Upon being told by their uncle to stay inside, the player is then given control of Link and tasked with disobeying his mentor figure to rescue Zelda. In the middle of the night, through telepathy, Princess Zelda calls for Link to come rescue her in Hyrule Castle’s dungeon. While Link is already on his adventure by the time players take control of him in The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link, A Link to the Past opens with a literal call to adventure, the first step in the Hero’s Journey. More than anything, it’s A Link to the Past ’s narrative structure which allows the game to properly establish a more focused mythos for the franchise. It’s through the Triforce’s expanded role that the series gains adequate context for the conflict between Link and Ganon while also making A Link to the Past feel classically epic in nature. A Link to the Past establishes the Triforce as a tangible object rooted in divinity, coveted by all. The Triforce clearly always played a divine role in the series, in both it how it was utilized in the first two games along with its appearance, but it wouldn’t be until A Link to the Past where the Triforce would be fully fleshed out into more than just a godly symbol. While both The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link had a clear mythological identity, the first two installments’ faith felt more analogous to Christianity than the wholly unique religion found in the rest of the franchise. Along with the many gameplay additions, A Link to the Past brought with it a more focused narrative that worked to expand the lore and mythology of the series. This was the entry that gave dungeons proper puzzles, started (but not yet solidified) the trend of dungeon items being used against bosses, and established the “ Zelda Formula,” a structure which saw the majority of games being split into two key sections. While both A Link Between Worlds and Breath of the Wild took steps in pushing the series forward, denying A Link to the Past ’s influence on the games that came before would be foolish. It says quite a lot about the quality of the game that A Link to the Past ’s contributions to The Legend of Zelda franchise are still, more or less, relevant to this day.
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