The StreetPass feature in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds was not something I was expecting. The concept of making your own StreetPass Shadow Link and sending him out to fight others is novel, especially with the potentially large rupee payouts. It's even better in practice, as it essentially grants you the ability to fight boss-style Links of varying difficulty.

After getting the chance to try it in a limited fashion (I've been StreetPassing one dude a few times), I'm very excited to try it out on a bigger scale. It's a lot of fun pairing up two items of your choosing (even the net and lamp if you hate yourself) to bring into battle to fight the shadow of your StreetPassed foe. The mode even has a robust award system that offers achievements for winning battles with specific items and more. To top if off, it features a spectacular rendition of "Temple" (the song from Zelda II that plays during the Temple stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee/Brawl). Also, if you hate people who name their Links, you can weed those folks out since the StreetPass Shadow Link shows up as whatever the player named him as. Fair warning, my Hero of Hyrule is named Neal, so bring it on.

The truest test of Link Between Worlds' StreetPassing will be how it performs in the future. I won't be able to fully answer this until the game is in the wild and I StreetPass people (so PAX East at the latest), but my early feelings are that I'll clear this out a little more often than I do other games. It's a really sweet cherry on top of the new 3DS Zelda game.