This was a game that had the mood not been right, I would have probably kept putting it off. Knowing it was a big influence on, practically the namesake of, the Metroidvania genre, I expected it to be one of those experiences where you can see the skeleton (no pun intended) of a game style that will ultimately become very timeless and powerful, but that this particular game itself would not rise to the status that some of its descendants. Boy, was I wrong. This game was absolute fire from the very beginning. I love the atmosphere, the mechanics, the character, the design, all the ability-building and weapon combos, the music, my god the music, just everything about it. It became very evident about halfway through that this was going to be an all-time favorite, and it exceeded even those expectations. This is a game with so much endgame content that I loved so much, it could be the rare instance where I actually come back to it and try playing through it again as Richter, which, from what I've read, seems like an even better, or at least different experience.

Reviewed on Wednesday, August 16th, 2023, 9:21am.

I had a very similar experience to Donkey Kong Country, where the quality of the game didn’t quite match my personal enjoyment of the game, simply due to frustration with my skill level. I would say there was no point in which I felt the game unfair or that it had too precise mechanics, this was simply a me problem. Still a great classic with incredible level diversity, character design, music, the whole shebang.

Reviewed on Saturday, December 31st, 2022, 12:00am.

An all-time classic. The music and character design is top tier, and the soundtrack especially pushed the SNES console to the next level. I'll go to my grave with these songs in my head. I wish I were better at platformers, but I am working on it! This was a nice challenge.

Reviewed on Friday, December 9th, 2022, 12:00am.

I think it’s becoming very evident in the wake of Breath of the Wild is how much the aspect of overworld exploration plays into my enjoyment of a Zelda game. So with this game, which is essentially hopping from one dungeon to the next, I found myself wanting a slightly different experience than what is offered. It’s not necessarily a knock on the quality of the game, as even by today’s standards the graphics and dungeon design are top notch, with the latter being particularly impressive, but it definitely wore on my as I was entering my thirteenth dungeon to fight Ganon. I do appreciate the game for what it introduced to the series, as puzzle-solving in dungeons is so fun for me, but it definitely has a few of the same hang ups as the first game: tough 2D combat and maneuverability combined with massive damage hits from enemies left me frustrated at times, and I was often feeling very in the dark on what to do next as the clues just weren’t laid out very well. I think this is really where the franchise starts to take shape, though, and that’s so exciting and wonderful.

Reviewed on Tuesday, January 17th, 2023, 9:39pm.

When I first started playing this game, I was not having a great time because of the point and click style not translating greatly to the Steam Deck, but eventually I got the hang of everything and I think the actual playing experience wasn't hampered too much by technology changes. I found the game to be fun and engaging, of course very entertaining and humorous, and actually somewhat difficult. Some of the solutions to problems I don't think I would have come to in a million years on my own, and I am not sure if that's a lack of gaming intuition on my part or just a lack of hand-holding in gaming back then, but I never found any of those difficult solutions to be less than clever, so probably the former. I really enjoyed the graphics, the characters, and of course the settings.

Reviewed on Monday, August 21st, 2023, 7:13am.