Part 1, Legend of Zelda, NES, 1986

We’re changing things up a little here.

This piece is the first in a long series, where I’ll be playing all the major games in the Legend of Zelda series because, to your great surprise I’m sure, I’ve never played any of them. I’ll be going in chronological order, playing only the ones that appeared on consoles up to the Wii U, without a walkthrough. This is going to be a series retrospective, looking at how the games hold up over time and better understand their place in the series, rather than talking about whether they’re “good” or not.

One of the most influential series in all of gaming, The Legend of Zelda has sold over 75 million games since 1986, beginning with Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The first game sold over 6.5 million units, and was a revolution in terms of open world games for the NES. Legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto was inspired to make The Legend of Zelda by his love of exploring cave and forests around his childhood home and this is really clear to see in how you progress through the game.

The title screen that launched a million ships. Well, sold a million copies. 6 million, actually.

After playing it, I can see why people love Legend of Zelda so much. Still, I was spewing profanity at my screen for minutes on end at times. To start, I think I’m terrible at this game. I died 172 times, (the start screen keeps track of that for some sadistic reason), and I came close to throwing my controller against a wall more times than that. I beat the game without a walkthrough, but it definitely added several hours to my playtime (and several fits of yelling).

Whyyyyy. I don't need to know how bad I am at this game.

The Legend of Zelda has basically no story. You choose your name and then you’re spawned in the middle of a mountain range, with a door above you and your left. You go in and an Old Man (with a suspiciously large number of brothers/clones) appears and says, “IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE. TAKE THIS” and he gives you a sword. And then, bam, you’re off. Here, I hit one of my biggest issues with this game. You get almost zero direction. You are given a sword, and the screen shows space for items if you hit start, something to equip to the “B” button, but that’s about it. I vaguely knew that I was supposed to collect pieces of the “Triforce”, so I wandered around until I eventually encountered the first dungeon.

Who are you? Why are you giving me a sword? Are we related? How do you know I have any idea how to use this thing? WHAT IS ANYTHING.

A huge portion of this game is exploration, so withholding information adds to the adventure gameplay, but even a little hint of “go find pieces of the Triforce” would have been nice. The game has a clear end state, and the empty Triforce is right there in your inventory, so it’s clear you’re not just supposed to wander around aimlessly, but that’s not passed on to the player clearly enough. Older games were designed a certain way to keep players playing, usually with difficulty, so this may be designed purposely to keep the player in the dark, but I still don’t think it’s was the best choice. I can’t say it’s a bad decision, however, because while it’s frustrating, it also increases the sense of discovery that you feel as your journey around the world.

Speaking of the world, the map in this game is impressive to say the least. I wouldn’t have thought that the NES could handle such an expansive world map. I’m not sure exactly how many screens there are in the overworld, but you can find oceans, rivers, graveyards, mountains, forests, and deserts just by walking around. Given how often I died, I got a really good sense for where everything was and how to get from point A to B, and the designers deserve credit for creating an intuitive game world. There are some screens of the map that repeat a number of times before you “pass” them, which is annoying and confusing. On most screens, there is some kind of secret, whether it be a shop hidden in the mountain wall, a statue that can be pushed away for an a creature that will give you a few rupees, or maybe even an old man who will offer advice, or an improved sword. This makes the world map a lot deeper than it might appear in first glance and pushes you to explore every nook and cranny.

Considering how slow you walk, this is basically Skyrim before that was a thing. — Considering how slow you walk, this is basically *Skyrim* before that was a thing.

Okay, so we’ve explored the world, found a million copies of the same old man, but what about the rest of the game. Combat is simple, but definitely not easy. You thrust your sword in front of you with “A” and use another item with “B”. There are a number of possible weapons, like arrows, a boomerang, a magic wand, and a candle. All of these have an upgrade that you can buy/find somewhere, which is always nice. Combat is difficult because if an enemy so much as touches you, you’ll lose some health, and your starting shield can’t deflect a lot of the projectile attacks you’ll face. Something that I found really aggravating is how short the invulnerability period is after getting hit. It’s usually enough to get away from a melee enemy, but a number of times you can get hit three or four times before you have time to get away.

You'll be seeing this screen a lot. Or maybe I'm just terrible at this game. Damn octoroks. Who taught you to shoot rocks anyway?

There are also a number of non-combat items that change how you can explore the world, or allow you to access certain hidden areas. Some items do both, like the bombs and the candle, which is a cool merging of combat and world. I love the items in this world because there’s such an amazing sense of discovery that you feel when you find a new one. You immediately try to think of what it might do, or the areas where you could use it. This game might not be great at explanation, but it is great at adventure, and making you feel like you’re on an epic journey.

All the stuff on top of the blue box is an upgrade to another item, or a world-use item. All of them are awesome.

While you’re on your adventure, you’ll encounter a number of different kinds of enemies. Some of them have ranged attacks that you can block with your shield, some have melee attacks that you have to avoid. You can find orange and blue varieties of almost all enemies, with blue being the more difficult variety. Most of the enemies are very well designed and force you to play in certain ways, like the Darknuts who are heavily armored and can only be damaged from the sides or back. Some of the enemies are a bit unfair though, like the Wizrobes. There are two kinds of Wizrobes: one kind doesn’t move except to teleport around you and fire off one shot, and one that walks around and teleports and will keep shooting their spells at you as long as you’re in front of them. The non-moving Wizrobes are easy to deal with, so my gripe is really just with the blue, roaming ones. I got wayyy to much satisfaction from stomping on them, after my million deaths. The variety of enemies is awesome and keeps the game from feeling stale, despite the fact that you’re doing basically the same thing in all the different dungeons. They’re cleverly designed in terms of how they look, and you quickly figure out what they can and can’t do. Brevity is the soul and wit, and Legend of Zelda definitely respects your time, at least with the enemies.

Man, they're cuter here. Wizrobes are the ones on in the from the right on the top row, past the snake. They are not to be trusted.

Dungeons are the most challenging areas of the game. There are 9 dungeons, each with a compass and a map in them. The compass tells you where the Triforce piece of the dungeon is and the map shows you all the rooms. For the beginning dungeons, the map is very useful because you generally move through the dungeon by going room to room via door or bombed out wall. In the later dungeons, it matters a bit less because you’ll do a lot of underground travel, which the map does not show. Dungeons also contain secret items, some of which you need to complete the game and some of which are just useful. Each dungeon also contains one or more bosses, with the later dungeons repeating some of the earlier bosses. Usually, there’s also an old man in the dungeon who will tell you a secret about the dungeon or the boss, which is nice, if garbled. “AIM AT THE EYES OF GOHMA” is a little confusing, but once you see that the boss is a giant spider-eye, it makes more sense.

You again! Where do you come from? How did you get here? Why are you always surrounded by fire? Do you even care that I blew a hole in your wall?!

The dungeons can be hard to find, which is aggravating and can make the game feel like a bit of a slog at times. When you die in a dungeon, you respawn in the beginning of the dungeon with three hearts, no matter what the maximum number of hearts you can have is. This is a little annoying because there aren’t any healing items in dungeons besides the rare hearts (or rarer fairies) that enemies drop. For the most part, I really like going through the dungeons, because each one offers a different experience and hope for new items. They offer a sense of progression, adventure, and difficulty that you don’t find in the overworld.

Welcome to Dungeon 1. This is one of the more straightforward dungeons, but if you're terrible like me, you'll probably die a few times.

The Legend of Zelda starts with a boy getting a wooden sword and ends with you defeating a giant, invisible, teleporting pig-man with silver arrows and the Triforce. You rescue Princess Zelda, and your quest is over; congrats, Link. You’re the hero of Hyrule. This game was an experience for me. I was really impressed by the scale, the sense of discovery and adventure, the world design, the map design, and the clever use of items. I was frustrated by the combat and the lack of direction, but that’s about it. For the most part, this game is incredibly imaginative and innovative. I think there’s a lot of great lessons that modern games could take from this game, especially around discovery and adventure.

Stay tuned for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the Legend of Zelda game everybody forgot.