{"id":123865,"date":"2022-04-13T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-130125"},"modified":"2022-04-13T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T15:00:00","slug":"feature-hot-zelda-link-to-the-past-takes-from-90s-game-mags-30-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/04\/13\/feature-hot-zelda-link-to-the-past-takes-from-90s-game-mags-30-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: Hot Zelda: Link To The Past Takes From ’90s Game Mags, 30 Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image: Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let us set the scene: The year is 1992. You are sitting in your living room, wearing something with massive shoulder pads, probably. Guns N’ Roses is playing on the radio. Social media does not yet exist.<\/p>\n

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Raise your sword if you miss the ’90s (Image: RetroMags.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is into this peaceful scene that we can add a sprinkling of video game magazines, splashed with an egregious number of large, loud fonts, the interior full of game hint helplines and weirdly aggressive adverts. And, on the cover of one of the 1992 issues, a new game: The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past<\/a>, the third in a series that has previously only been on the Nintendo Entertainment System.<\/p>\n

This new game, though, promises more colours, more story, and unbeknownst to you, an entirely new world separate from the Hyrule you know and love. It’s the first time that a Zelda game would introduce the concept of a geographical and\/or temporal dichotomy, but let’s be honest \u2014 it’s 1992, and you don’t know what any of those words mean. You’re just excited to get a new Zelda SNES game for your birthday, and we don’t blame you. Plus, the magazines say it’s really<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

And now, 30 years later (to the day!) we’ve combed through magazine archives to find a handful of those magazines, to examine what the gaming world was like back then \u2014 and how people really felt about A Link to the Past. It was only the third Zelda game, and although Zelda was obviously very<\/em> popular, it wasn’t anything near to the cultural saturation of today, where a Zelda game can sell millions in its first week of release, and reduce grown men to fits of rage if it’s not quite what they want.<\/p>\n

It’s fascinating not only to look back at the general perception of a game that would eventually make its way onto “greatest of all time” lists, but to see exactly what game critics felt was useful to their readers in 1992.<\/p>\n