11. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Nintendo 3DS’ A Link Between Worlds, the Link to the Past sequel 21 years in the making, is a Zelda game that’s all about perspective. It sticks to a top-down perspective but reimagines the world and art style of A Link to the Past with 3D assets. Every Zelda game these days has a hook; this one is Link’s ability to magically merge with walls and turn into a painting, shifting the gameplay onto 2D planes that wrap around the perimeters of walls.

Art and gameplay design intersect especially closely in A Link Between Worlds, as the game world has to be fully rendered in a way that makes sense to the player and the camera in multiple dimensions. Even more impressive is the fact that Link can merge with almost any surface at any time.

The new 3D graphics bring to life the sprites and tiles of A Link to the Past. Looking at these games side by side, you can see the love and care that went into adapting every pixel to 3D. Link himself looks like a chubby cherub, and when he’s merged with a wall he takes on an almost hieroglyphic design. So much of the thought put into the art and design of the game is great, but ultimately the game’s aesthetic feels a bit off. Taking the timeless sprites of A Link to the Past and translating directly to 3D polygons doesn’t translate well. The three dimensional character models and world in this game look ugly, chunky, and made out of low-resolution Play-Doh.