The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the second game played by Jon and Arin on Game Grumps. Later, Arin would start another playthrough of the game with Danny.

Game information
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, known as Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce (ゼルダの伝説 神々のトライフォース Zeruda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Toraifōsu lit. "The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce of the Gods") in Japan, is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console. It is the third installment in The Legend of Zelda series and was released in 1991 in Japan and 1992 in North America and Europe. Shigeru Miyamoto and his team were solely responsible for this game's development.

The plot of A Link to the Past focuses on Link as he travels on a journey to save Hyrule, defeat Ganon and rescue the seven descendants of the Sages. A Link to the Past uses a 3/4 top-down perspective similar to that of the original Legend of Zelda, dropping the side scrolling elements of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. A Link to the Past introduced elements to the series that are still commonplace today, such as the concept of an alternate or parallel world, the Master Sword and other new weapons and items.

Released to critical and commercial success, A Link to the Past was a landmark title for Nintendo and is widely considered today to be one of the greatest video games of all time. A Link to the Past has sold over 4 million units world wide and has been ported to both the Game Boy Advance (with slight changes) and the Virtual Console for the Wii and Wii U. These ports were very popular and contributed to the overall success of the game.

A successor to the game, titled The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, was released for the Nintendo 3DS in November 2013.

Playthrough
The Game Grumps named the main character Groomp, and take turns playing as him, though Arin knows the game better than Jon, so he plays more often. Arin and Jon took a long break from the game on July 29th, 2012 with only 7 episodes uploaded (and probably recorded), and many fans thought that they had abandoned the game. They returned April 12, 2013 with the episode Groomp's Return. Between episode 7 and 8 they left out both "Tower of Hera" and "Hyrule Castle Tower" from the episode due to progressing through the save file off-screen, making this the first time they have left out important parts of the game.

The playthrough with Jon was subsequently dropped entirely when he left the Grumps in June of 2013. However, after Danny had taken over in his place, he expressed a desire to play The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds when Arin was playing Super Mario 64 on the show. Not long after mentioning this, Danny either forgot which title he wanted to play or changed his mind, deciding he would play the original Link to the Past instead after Super Mario 64 was done, since ALTTP is one of his all-time favorite SNES games. Accordingly, the Grumps restarted the game from the top on a brand new save file so Danny would have his own playthrough, apparently intending to fully complete it this time. When Arin and Danny play through the game, they named the main character Smeef. Unlike the previous playthrough with Jon, Danny's progression through the Tower of Hera and the Hyrule Castle Tower are both shown in full and completed on camera. Danny also mentions practicing different parts of the game in advance for the actual recording sessions.

Recurring discussions
In the early parts of the playthrough Arin and Jon discussed the games A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, and which of the games is the superior one. Arin defending A Link to the Past and Jon defending Ocarina of Time. They also discuss how they should at some point play Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask on the show.

The Game Grumps also laugh almost every time a character says the player's name, Groomp.

Whenever Sahasrahla speaks, Egoraptor reads his lines in a "sassy" voice.

Sequelitis
On July 1st, 2014, Egoraptor released a "Sequelitis" comparing A Link to the Past with Ocarina of Time (and to a lesser extent, The Legend of Zelda, Skyward Sword, Twilight Princess, and A Link Between Worlds). He finds A Link to the Past to be superior due to the game's emphasis on exploration, and the fact that Ocarina of Time depends on waiting than A Link to the Past.