Best Indie Games Like The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past

The best indie games like The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past are Hyper Light Drifter, Tunic and Death's Door. Below are 6, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to indie costs you.

Why Indie Is a Good Answer for The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past

Filtering to indie means you want the answer a small team would give. It is usually the most interesting filter on this site, because small studios take the risks large ones cannot.

What you get: One strong idea, explored completely, at a price that makes trying it easy. Indies have no production to hide behind, so the design is exposed.

What made The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the indie part of that answer, and only the indie part.

6 Indie Games Like The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past

  1. 1. Hyper Light Drifter

    Top-down adventure with the same wordless confidence.

  2. 2. Tunic

    A Zelda-shaped game where the manual itself is the puzzle.

  3. 3. Death's Door

    Compact, sharp, and paced exactly like a 2D Zelda.

  4. 4. Blossom Tales

    An unashamed A Link to the Past homage that plays well.

  5. 5. Ittle Dew 2

    All dungeon, all item puzzles, no filler.

  6. 6. CrossCode

    Top-down action with the deepest puzzle dungeons in the genre.

What This Filter Leaves Out

Polish and scale, sometimes. A few of these are rough at the edges, and a big-budget pick will always look better doing the same thing.

Specifically, these are strong answers for The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past that are not indie games, so they are not on this page:

The full list is on games like The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past — 9 picks, no genre filter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best indie game like The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past?

Hyper Light Drifter. Top-down adventure with the same wordless confidence.

Are all of these on the Super Nintendo?

No. The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past released on the Super Nintendo, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.

What actually counts as an indie game?

Self-published, or published without a large publisher's money. It says nothing about the size of the game, which is why a forty-hour metroidvania and a two-hour art piece sit under the same label.

Why are indie games often better designed?

Constraint. Without a budget to hide behind, one idea has to carry the whole thing — and a small team can commit to something risky that a large one would sand down.

How are these chosen?

By hand. Each pick was written for the full The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is indie — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.

Other Angles on The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past

More Indie Games Recommendations

Or read the indie guide for where to start in the genre generally.