The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is a game that will send nostalgic shivers down the spine of any veteran gamer. Much like holding the hand of your first girlfriend in Primary School, playing The Legend of Zelda in your youth was a special and memorable experience. Indeed, for gamers like myself, who would not acquire girlfriends until much later on (when all hand-holding was inevitably marred by intense sweating), it was games like The Legend of Zelda that defined my youthful innocence. What could me more pleasurable for an eight-year-old than adventuring in the mystical land of Hyrule? Not much.

But times change. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is now 20-years-old. Link has moved on from his 16-Bit Super Nintendo adventures - he now drives steam trains with a stylus stick, and morphs into wolves using a Wii-mote. Hell, if the money is right, Link will even pimp out his sword-fighting services to third party developers (yes, I'm looking at you, Soul Calibur 2). Is there any reason for fans to look back at his humble beginnings?

In short, yes there is. The Legend of Zelda is a timeless masterpiece; a work of art. It's almost like Nintendo's Sistine Chapel - except with less male nudity and far cuter fairies. I assume that, in 400 years time, people will still be gazing back at Zelda's two-dimensional beauty, and wondering how such a tiny operating system could produce such luscious, eight-colour sprites. Ok... maybe not.

The plot of The Legend of Zelda is similar to most Zelda games. Link must rescue Princess Zelda, stop the evil Gannon, and locate a bunch of pendants / crystals / other items along the way. It's not exactly Pulitzer Prize winning stuff, but, then again, this is a video game from 1991 - rescuing princesses and collecting pendants was de rigueur behaviour for almost all heroes back then.

The real strength of the game lies in the way its secrets are slowly revealed as you progress. At first, you are faced with a huge world map, but Link lacks the skills to properly explore it. As you conquer more dungeons, and find new items, you unlock new areas. The pace of this exploration, and the slow increase in difficulty that accompanies it, is the stuff of Nintendo genius. It really makes the game feel like an epic adventure, as opposed to other J-RPGs, which often degenerate into mind-numbing grind-a-thons. The level design is also superb - each dungeon is a unique experience, with different puzzles to solve, new monsters to slay and some bad-ass bosses to take down.

The items Link finds along the way have since become mainstays of the Zelda franchise. The Pegasus boots, the hookshot and the Master Sword all make their inaugural appearances in this game. And you are definitely going to need as many cool items as you can muster, because eventually Link gets teleported to the "dark world", which is a bit like the real world only much, much scarier. This is when the difficulty of the game really starts to ramp up, and The Legend of Zelda becomes a true challenge (it's also the only time in the franchise's history you get to see Link morph into a bunny rabbit).

I really don't have anything bad to say about this game. Oh wait, there is one thing - if you look closely, Link has pink hair (which has to be the second lamest haircut ever devised for a video game hero). But apart from this minor quibble, it's almost a perfect game. Even 20-years after its release, Zelda still has the charm to transport you into a world of beauty, mystery and youthful innocence.

If you're interested in revisiting Link's third quest, you can splash out 1000 Wii points and buy it from Nintendo's Wii Shop right now. But if you want a truly authentic experience, it's going to cost you a bit more: the original Super Nintendo cartridge, plus box and instructions, sells for about $50 on eBay.

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