7/2/2007 - The Legend Of Zelda Retrospective Part 6

I didn't get into playing the Legend of Zelda games until I bought a used copy of A Link to the Past. It was a good, thing, too... the first Zelda game was hard as hell, and the second one just sucks (IMHO). I had subscribed to Nintendo Power and saw that LttP was voted the #1 game month after month (I think it was up there for at least three years!). I kept putting off getting the game because I thought it was just another RPG or a maze-type game, both genres of which I was not fond of. Boy, was I wrong!

A Link to the Past was the first game in which I became "addicted" to... and when I use that term, it doesn't mean that I would play it over and over. It's sort of an obsession I feel when the game is unfinished, a boss is defeated or an accomplishment achieved, but something else is unlocked in the process, forcing me to investigate further. And that is, in essence, the beauty of the Zelda games. They plunge you into a world where you use your dexterity AND your brains to get past certain obstacles only to have other obstacles appear.

Some people call A Link to the Past Zelda III because it was released after Zelda II: Link's Adventure, but according the text on the game's box, the story of LttP took place long before the first Legend of Zelda game. So, in essence, the game is a prequel to the first two games. The game that would follow in the series would be Link's Awakening for the Game Boy. But was this game a sequel to the first two, or a sequel to the prequel, or a prequel to the prequel? Things were getting more confusing. According to the manual, Link's Awakening takes place months after LttP, which makes sense, because the nightmare boss at the end of the game takes the form of some of the bosses in LttP. So after four Zelda games we have this as the "official" chronology: LttP, Link's Awakening, the original Legend of Zelda, and finally Zelda II. Everybody got that?

Then we come to the game that totally messes things up: the Ocarina of Time. Whenever you have a storyline that introduces time travel, you know you're in for a world of hurt when trying to keep a timeline straight. I'm not sure if it was in the manual, or the box, or in Nintendo Power, but OoT is supposed to take place even before LttP. Yes, that's right... a prequel to a prequel. I really have to ask now... WHY? Why obfuscate such an epic storyline by continually putting out games whose major releases are prequels (LttP, OoT) and then release minor sequels to those games (Link's Awakening, Majora's Mask respectively)? Why can't it be like the Mario games? Each game in that series is a direct sequel to the game before it. No prequel BS!

Well, the folks at GameTrailers tried their best to come up with their own Zelda timeline, trying to use the story elements as a guide while ignoring the "official" sequence as stated by various instruction manuals and boxes. They even go the Back to the Future Part II route by splitting the timeline to fit their concept. Note that this was postulated before the release of Twilight Princess, which I believe ruins their best laid plans...