The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds Nintendo Selects

One of the more playful Zelda handhelds, especially after the more traditional The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap [ゼルダの伝説 ふしぎのぼうし] whose gimmick of shrinking doesn't really change gameplay or thematic too much outside some cute graphical gimmicks. It is your choice if that's better than a "Dark World" from Link to the Past or Twilight Princess which mostly re-uses assets and gives them different colour palettes.

The more open-world elements are definitely fresher but also come at the cost that the narrative seems a bit more haphazard. Once you can explore everywhere there, there is less of an urgency to really get to said places as the story will just drop in casually, with Anti-Zelda coming in just to give a pinch of expository text.

I've played Link to the Past to death, so having nearly the same map might charm old school players or it might give you deja-vu in all the worst ways.

That being said, the gimmick of creeping into walls and along the walls lets you solve puzzles in a variety of different ways and really makes some dungeons shine. I never died enough or didn't have to worry about my items being taken away from me., so I eventually just stocked up on everything and flat out bought out Ravio.

Zelda games are triple-A and push their respective systems to their brink, so if you can handle the above, this is still one of the must-plays on a 3DS.