Zelda: A Link to the Past is the reason I'm sitting here right now. It was the game that made me care about video games, that showed me what they could offer beyond five minutes of fun. It was the first game that enveloped my mind and imagination, that transported me to a world like books did. Going back to that world is an intensely nostalgic experience for anyone of my generation, and actually it reminded me of the things that some of the 3D Zelda games lack when compared to their 2D progenitors: chiefly, that sense of discovery and self-direction. I thoroughly enjoyed Skyward Sword, but it led me along by the nose when Link to the Past left me free to follow my nose.

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“ It isn’t a remake, but as a sequel to A Link to the Past it’s intimately connected to Zelda’s past.

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“ It came to mind that maybe the users have started to get bored with Zelda, the traditional Zelda, so we'd like to try to change that up.

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Series director Eiji Aonuma has been on something of a nostalgia trip lately, as two of the games he’s worked most closely on – Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker – have been re-released in the past few years. A Link Between Worlds isn’t a remake, but as a sequel to A Link to the Past it’s intimately connected to Zelda’s past. Despite that, it’s also one of the most adventurous games in the whole series structurally, abandoning conventions that have been a part of the series for a decade or more, and which have begun to feel like a straitjacket for long-term players.The opening echoes both Ocarina of Time’s, in that Link dreams of princess Zelda being snatched away by some nameless, looming, pig-shaped evil, and Link to the Past’s, in which a dream leads him through the Hyrule Castle gardens to the bowels of the castle, where Zelda sits captive. An errand quickly leads Link underground and into a dungeon that’s spookily reminiscent of the secret passage between Hyrule Castle and the Sanctuary. It has torches to light, bats to swat away with the sword, and a lever puzzle that drops a pile of snakes on your head if you pick the wrong one.There are immediate, overt references to other Zeldas, too. A series of beautiful paintings in Hyrule Castle depicts the events of Ocarina of Time, where the Seven Sages sealed Ganon away, events that seem relatively fresh in this world’s memory. Impa makes an appearance, as an old woman, as does Dampe the gravekeeper (not deceased, so perhaps he’s a descendent), and old man Sahasrahla from Link to the Past. Just when I was beginning to worry at A Link Between Worlds might be more of a nostalgia trip than anything else, though, the new villain Yuga shows up and begins turning the descendants of the Seven Sages into paintings and stealing them away, introducing LBW’s game-changing gimmick: Link’s ability to transform himself into a 2D caricature, etched on the walls.It’s a while before this feature is introduced. A Link Between Worlds’ first dungeon is gentle introduction but it still lets you get stuck – my mind snagged briefly on a few of its spatial puzzles, even though all I had to solve them with was a bow and a lamp. It mainly serves to acquaint you with LBW’s novel attitude to items. You rent them from an endearing, rabbit-hatted merchant who sets up home in your little cottage, and using them costs mana from a meter that regenerates quickly. More significantly, though, it overturns the traditional dungeon structure.The two dungeons I played in the first few hours of A Link Between Worlds weren’t the most challenging I’ve ever come across, as you’d expect from the game’s introduction, but I was hugely encouraged by the absence of intrusive hints. For me a key element of Zelda has always been the sense of discovery, of being an explorer in a strange and just slightly dangerous world, wondering what’s behind that inaccessible ledge or which hidden area you can get to with a new item. It’s about not knowing, and letting your natural curiosity and intelligence guide you.Both the Mario and Zelda have tracked away from that feeling over the past five years, at least for me. There’s always a Fi or a Tanooki Mario right there, ready to pull you out of whatever minor trouble you’re experiencing. It’s encouraging to see Nintendo’s most prominent figures re-evaluate that approach. “Miyamoto and I feel the same about this,” says Aonuma. “If players reach their goal easily, it’s not really a very exciting game. A game should be something where users try to solve the puzzles and try to overcome something and get a feeling of achievement from the experience. That’s more important.“But if it’s too difficult, if we don’t actually give enough hints to the users, then at some point they’re not going to be interested in playing the game anymore. So that balance is always important, between difficulty and hand-holding. There was a certain period [at Nintendo] where people thought that games should make it easier to progress and go forward. But Miyamoto and I think that’s not the core part of the fun of a game. Sometimes just getting lost in a game can be really good as well. We’d like the game to be [made] in a way that even for hardcore gamers, hints are sometimes available. What’s important is making that selection of options available.”I love getting stuck in a Zelda game. When you eventually figure something out after staring at a puzzle for a while, you can almost hear the “click” as your mind wraps itself around the layout of a room and determines what needs to be done. That’s the feeling I remember from Link to the Past, and Link’s Awakening and the Oracle games too, by which point I was so well-trained in Zelda games that they became second nature. In A Link Between Worlds, the top-down perspective allows for a different kind of spatial puzzle from the 3D Zeldas, and transforming Link into a drawing adds another dimension for your brain to absorb.A Link Between Worlds’ Hyrule still retains an air of mystery despite the fact I know this place so well. When its transdimensional twin Lorule opens up, I’m hoping for great things. Wind Waker, when it was released ten years ago, promised a new age for Zelda, washing away the old Hyrule and its old conventions with it, a promise that Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword – for all their excellence - didn’t quite realise. A decade later, right after Wind Waker has seen its second release, it looks like A Link Between Two Worlds might be that rebirth that I've been waiting for.

After eight years Keza MacDonald is still not bored of writing about video games, which is just as well, as her skills at demon-slaying and pretend guitar are pretty much non-transferable. You can follow her on IGN and Twitter