Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) — Price Guide & Live Deals

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past shipped in April 1992 as Nintendo's flagship SNES action-adventure title and rapidly became one of the defining games of the 16-bit era. Developed by Nintendo EAD and published by Nintendo, it returned the series to the top-down overworld format of the NES original while introducing the Light World / Dark World mechanic, the hookshot, the spin attack, and most of the visual and gameplay vocabulary that every subsequent Zelda game has drawn from. The cartridge market reflects that staying power — A Link to the Past has been one of the most actively-traded SNES titles since the late-2000s retro resurgence, with deep loose-cart supply, a meaningful CIB market, and a small but real sealed-graded tier. The feed below pulls current eBay listings that match the original 1992 US-NTSC SNES release, filtered to authentic-claim sellers with a meaningful feedback history. Pick a condition chip — All, Loose, CIB, or Sealed — to scope what's shown; the editorial below explains what each tier should actually include and what to verify before buying.

What the A Link to the Past feed shows (and what it doesn't)

The deals on this page surface the original 1992 US-NTSC Super Nintendo release as a standalone cartridge — the cart, the box, or graded copies of either. They deliberately filter out:

• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords (Game Boy Advance, 2002). Nintendo ported A Link to the Past to the GBA in 2002 and bundled it with a new multiplayer-focused Four Swords campaign on the same cartridge. The GBA cart shares the exact title text and has been one of the most search-confusable variants for buyers shopping the SNES original ever since — the feed excludes any listing mentioning advance, gba, game boy advance, or four swords so the SNES surface stays scoped to the 1992 cartridge.
• Japanese Super Famicom / BS Zelda imports. The Japanese release shipped on the Super Famicom in November 1991 under the title Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce ("The Triforce of the Gods"). The Japanese cartridge is a different physical shape, the ROM is in Japanese, and the product code prefix is different from the US SNS-P-ZL code. A separate Japan-only Satellaview broadcast remake titled BS Zelda: Kamigami no Triforce also exists. Excluded by super famicom, famicom, shvc, japan, japanese, jpn, ntsc-j, kamigami, and triforce of the gods.
• PAL / European / Australian / UK releases. Different region SKUs that won't natively boot on a US NTSC SNES without a region adapter or a region-modded console. Excluded by pal, eur, europe, european, uk, australia, australian, aus.
• ROM-hack carts. A Link to the Past has one of the deepest SNES ROM-hacking scenes — Parallel Worlds, Hyrule Magic, the Master Quest / randomizer community projects, and many others ship as homebrew flash carts in a real SNES shell and sellers occasionally list them under "A Link to the Past" with the hack name appended. Excluded by name (parallel worlds, hyrule magic, master quest, randomizer, rom hack, alttp rom, avgn — the latter for the AVGN-themed custom cart that surfaces in the same searches).
• Multi-game lots, strategy guides, manuals-only, boxes-only, manuals-only with damage notes, broken/parts-only carts, controllers, plush, figures, posters, mugs, plastic wall hangings, foldout maps sold alone, soundtracks, amiibo, and the rest of the surrounding Zelda merch. The feed is the cartridge market, not the Zelda-merchandise market.

Asking prices in the live feed reflect what sellers are asking in this snapshot. Actual sold values can run lower (especially after offer negotiation on CIB tier).

Variants and reprints to know

A Link to the Past had a long US print life and shipped in more than one packaging variant. The most common are:

• Original 1992 print. The launch-window print run — distinguished by box artwork that does not carry a Player's Choice banner. First-print boxes in clean condition ask a premium over later prints among completionist collectors.
• Player's Choice budget reprint. Nintendo added a Player's Choice banner to the box artwork on titles that crossed a sales threshold; A Link to the Past qualified and shipped in this packaging during the mid-late SNES era. The Player's Choice banner runs across the top of the box and is unmistakable when the box top is shown clearly in a listing photo — if a listing only shows the box front-on and crops the top, ask the seller for a top-of-box photo before paying first-print prices. Player's Choice boxes typically ask below first-print boxes for the same condition tier.
• French Canadian variant. Nintendo of Canada distributed A Link to the Past in Canada with French-language or French/English bilingual box artwork. The cartridge itself carries the same US/Canada NTSC-U/C product code (SNS-P-ZL) and plays on a US SNES without modification — region-compatible hardware, different visual SKU. Some collectors specifically want the French Canadian box for the alternate artwork; most US buyers want the English box. The feed includes French Canadian listings (they're playable US-NTSC carts) — verify which box-art language you're buying from the listing photos before clicking.

The cartridge label artwork on the original-release and Player's Choice prints is essentially identical at the cart level — the variant lives in the box artwork, not on the cart. A loose-cart listing therefore can't be variant-identified on cart photos alone; you're buying "an A Link to the Past cart" regardless of what print the box originally came from.

A Link to the Past: loose vs CIB vs sealed

Loose is the deepest bucket. A Link to the Past had a large US print run and Nintendo kept manufacturing it for years through the Player's Choice reprint program, so bare cartridges trade at an accessible tier for one of the most-loved SNES first-party titles. Loose asking spread is driven by cosmetic label condition (the cart label artwork fades and wears in characteristic ways over 30+ years), authenticity claims, and save behavior on real hardware. Even a label-worn loose copy still plays the same game.

CIB ("Complete In Box") for the original 1992 SNES release should mean: the original cardboard outer box, the cardboard inner tray that cradles the cartridge, the instruction manual, the foldout overworld map insert, and the standard Nintendo paperwork inserts of the era (specific contents varied across print runs). Two completeness signals deserve special attention on this title:

• The foldout overworld map. A Link to the Past shipped with a large foldout paper map of Hyrule that doubled as a player aid. The map is fragile, frequently lost over 30+ years, and is one of the load-bearing CIB completeness items — CIB asking with the map is noticeably above CIB asking without it. Listings that describe themselves as "complete" without explicitly confirming the map are CIB-minus.
• The "Top Secrets" pamphlet. Some early-print copies shipped with a small Nintendo tip-pamphlet insert ("Top Secrets" / similar branding) tied to the title's promotional campaign. Presence of this insert is another collector-tier completeness signal at the upper end of CIB asking.

The cardboard inner tray is also commonly missing or replaced with a reseller-fabricated tray. Listings that describe themselves as "complete" without confirming the tray are CIB-minus regardless of map/pamphlet presence. The cardboard outer box is fragile and frequently damaged — corner crush, label fade, tape residue from store-shelf price labels, and sun-bleaching on the spine all drive spread within the CIB tier.

Sealed for A Link to the Past SNES is almost exclusively graded by WATA / VGA / CGC / PSA at this point. Raw factory-sealed copies essentially do not exist outside graded slabs — given the title's age, asking-price tier, and the well-documented re-seal counterfeit market, any raw "sealed" A Link to the Past copy at a market-rate asking price deserves heavy skepticism. The Sealed bucket on this page reflects graded slabs in a moderate-grade range; top-grade investment-tier copies (WATA 9.4+ / CGC 9.6+ first-print) trade well above this surface's price cap and belong in the auction-house market, not the deal-page market.

Spotting Japanese imports and PAL/European copies re-listed as US

This is a recurring confusion vector on any iconic Nintendo title. The Japanese Super Famicom version of A Link to the Past (Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce) predates the US release by about five months and continues to trade meaningfully below US copies. PAL European and Australian releases (different region SKU, won't natively boot on a US SNES) also surface in US-targeted searches.

The reliable tells:

• Cartridge shape. US Super Nintendo carts have a tall rectangular shell with curved ridges along the top and a paper label in the standard SNES label format. Japanese Super Famicom carts are physically smaller, more square, and use a different label layout. PAL European carts use the same shell shape as US carts but a different label country/region marking. A photo showing the bare cart silhouette resolves the Japanese-vs-US split in two seconds; the PAL-vs-US split requires reading the back-label product code.
• Product-code prefix on the back-of-cart label. Authentic US Super Nintendo carts carry the prefix SNS- (Super Nintendo System) on the back-label product code — for A Link to the Past specifically, the US code is SNS-P-ZL (sometimes seen abbreviated as SNS-ZL-USA on individual listings). Japanese Super Famicom carts use SHVC- (Super Hi-Vision Cassette). PAL European carts use SNSP- with a region suffix (e.g. SNSP-ZL-EUR, SNSP-ZL-UKV, SNSP-ZWP for the Spanish print). A clear back-label photo is the definitive structured signal.
• Box-art language. The Japanese box uses Japanese script with the Kamigami no Triforce subtitle alongside the Zelda logo. The US box uses English-only marketing copy. PAL European boxes vary by region but carry European multi-language paperwork inside.
• Region in the listing title. Sellers honestly identifying region use NTSC-U/C (US / Canada), USA, US, or North America; Japanese sellers use NTSC-J, JPN, Japan, Japanese, SFC, Super Famicom, or the bare product-code prefix SHVC; PAL sellers use PAL, EUR, UK, Aus, or the SNSP- product-code prefix. The feed excludes these keywords but a few slip through when sellers use only the structured product code with no region word — verify the cart photo and back-label code before bidding.

A Japanese cart or a PAL cart isn't a fake or a bad product — it's a different SKU on incompatible hardware (Japanese) or different region (PAL). If you specifically want the Japanese release with the Kamigami no Triforce box art, shop for it explicitly with a Super Famicom adapter or a region-modded SNES.

Spotting reproductions, ROM hacks, and reshells

A Link to the Past has a meaningful counterfeit market because (a) the cart is iconic enough that demand is unconditional, (b) the ROM is well-documented and trivial to flash to aftermarket SNES-form-factor hardware, and (c) the loose-cart asking tier is high enough on clean-label copies to make a bootleg economically attractive. Most carts on the market are authentic; the dishonest fraction is meaningful and worth checking against.

• Reproduction carts with counterfeit labels. The most common attack: a flash cart in a generic SNES shell with a counterfeit A Link to the Past label glued on, listed at slightly-below-market price. The feed excludes self-disclosed repro, reproduction, aftermarket, and whole-word repo listings, but a dishonest seller listing a bootleg as authentic at a low feedback floor still slips through. Verification work falls on you. Watch for: label printing that's too crisp / too matte / too glossy compared to a 30-year-old factory label, label artwork that doesn't match an authentic reference photo, a back-of-cart screw that isn't the original Nintendo security screw (a Phillips head on the back means the cart has been opened — could be a legitimate save-battery swap, could be a reshell, could be a bootleg), and asking prices unusually below the loose-cart market median. Verify against a high-resolution photo of a known-authentic A Link to the Past cart; the specific SNES security-screw type is a known physical spec, and if you're paying a serviceability premium and care about this, check the reference photo before buying.
• ROM-hack carts. A Link to the Past is one of the most-hacked SNES titles — Parallel Worlds, Hyrule Magic, Master Quest community remixes, dozens of randomizer-shuffled romhacks, and AVGN vs Ganon-style fan-made carts circulate as homebrew flash carts in SNES form factor with custom or stock-looking labels. Sellers honestly identify the hack name in the listing title — Parallel Worlds, Master Quest, AVGN, etc. The feed excludes them by name but new hack names appear continuously; if a listing title says any qualifier other than "A Link to the Past" alongside the cart (an alternate subtitle, a community project name, a randomizer-seed designation), assume it's a hack-cart or a multi-game item until proven otherwise.
• Reshells / aftermarket housings. Some listings disclose that the original PCB has been transplanted into a non-Nintendo housing — clear plastic shells, alternate-color shells, aluminum housings. The board may be authentic but the cart is no longer in original-collector state. The feed excludes self-disclosed reshell language where it appears.
• Photo evidence to ask for. A trustworthy seller at the loose-cart asking tier can show: front of cart label, back of cart label (with SNS-P-ZL or SNS-ZL-USA product code clearly visible), back of cart with the security screw visible, and a photo of the cart booting to the A Link to the Past title screen on real SNES hardware. Three minutes of seller-photo work resolves most authenticity concerns short of opening the cart.

Save behavior and the cart battery

A Link to the Past saves to battery-backed SRAM on the cartridge — the standard SNES save architecture for first-party action-adventure and RPG titles of the era. The cart contains a coin-cell battery that powers a save-data RAM chip; when that battery dies, save files are lost on the next power cycle. The cart itself plays fine without a battery — the SRAM only matters for save persistence, not gameplay — but A Link to the Past's progression structure (the Light World / Dark World quest, the seven Crystal dungeons, the late-game collectibles) is the kind of long-arc game most buyers actually want to save through.

Practical buyer-decision implications:

• "New save battery" / "battery replaced" listings give you a real signal. A seller who explicitly swapped the battery is telling you the cart will hold saves for another decade or more. Listings that only say "tested working" without specifying that saves were tested across multiple power cycles give you less.
• "Dry battery" / "battery dead — won't save" listings still play through the entire game. The cart works for active play; you just can't power-off and resume. These are legitimate listings priced below tested-saves examples; if you intend to swap the battery yourself, this can be the better deal.
• Battery-replacement date matters. "Battery replaced" with a date ("replaced 2024") is a different signal than "battery replaced" with no date. The replacement clock starts when the cell was swapped, not when the cart was made.
• DIY swap cell type. The exact coin-cell spec varies across SNES PCB revisions and isn't worth guessing remotely — if you plan the swap yourself, open the cart with the appropriate Nintendo security driver and verify the cell type against the visible markings on the original cell before ordering replacements.

A Link to the Past verification checklist by condition

Loose

• Confirm the cartridge shape matches a standard US Super Nintendo cart (tall rectangular shell with curved top ridges). Smaller / squarer shapes are Japanese Super Famicom carts.
• Look at the back-of-cart label for the product code. An authentic US cart's code is SNS-P-ZL (sometimes written as SNS-ZL-USA). A code starting with SHVC- is the Japanese cart; SNSP- is the PAL European cart.
• Confirm the back-of-cart screw is the original Nintendo security screw (not a standard Phillips head). Phillips on the back means the cart has been opened — could be a legitimate save-battery swap, could be a reshell, could be a bootleg — verify against the seller's other photos.
• Look at the label artwork: tears, water damage, residue from price stickers, faded background color, label paper that looks too new for a 30-year-old cart. Compare against a high-resolution photo of a known-authentic A Link to the Past label.
• Ask whether saves have been tested across multiple power cycles and what specifically the seller verified. "Tested working" can mean a 30-second power-on check; "saves tested, powered off, came back, save loaded" is the actionable signal.
• Treat an A Link to the Past loose asking sharply below the broader market median as the strongest single repro-or-misrepresentation signal short of the seller saying so. The title prints in high volume but doesn't trade at giveaway prices.

CIB

• Confirm the box is the original cardboard outer box (not a "replacement box" — the aftermarket reproduction-box market exists specifically for CIB-assemblers). The feed filters replacement box only listings out, but verify against the listing photos that the box shown is the original.
• Confirm the cardboard inner tray is present and matches an authentic Nintendo tray. The tray is fragile and frequently missing from "CIB" listings; ask if it's not visible in the photos.
• Confirm the instruction manual is present and not a photocopy or modern reprint.
• Confirm the foldout overworld map is present — this is the single highest-leverage completeness check on this title. A "CIB" listing without explicit confirmation of the map in the listing photos is CIB-minus; CIB-with-map asks meaningfully above CIB-without-map.
• If the listing claims a "Top Secrets" pamphlet or similar Nintendo promo insert, verify it's shown in the photos. This is an upper-tier completeness signal worth a small premium.
• Identify the variant from the box artwork: original 1992 print (no Player's Choice banner) vs Player's Choice reprint (banner across the top of the box). The variant drives the asking-price tier. Ask for a top-of-box photo if it's cropped in the listing photos.
• Box wear (corner crush, label fade, tape residue, sun-bleaching on the spine, indented original-retailer price stickers) drives the spread in CIB asking prices. Listings that show the box only from one angle in a flattering pose may be hiding damage on the other faces — ask for photos of all six sides if you're paying the upper end of the tier.
• For French Canadian listings: verify the language of the box artwork in the photos matches what you want (French-only vs French/English bilingual vs English).

Sealed (graded)

• Almost always in a WATA / VGA / CGC / PSA grading slab — verify the grading slab is from a reputable house, the grade is readable in the listing photos, and the certification number is visible.
• Cross-check the cert number against the grading house's online lookup if you're paying meaningfully into the tier.
• Counterfeit-PCB carts have been reshelled and re-sealed into convincingly-presented boxes for the sealed-grading market. Sealed copies that haven't been through a reputable grading service deserve extra scrutiny — a raw sealed A Link to the Past at a market-rate asking price is highly unusual and should be approached with skepticism, not enthusiasm.
• Identify whether the graded slab is the original 1992 print or the Player's Choice reprint. Top-grade first-print sealed slabs trade at a meaningful premium over equivalently-graded Player's Choice slabs; the box-top banner is visible through the slab and is the discriminator.

A Link to the Past buying gotchas

• The GBA Four Swords port confusion. The most common single confusion vector on this title. The 2002 Game Boy Advance release shares the exact title text "A Link to the Past" but is on a different cartridge format on different hardware, bundled with the Four Swords multiplayer campaign. Some sellers list the GBA cart under "A Link to the Past" with "GBA" or "Advance" appended in the title; the feed excludes those. Outside this surface, verify the cart shape and product code (AGB- prefix = GBA cart, not SNES).
• Foldout map missing or replaced. The foldout overworld map is the single most-frequently-missing CIB component on this title. "Complete in box" by itself doesn't guarantee the map; verify it's in the listing photos before paying full-CIB asking. Reproduction maps also exist — a map photo showing crisp print quality with no aging on a "CIB" otherwise consistent with 30 years of shelf wear is a yellow flag worth asking about.
• Reproduction carts at "authentic" prices. Asking prices sharply below the market median are a strong repro signal. Don't pay loose-cart asking for a cart you can't authenticate from the listing photos alone.
• ROM-hack carts listed under the "A Link to the Past" title. Parallel Worlds, Hyrule Magic, Master Quest, randomizer-seed carts, and many others are legitimate fan projects but they are NOT authentic Nintendo product. They ship on aftermarket flash carts. The feed excludes them by name; verify any unusual-titled A Link to the Past listing isn't a hack-cart before buying.
• CIB tray missing. The cardboard inner tray is one of the most-frequently-missing CIB components, alongside the foldout map. "Complete in box" by itself doesn't guarantee the tray; verify it's in the listing photos before paying full-CIB asking.
• Original print vs Player's Choice mis-pricing. Some sellers list a Player's Choice CIB at first-print asking; some list a first-print CIB at Player's Choice asking. The discriminator lives in the box-top banner. A top-of-box photo settles it in seconds.
• French Canadian / English box confusion. Both shipped on the same NTSC-U/C cartridge hardware (interchangeable), but the box artwork differs. If you specifically want the US English box, verify the box-front photos in the listing; if you specifically want the French Canadian box, look for French, Français, or Canadian in the listing title.
• Multi-game SNES first-party lots. A Link to the Past frequently shows up bundled with Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, Final Fantasy III/VI, or Chrono Trigger in multi-game lots. Lot listings get filtered out so per-game asking prices stay accurate; the feed excludes lot, bundle, collection, set of, and the digit phrases (3 games, 4 games, 5 games).
• Paladone-branded merchandise. A Link to the Past has been the subject of an active officially-licensed merchandise line (mugs, wall hangings, posters, art prints) since the late 2010s. The merch listings carry the full game title plus a product noun (Coffee Mug, Plastic Wall Hanging, Foldable Poster). The feed excludes the merch keywords specifically — if a listing's primary product is a Paladone-branded accessory rather than the cart itself, it's filtered out.
• Seller feedback floor. The deal feed requires the seller to have ≥50 feedback at ≥99% positive. Low-feedback sellers with cheap A Link to the Past listings are a recurring fraud vector on a title with an active counterfeit market — the feed quietly drops them, but the same heuristic protects you if you're shopping outside this surface.