miimiiz

The Legend of Zelda

Nintendo Entertainment System

1986 / 1987

The Legend of Zelda, the game that started it all. Even the title alone sounds cool, despite it leading a bajillion people to assume that Link is Zelda. I like this game, and I have a lot of respect for what it is. None of the future Zelda titles that I treasure so much would have ever happened if it weren’t for this one. As I was playing, I was surprised to see all the familiar Zelda elements that originated from this game. The iconic items that you come to expect in Zelda are here: swords, shields, bombs, boomerangs, a bow, arrows, rupees, heart containers, potions, fairies, and even a recorder which acts as the game’s musical instrument, akin to an ocarina or wind waker. There are great fairy fountains and fairies that heal you. The boomerang freezes enemies. Dungeons have maps, compasses, keys, and a boss at the end, which rewards you with a heart container after defeating it. There are also Zoras, Lynels, Moblins, Darknuts, Dodongos, Gohma, etc. Some enemies even have color significance, such as the Blue Moblins being stronger and more difficult to kill than the Red ones, something I thought was exclusive to Breath of the Wild. It’s crazy seeing just how much started from this game. It made me realize that every Zelda game holds the same heart and soul at its core, which is exactly what makes this series so great. It gives the player a comfortable sense of familiarity, which makes any Zelda game that you decide to pick up and play just as accessible as the last one you played. That’s not to say that every Zelda is the same though, as they’re each incredibly unique from each other still.

My first impression of this game was HOLY FUCK WHY IS IT SO DAMN HARD? It. Is. BRUTAL. I was constantly dying over and over again. You start off with three hearts and a piece of shit sword and shield just like any other Zelda game, which means that the difficulty is gonna be nice and fair, right? Fuck no. This game unforgivingly kicks your ass. Enemies do a hefty amount of damage, and their attacks can be difficult to dodge. At the start of my playthrough, I found myself outright ignoring enemies as much as I could. It also takes time getting used to controlling Link, and I found it awkward trying to move around in the way that I wanted to. You can only move in four directions as opposed to eight because you can't move diagonally. This makes maneuvering not as smooth as it could be. Now picture this: I'm down to just a single heart of health and I have no way of healing myself. I'm low on rupees, so my only option is to keep killing enemies until one of them drops a heart or a fairy. A handful of enemies are on the screen, moving around in bullshit patterns while simultaneously shooting projectiles at me. I finally move close enough to an enemy without dying, I swing my sword, and I miss because I wasn't positioned properly. So then the enemy either hits me and I die, or it hits me and knocks me back, forcing me to position myself again. So. Frustrating. I tried playing without using save states, but I quickly changed my mind about that lol. Thankfully, I was following a guide, so things eventually got easier. I collected a few heart containers which helped a ton, then I continued onward.

Speaking of following a guide, how the hell are you supposed to know where to go without one? I get that this game is supposed to be open and all, which is great in its own right (especially for a game in 1986), but there's just zero sense of direction. Being thrown in an open world with just enough info on where to go is fun. But with no info at all? It's a recipe for getting lost a majority of the time. So many secrets in this game are bullshit too. Oh, I'm supposed to bomb this very specific area in this exact place? Nintendo, please...

With all my negatives out of the way, let's talk about the good stuff. What I like most about The Legend of Zelda is its atmosphere. As I've mentioned before, it retains the same heart and soul that every entry in the series has. Everything just comes together so perfectly in this game. Here's what I mean:

Scale, Adventure, and Exploration
One of the most important aspects of Zelda is its sense of scale and adventure. Being able to explore an entire world that's chock-full of charming characters, monsters, unique locations, secrets, puzzles, and gear to collect is what this series does best, and The Legend of Zelda does this masterfully. Everything is waiting for you to uncover: the map of Hyrule is big and has a total of nine dungeons to complete, along with deserts, forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, oceans, a cemetery, caves, and shops to visit. Characters have iconic dialogue that's referenced in later games. There are 25 items available to collect, which is more than I expected there to be. There's even quite a few types of enemies that require different know-how to defeat. For example, Octoroks can be defeated easily, but it's a good idea to have your shield ready to block their projectile attacks. Darknuts can only be damaged from the sides and from behind, and they're invulnerable to arrows and boomerangs. The only way to kill Dodongos is by feeding them bombs. All of these enemy types keep the game fresh. It would be boring if you could simply slash away at all of them to win. Exploring dungeons feels great too. When entering one, you get to fight new enemies, push blocks to reveal hidden staircases, collect keys, compasses, maps, and new items, blow up walls with bombs to uncover secrets, and slay a boss at the end, such as a dragon, a giant cyclops spider, or a pig-like beast. Again, everything feels so grand in scale, which is incredible for a game that came out nearly 40 years ago.

Progression
Progression feels very good, maybe even more than some of the newer Zelda games. I think this is largely due to the difficulty being hard as fuck. I went from having very little items to use and dying repeatedly, to having a full-on arsenal and many hearts to beef up my defenses. The player progressively becomes more experienced too. You start to get the hang of controlling Link and familiarizing yourself with the world and how enemies navigate and attack. Seeing my save file/Link grow more and more strong is so satisfying.

Graphics, Music, and Sound
This is where The Legend of Zelda shines the most. The game is downright amazing in terms of graphics and music. As soon as the game boots up, you're greeted with one of the greatest title screens of all time. It's perfect.

The awesome logo, the graphics of the rocks and animated waterfall, and the music... My god, the music... It's fucking perfect. The theme song of The Legend of Zelda is just incredible. It captures the essence of the entire series and condenses it into its purest form. Adventure, exploration, ambition, and courage -- all masterfully crafted into a single tune. And the fact that Koji Kondo composed the song in a single day just makes it all the more incredible. The title screen fades to black (which happens in time with the music too, how cool!), then scrolls through text detailing the game's plot and items. When the screen stops scrolling, the song and title screen perfectly loop back to the beginning. I dunno if you can tell, but I love this title sequence. I could gush about it for a long time.

After starting a save file, you're greeted with the same theme song, albeit being more upbeat and faster paced. Perfect for running around the overworld and slaying enemies. I usually get annoyed quite easily when songs repeat indefinitely in games, but I like the overworld theme so much that I actually don't mind hearing it over and over again. The dungeon theme is a different story though. I really like the dungeon theme and how mysterious it sounds, but since it's super short, it gets annoying after a while. The overworld theme on the other hand has enough variation for me to not get so tired of it so quickly.

The graphics are iconic. The character designs are great, especially the enemies, Link, and Ganon. Each dungeon has its own unique map layout and color scheme, fairies look cool, and so does everything else in the overworld. Nintendo outright nailed the look and feel. To make it all look even better, I used the CRT Royale NTSC 320px Composite shader on RetroArch for my entire playthrough. I did some research on this shader and apparently it's meant to be used on monitors that are above 1080p resolution, but I didn't care. It just looked like pure CRT eye candy to me. I've always wanted a CRT solely for retro stuff, but this shader is so good and pretty damn close to the real thing that I don't crave getting one as much.

The sound effects are as equally iconic as the graphics and music. Obtaining an item, discovering a secret, taking damage, shooting magic beams out of your sword, collecting rupees, playing the recorder, deflecting things with your shield -- it all sounds fantastic. I wouldn't change a thing about the sound design of this game.