Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
This was easily one of my favorite games growing up, and I never even had a Super Nintendo. Me and another friend would several times a week go for a (long) bicycle ride to an older friend on the countryside who owned the game, just to watch him play it. We couldn't miss a session. That's how worthwhile it was. I still remember how we tried to figure out how to remove the heavy rocks to get into Kakariko Village in the dark world, and several of the tricky dungeon puzzles.
Having never actually completed the game myself, I gave it another shot after having played several older Zelda titles this year.
The weird thing about this was that I remember almost all of the puzzles from 20 years ago!! There was no internet at the time, so several weeks were sometimes spent to figure out the puzzles. And to call the Nintendo magazine help line as a last resort
I wish I only had good things to say, as this is widely considered one of the greatest games of all time. This game has aged. It's not as deep in neither story nor gameplay as the more recent titles (note: I have not played the GameCube/Wii titles yet).
As this is inevitable as games constantly evolve, some things are more relevant. It's inconsistent in that it's unclear what your current goal is. By this I mean, early in the game you get hints on where to go next or which item you need to proceed. You also get this later in the game (talking to trees/characters etc), but between some levels there's no information. This results in a lot of frustrating exploring, testing out a lot of things that don't really make sense and running around the worlds over and over again. This increases difficulty level, but sometimes what you have to do can't really be guessed (read: Monkey Island 2). Challenging puzzles can be great, trial&error for several hours is not. You can look up walkthroughs online, but it usually takes out a lot of the sense of accomplishment and ruins the experience.
Another is that boss difficulty varies and sometimes the boss is the easiest part, some are much easier than the previous ones and so on.
However what I think is perhaps the biggest "flaw" in the game (there aren't any real flaws to mention in the game) is that the same dungeon music is used in almost every dungeon in the game. The game has great music but this piece is not really that good and quite repetitive. In addition, if you get frustrated with a dungeon you might associate that feeling with the music and re-trigger that when entering a fresh dungeon, if that makes sense. The best musical composition in the game in my opinion (Hyrule Castle) is only used for a short portion of the game.
This game has a lot of clever puzzles that will reward you for being smart, especially certain heart pieces. It's pretty cool to figure out "How the hell do I get over
there?" and then logically finding the non-obvious route using wits and special items. The opening is great, as is the story, you will get deeply drawn into this game and unable to quit until you've completed it.
I'd absolutely recommend this as the first game to play for anyone that has wanted to get into Zelda but who doesn't know where to start, and can handle the (pretty nice) 2D graphics. This game set the standard. Gameplay is great and it really makes the most of the SNES. A definite masterpiece at the time, however it has been passed by more than I thought it had.
Based on that, I can't work out a fair score. As a Super Nintendo game, it's absolutely perfect though.
PS
If you're a long time fan of the game or would like some nostalgia, I recommend watching the 100% current world record (every item, heart piece, bottle etc) run where 'Kryssstal' totally destroys the game in 1h45m. It's from August 2012; this game is still being played, and on a high level
Watch it here:
http://www.twitch.tv/kryssstal/b/327969931
Note: A lot of tricks are used that requires tons of practice and knowledge