The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
System Super Nintendo
Developer Nintendo
Genre Action / Adventure
Series The Legend of Zelda Series

The wizard Aganhim has overthrown the king of Hyrule and started kidnapping the descendents of seven sages. One of the descendents, Princess Zelda, sends a psychic message to a boy named Link who follows his uncle to the castle.

Armed with a sword and shield, Link has to fight his way through the enemy soldiers, solve the puzzles and rescue Zelda. She sends Link on an adventure to reclaim the legendary Master Sword, the blade used to destroy evil.

Upon facing Aganhim, Link is drawn into the Dark World, an alternate dimension and home of the imprisoned demon king Ganon. Link must rescue all of the sages' descendents to put an end to Ganon's world-conquering ambitions.

Release Information

Region Name Release
Japan ゼルダの伝説 神々のトライフォース Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce 21 Nov 1991
US The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Apr 1992
Europe The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Sep 1992

Re-releases

System Japan U.S. Europe
Nintendo Power (SFC) 01 Aug 2000 - -
Wii Virtual Console 02 Dec 2006 22 Jan 2007 23 Mar 2007
Wii U Virtual Console 12 Feb 2014 30 Jan 2014 12 Dec 2013
New Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console 04 Mar 2016 - 10 Mar 2016

Ports & Remakes

Game Boy Advance The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past + Four Swords

Cameos

Mario Pictures

Mario Pictures

In two of the houses in Kakariko Village, you can find portraits of Mario hanging on the walls.

The portrait also appears in one of the houses in the Village of Outcasts in the Dark World.

Submitted by Fryguy64, Smashchu

Mario Enemies

Chain Chomp

Chain Chomp

In the Turtle Rock dungeon is an enemy that resembles the Chain Chomps from Super Mario Bros. 3. They are black iron balls with teeth, attached to stumps by a chain.


Fire Bar

Fire Bar

The game also features rotating fire bars, which appear to be based on the rotating Fire Bars from Super Mario Bros.


Following a recently translated interview from 1991, a few interesting facts about the enemy cameos came to light.

Chain Chomp (Wanwan) had been sitting around as concept art for a while when both the Super Mario Bros. 3 and Legend of Zelda teams picked it up:

Q. By the way, there were several characters in this game that also appeared in Mario. Was that your idea, Mr. Tezuka?

Tezuka: We'd had concept art for Wanwan lying around for awhile. We'd put it aside thinking we might make use of it if we could, but someone discovered it and ended up using it for their own purposes.

The Fire Bars were designed originally for The Legend of Zelda, but were adopted into Super Mario Bros. and eventually dropped from the Zelda game:

Q. There were Fire Bars, too. I was wondering if there was some trick to the order of the creation process.

Tezuka: To tell you the truth, Fire Bars were originally made for Zelda. They were a lot of fun, so we used them in Mario too.

Miyamoto: Now that you mention it, it was Mario that did the ripping off. There were things we couldn't use in the first Zelda, you see, but as time passed and the statue of limitations was about to expire, we thought about using them again and ended up implementing them in this game.

Nakago: They were originally made for Zelda 1.

Are we missing any cameo appearances for this game? Please contact NinDB with the details.