeon that finally gives the Cane of Somaria and the Cane of Byrna their due. If only you got something for completing it, like the 1/4 Magic Meter upgrade, I would consider it essential.

So overall, if you were to play 1 version, you should play the SNES. The screen crunch on the GBA nearly ruins the game, and the sound is awful. However, if you're familiar with the SNES version, and are itching to replay the game, there's a lot of fun new stuff here.

Four Swords is incredibly frantic and chaotic. A lot of fun if you manage to team up with three friends.

It's also incredibly short though. The fact that the game only contains four pretty short dungeons honestly shocked me. It ended up being quite nice though, I like short experiences!

Unfortunately, me and my friends died at the final boss and we didn't wanna start the fourth dungeon over again. Oh well.

I didn’t truly experience Link to the Past for the first time until this version of the game more than 20 years ago—long after I’d mastered Link’s Awakening, Ocarina of Time, and many others I like far better. I actually got as far as Turtle Rock in my first-ever playthrough before….putting it down? Can’t remember why for the life of me. Sold the cartridge not long after that, because poor.

Now in my thirties and with disposable income and more Zelda-liking friends, I finally re-bought a physical cartridge and truly 100%ed both LttP & Four Swords. I’m not convinced the bonus dungeon was worth the hype—I’d maybe give it a 7.5/10? But Four Swords is excellent with a pal, and the Hurricane Spin kinda rules.

A Link to the Past is, like, right in the middle of my top Zeldas. I don’t hate it, but I like every other 2D Zelda after the NES better. I’m glad I finally crossed this game off the ole bucket list.