The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, known as Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce (Japanese: ゼルダの伝説 神々のトライフォースHepburn:Zeruda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Toraifōsu, lit. "The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce of the Gods") in Japan, is a 2D action-adventure video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. 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 The 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 common place today, such as multi-level dungeons, new weapons and items as well as the Master Sword and the concept of an alternate or parallel world.
Released to critical and fan acclaim, A Link to the Past is seen as a pioneer of modern video games. Today it is viewed as one of the greatest and most influential video games of all time. Since its release A Link to the Past has sold over 4 milion units world wide and has been ported to both theGameboy Advance (with slight changes) and the Wii's Virtual Console.