It was a surefire conclusion that A Link to the Past, one of the most renowned entries in one of the most iconic video game series of all time, would be an incredible game. And I finally got to play it for the first time over 30 years after its release as I ended my 2025.
This game held up so astonishingly well, and it got me back into that wonderful rhythm of exploring a new Hyrule, uncovering new tools, traversing dangerous dungeons, and pushing the boundaries of this magical world from so long ago.
However, the most unexpected part came from not the game itself, but the revelation that the Steam Deck is an excellent environment for playing retro games. While it would be difficult to emulate the experience from 1991, classic games have never looked better than on my OLED screen, and the comfort of holding that in my hands while kicking back on my couch made for the best time to unwind after a long day of work.
I’ve uncovered a whole new backlog of titles that I can’t wait to get into. From the NES to the GameCube and the PS1 to the PS2, I feel like so many games have been saved from never being seen by me. It has never been more appropriate to call Link the Hero of Time, and my Steam Deck has truly been the perfect link to the past.
it’s kind of amazing how well some older games hold up when the core design is strong. exploration, pacing, and progression like this still feel satisfying today, and it really shows how timeless good game design can be
Because of the strong technical limitations of their time, I think that design also was a much more important factor back then. For instance, there was no purely digital distribution whatsoever.
You pretty much had to nail it on first try.
A lot of Zelda games hold up greatly. This year I played Skyward Sword, Wind Waker and Link's Awakening and they're all among the best I've ever played
That happened to me when I played Super Metroid a couple of years ago
The game was just absolutely perfect in every way, I could just play long sessions without getting bored and it was an amazing experience
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for games like Zelda, I kinda like the stick vs a d-pad personally, much easier on the thumb
Oh that's interesting because I much preferred the physicality of using the D-pad on the Steam Deck for movement instead of defaulting to the analog stick on my Xbox controller I normally used for PC gaming.
I usually prefer the Xbox controller over the PlayStation one for its placement of the analog stick, as that’s what I use for movement, and that feels better symmetrically with the face buttons. However older consoles like the SNES didn’t have an analog stick, and therefore movement was typically done with the D-pad. Except primarily using the D-pad on the Xbox controller in combination with the face buttons feels odd. I think that’s why my experience playing Super Metroid always felt a bit “off” to me, since I defaulted to using the analog stick on the Xbox controller when the game was never designed for it.
Of course, with the Steam Deck, the D-pad and face buttons are symmetrical, and the D-pad is built far better, so this makes it much more comfortable to play retro games that primarily use the D-pad!
The d-pad is pretty good. Not amazing, but better than a whole lot of them, including first-party ones.
What? I can't think of a single console with a worse dpad, maybe SMS? Gamecube probably too. NES, SNES, Genesis (6-button), Jaguar, Saturn, N64 all much better. Steamdeck's dpad is somehow mushy while also being creaky and most importantly is inaccurate for things like shoryukens or precision platforming.
XBox d-pad is miserable until the "modern" (series S/X). PS1/2 wasn't great, either.
There is some serious nostalgia at work if you think the N64 dpad is better.
You guys used the Dpad on N64?
cd32 commodore pad.
It's an AI writeup
I'd rather you just say my writing is bad than you making baseless accusations of AI, thanks.
If you want proof then you can look at my blog where this is an excerpt from.
Don't worry about him, his username checks out.
Shitty dpad or not, I hope you enjoyed one of the greatest games of all time
It's bad
Are you using retroarch and/or crt shaders?
Using retroarch. I tried some CRT shaders but it's a bit surreal to me in combination with the Steam Deck.
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Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. I need to add that to my SteamDeck
Also a hell of a lot harder. I'm too smoothbrain for most of its puzzles 😂 but such a great game.
So glad you got to finally try this masterpiece! Truly one of the greatest games of all time. I love it even more than Ocarina of Time.
If you aren't easily offended I strongly recommend checking out Binding of Isaac. Game was released about 12+ years ago but still gets the odd update. It's basically modeled after various Zelda games but feels a lot like LttP. You'll get hundreds of hours of fun.
It's in the top 3 Zelda's for sure (along with OoT and Link's Awakening). So much of Zelda's DNA derives from ALttP that it almost makes every subsequent game look like a pale imitation.
That's been my issue. After Twilight Princess's ending and final fight completely disappointed me, I haven't Zelda's much.
The disappointment came from the whole game being so much easier than LttP and Ocarina while invoking a lot of it. I loved the recreating of the Hyrule Castle in the last part of TP and then Gannon does a half-heart for damage?
I tried revisiting Wind Waker and liked it.
Maybe I'm just not that kind of gamer anymore
Just dusted off the steam deck with retrodeck today. Between it and syncthing, it's easy to emulate anything while handing off between it, my Anbernic 477M and my PC seamlessly. Gonna destroy my backlog in 2026 (hopefully)
I'd highly recommend A Link Between Worlds if you enjoyed ALTP. The formula is very similar but with some new mechanics that make the dungeons even more creative and engaging.
Deck is also pretty solid for 3DS emulation, definitely worth the setup.
I’m one of the people that disliked A Link Between Worlds because of how simplistic and short it was.
Interesting, it wasn't a long game but simplistic isn't a take I haven't heard before. What was it about the game that made you feel it was simplistic?
Are you emulating it or playing the decomp/port with widescreen support and other improvements?
I really should repair my SNES, I haven't thought of this game for a while as I can't play it and my Nintendo has been in state of "I'll repair it soon".
Like your title says, it's quite literally that link to the past. It's part of my childhood I really want to relive at least once again.
Do yourself a solid and pretend that the ALTTP Randomizer doesn't exist unless you want to have the game as part of your eternal backlog. The difficulty of it basically scales up infinitely to match your knowledge of the game with a very simple premise: Every treasure chest or other source of an item could contain any item in the game (outside of dungeon items like the small keys, Big Key, Map and Compass, which are randomized within the dungeon they're for) and the randomizer will always generate a version of the game you can complete, but not in the intended order. If you find the Moon Pearl in Link's House in that very first chest that sounds good on paper, but it just might mean you need to somehow access the Dark World to find the Bow you need to complete the first dungeon, because the Big Chest had twenty rupees and the Big Key was in the very first treasure box.
Not hard-core enough yet? Okay, the Randomizer can also randomize dungeon bosses so that you're fighting Blind on the top floor of Hera's Tower and the Giant Muldorm is now living in the Green Pendant temple. It can make it more hard-core: It can also randomize which enemies are actually used as well. Ever wanted to enter the sweeping granny's place in Kakariko to find yourself face to face with six Lionels? You can. You can also randomize their health and damage so the Lionels are a piece of cake but a simple rat will nearly oneshot you without even with every piece of gear at your fingers.
Up to and including the need to know where every single chest is and memorizing the entire game world screen by screen because if you want to play a version of ALTTP where you have to false flipper to see the under bridge bottle guy only to find out he's only got a single arrow for you, you can. If you want, the randomizer can even do an entrance swap and make it so that entering the overworld entrance to Dungeon 1 is actually how you get to Ganon's Tower in the Dark World and dropping down a random hole under a bush in the Light World might drop you into the final boss fight with Ganon despite only having the starter sword, the green armor, and don't even know where the Bow is because you checked every chest in the first dungeon, and the big chest contained an empty bottle.
And if all that still doesn't sound hard-core enough for you? You can turn on Keysanity mode. So remember that thing I said about how dungeon-specific items are randomized within the dungeon they belong to, because it would be insanity to have to hunt for a dungeon small keys for a Light World dungeon in the Dark World? Keysanity does exactly what you think it does based on the name, meaning you might have to constantly switch gears and exit dungeons just to get the one small key you need to complete them.
Oh, and if all THAT wasn't spicy enough, you can start a randomizer run with the basic sword you get from Link's uncle included in the randomized item pool, so he might just hand you the hammer and tell you to get to work with that. There's even an option to remove the swords entirely so you have to use items just to deal damage to enemies.
ALttP is my favorite Zelda game. It was my very first game as a kid and replaying it as an adult is just as enjoyable. 🤗
I've just finished Symphony of the night for the first time with 178%. CRT shaders and save states makes the experience beautiful
I’m currently playing through A Link to the Past again on an old Super Famicom that I picked up on a trip to Japan. I’ve played this game through multiple times on multiple systems. The origins hardware is always the best, but I love it just as much on the Switch or an emulator. Just a perfect game.
I think the original experience on a CRT can't be beat. If you have the space it's worth picking up a cheap tube TV for retro gaming. I have a pi 3b+ since it outputs 240p and it can emulate most consoles up to the 5th gen. For 6th gen I've got the actual hardware and soft modded it. The only inconvenience is getting games onto my PS2 but for everything else I just add my games via FTP same as I would on my steam deck.
I still prefer RPGs on handhelds so I don't have to sit in one spot the whole time. But visually there's no replacing the real thing.
There are filters you can use to recreate the crt look. The more advanced filters can be pretty heavy on the processing side though.
I know. I've seen some good looking filters but if we're talking about the absolute best visuals then you can't beat the displays that these games were designed for. But I understand that this isn't something most people would care about and CRT filters are good enough for them. I really just made that post because the notion that retro games look best on the Steam Deck made me feel argumentative.