Yet all of these gameplay mechanics are invisible and mute until they are made visible and audible by the graphics and sounds of the SNES/GBA. You can see how necessary the graphics are to the gameplay innovations by comparing screen shots of the original Legend of Zelda and Link to the Past. Since they share the same point of view, it’s easy to see how the SNES’s Mode-7 and parallax scrolling of 4 backgrounds afforded A Link to the Past a sense of depth and height, that made for a quasi-3D world. Aside from the aesthetic benefits, such as a Death Mountain that actually looks like a mountain, the visual depth translates into new innovations in the puzzle solving gameplay. You can see it for yourself when Link walks over a hole, which is a cutaway to a scrolling background that indicates a lower level he must fall into. Think of it as a chutes and ladders like game map, where progress is only possible if you consider your movement in relation to corresponding points in the upper and lower levels. So in addition to moving up, down, left, right, you also climb up and fall down on a Z-axis. It’s not true 3D, it’s 2D 3D.
Finally the general aesthetic is what you might call a super deformed look, that is to say pudgy and stout characters with large heads whose faces are so well animated they tell the mood of the character. This is important to the story telling and general emotional tenor of the game. Overall, there is uniformity in its scale, diversity in its design, and a team of damn good artists that make a Link to the Past not only look but move like a cartoon.
While you traverse through Hyrule, you will hear a new voice echoing through Hyrule...Link’s, or rather, the Japanese lad who lent his voice to the classic Ocarina of Time. All of Link’s vocals from that game now reverberate into the past, in an appropriate touch that adds some continuity in the sounds of the Zelda series. You can thank Taiju Suzuko for this extra punch to an already well engineered sound scheme, which blends perfectly with the beautiful symphonic score that is the ambience of Hyrule. The score, composed by Koji Kondo, renders old and new themes with a surprisingly good midi orchestra. The various different instruments I heard astonished me for their diversity. A Link to the Past’s original release in 1991 was proof positive of the superiority of the SNES soundcard to that of the Sega Genesis. It is not an exaggeration that some of Koji Kondo’s compositions, when given a real orchestral treatment as heard in Orchestral Game Concert 1, stand up with the best of John William’s themes, particularly those of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones variety. Unfortunately, the hills of Hyrule will now be alive with a monopolar sound of music courtesy of the GBA’s lone speaker. There’s always an option for stereo headphone.
An often overlooked aspect of A Link to the Past is that it continues a myth worth telling. Unlike other medieval fantasy games, the myth does not obsess over its darker elements, but rather builds them around the theme of goodness and inevitable victory by the side of good. It teaches the truth of the old proverb that absolute power like Ganon’s corrupts absolutely. In fact, Ganon can only absorb the Power of the Triforce, not its Wisdom or Courage. The wizard Aghinam is Ganon’s puppet, and fulfills an antichrist role not unlike how Sauromon is to Sauron, which is an interesting twist to the game that was never well-developed. Nonetheless, the real evil in the game is Ganon’s will to power.
Likewise, the evil of the gaming industry has always been the demonstration of graphic power unwisely for its own sake, and the fear of innovation which pressures game designers to conform their creativity into whatever formulaic model of a game is making money. Thus they pander to the tastes of the public instead of catering to our need to dream of an ideal reality, in this case just a well constructed game. Hence the obsessive speculation over the graphic specs of every new console. Hence the countless sub par clones of Street Fighter 2 often produced under said moniker by none other than Capcom itself. Hence the Raelian’s desire to clone for the sake of cloning itself. Hence those war mongers at Capcom who couldn’t help but reduce the Legend of Zelda to bloodlust. Four swords indeed.
That aside, The Legend of Zelda - Four Swords, is a good game, with creative puzzles and action that generate some good competition among your friends, all of whom are sure to have both a GBA and the game because it’s that fun. No really, and just like Pokemon, you will be eager to link up and play with your peers who’ll have nothing else better to do. Once you do link up, you’ll actually be able to play the game and find out that Capcom aimed for a much more angular look than A Link to the Past in a way that seems to mimic the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker for the Gamecube. The large detailed backdrops seem to borrow from the Secret of Mana, which in turn borrowed a lot from the Legend of Zelda. All the sprites are very well animated, but in a sleeker fashion than in a Link to the Past. The only major drawback is that Capcom should have allowed the option of playing against the computer like in say, any other multiplayer game on the market. Why would Capcom make the game accessible only in the presence of two or more GBAs?
The method to their madness might be hidden in Matthew 20:18, in which Jesus says, "For where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them". That would make 3’s company, because a spirit or deity would be summoned by the presence of two people with common purpose for Christ. Furthermore, that verse is the Bible’s official minimum for a church, which has raised the question of whether the medium of technology can allow for a soul connection between two people, which would constitute a church. Many groups operate upon this principle, using the internet, which in principle is just two or more linked computers (GBAs), to carry out their ministry. Surely we are aware of the ministries of terror that operate in this fashion. If this is true, then as Jesus said, God would be in the Machine, making Four Swords something of a Ghost in the Shell project. This is hinted at in the opening of the Four Swords, in which two people, Link and Zelda, gather around an otherwise inanimate sword, only to unleash the evil deity Vaati. Treat this game with the same caution that you would an ouija board.
Truly the dramatic rise of the internet, religious fundamentalism, and the synergy between the two, which is the best and worst of anarchy, is an appropriate context for the latest incarnation of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past/Four Swords, if you have some imagination. In this sense, perhaps there has never been a better time than the present for this Link to the Past.
Josh Hsieh
|
