Oracle of Seasons Part 2: This dungeon is Gnarly. Also, Holodrum is infested with Jawas.

You can tell it's the right dungeon
because it looks like a gnarled root.

When we last hung out with Link, he'd just gotten a key from the Maku Tree, who was much too busy doing stuff like sleeping and being a tree to save Din from the evil General Onox. It's our job to go through the eight dungeons in this game to grab the essences of nature in order to restore the seasons to their original cyclical format.

The first dungeon is called the Gnarled Root dungeon, and looks exactly the same as anything you might have found in Link's Awakening. Because there are so many of them, the dungeons in this game tend to be fairly short. This one's gimmick is the addition of a few rail tracks that Link can ride around on using a series of switches to get into new areas. The layouts of the dungeons in this game are simple and straightforward - the 2D nature of the game and the fact that it's on a Gameboy Color really limit the amount of complexity possible. That's not to say that they're boring as such, just a little bit less mentally demanding than some in other Zelda games. 

Remember this asshole?

Like in Link's Awakening, each dungeon has a sub-boss and a boss - once the sub-boss is defeated, you're given a waypoint that you can use to teleport yourself between that room and the entrance, which comes in handy. 

The dungeon's item is the Seed Satchel, which is actually one of the coolest key items in this game. There are five different types of seeds that you'll come across, each with their own unique ability. The first you run into is the Ember Seed, which replaces the Lantern in this game - it lets you light things on fire, such as torches. A lot of puzzles in this game depend on the various seeds in your satchel to complete.

Fertile soil! Yeah!

The boss of this first dungeon is Aquamentus, a dragon which is an obvious reference to the first boss of the original Zelda. Like most Zelda games, Oracle of Seasons is very self-referential, which is part of the reason why we love the series, so we can forgive it anything. (Right?)

Anyway, after you waste this guy, you get the first Essence of Nature - the Fertile Soil. Hooray! Just seven more to go. In typical style, Link gets spat out of the dungeon and the Maku Tree lets us know that there's some kind of special item we need to get from the Temple of Seasons. 

Little sidenote here, Oracle of Seasons actually has a surprising amount of subquest-y things you can do, considering how limited it is by the fact that it's on a Gameboy Color. You can plant Gasha Seeds, which grow into nuts that allow you to collect magic rings (a huge part of this game - magic rings give you special abilities.) Like Link's Awakening, there's a trading subquest which eventually ends up in you receiving the Noble Sword, which is awesome. I'm not personally a huge subquest fan, at least not the kind of subquests that show up in a game this old, so I tend to ignore them for the most part. Am I a bad person?

THIS IS SO FUN,
THANKS NINTENDO.

The next part of the game features Link encountering some weird Jawa-looking things, one of whom has a stupid bow and is loudly and conveniently complaining about a temple falling into her homeland of Subrosia. You now have to follow her around a bunch of trees in the best kind of mini-game ever - the "don't let the NPC see you" game! You have to follow her back to a hole in the ground around some trees and if she spots you, you have to start all over. Amazing.

Subrosia is an unfortunately large part of the game, as you'll have to return here to complete several idiotic fetch quests and mini-games in order to progress and get some key items, such as the magic flute and boomerang. We're down here for the Temple of Seasons, though.

The Temple of Seasons has four corners, each inhabited by a spirit of a respective season. As you get more key items from various dungeons, you will be able to access different parts of the temple. This time, we go visit the Winter Spirit's tower and receive the Rod of Seasons, which is basically this game's Ocarina of Time. It is the key item.

In the overworld, you can now change the season from whatever it is normally into winter. This freezes certain paths or covers them with snow, which allows you to access areas you couldn't before, including dungeons and caves. Hurrah! As you might imagine, getting the ability to change the overworld into different seasons is the master gimmick of Oracle of Seasons.

Stay tuned for next time, where Link unexpectedly goes through a bunch of dungeons to get items in order to defeat evil and return peace to Holodrum!

A Link to the Past Part 2: No hearts, no fairies, no service.

Let's start from the top of the game. It's pretty standard Zelda - you enter your name of choice, then a scene opens of Link sleeping in his house. He receives a telepathic message from Princess Zelda asking for help, his uncle tells him to stay in bed while he handles the situation, and Link totally ignores him and follows.

The first thing that really struck me about this game happened as soon as I walked outside of Link's house. The ambiance. There's rain, thunder and lightning, and foreboding music. I can't begin to express how big of a jump up this is from the previous games in the series, both of which had all the ambiance of an awkward dinner with your least favorite side of the family. Every dungeon has its own unique theme and looks completely different from any other dungeon in the game. One dungeon, for example, is extremely creepy and made largely of skeletons, while another is an icy palace covered in tiles which make Link slip all over the place, adding difficulty. My favorite dungeon takes place in a tower - many of the puzzles in it involve jumping down floors to land in the right spots, which is frustrating but fun.

The graphics, for 1991, were absolutely astonishing. There are games that were made at the end of the SNES's life that this game easily rivals in appearance, thanks largely to excellent graphical direction from the Zelda team. Just to give you an idea of what I mean, look to the right for a screenshot from a game released in the same year, Final Fantasy IV. There's really no comparison.

The musical score is vastly superior to either of its predecessors. One track in particular, the Dark World overworld theme, stands in my mind as one of the greatest video game tunes ever composed. There's a separate tune for dungeons in the Light World and the Dark World, as well as unique tracks for special areas on the map - the Lost Woods, Fairy Fountains, Kakariko Village, and Hyrule Castle. There is, of course, also the classic Zelda tune for the Light World map, as well as a special track for the end of the game and the final boss battle with Ganon.

Getting down to the nitty-gritty of it, the gameplay changed a lot from Zelda II. Nintendo (wisely, in my opinion) ditched the side-scrolling aesthetic of the previous game in favor of the top-down view they used for the first Zelda. Swordplay is much easier due to the fact that rather than just stabbing, Link's sword now slashes in a semi-circle in front. Link can now run diagonally, sprint, and pick up and throw bombs. Rather than needing to duck up and down to use the shield like in Zelda II, the shield acts automatically as long as you're facing in the right direction.

Arrows in this game are exhaustible, just like bombs, and both drop WAY more frequently from random enemies and pots. It's much easier to regain health than in the previous games - there are extra hearts lying around pretty much anywhere, and enemies drop them often. This Zelda also added a familiar helping hand - the heart piece. These are optional items that you can collect throughout the game. If you collect four, Link's heart meter goes up by one. Heart pieces became a standby in almost every Zelda game afterwards. There are three magic spells that you can collect in the game, all of which are necessary to open the way to different parts of the adventure. They're all attack spells, and while they use a LOT of MP, they can be really helpful in certain situations.

This game features the very first appearance of the Master Sword, and like in the original Zelda, Link can shoot projectiles from it when he's at full health. Unlike in the original, though, he shoots beams of energy instead of weird little sword things. These are awesome and kick everybody's ass from a long way away. You can also now catch helpful fairies in a bottle, which will revive you from death! Hooray! These are standbys of the series, and have probably saved every single modern Zelda fan's ass at least once.

The bosses in this game are incredibly difficult - they require a lot more strategy than in any of the previous games. Unlike in the first game, it's not about surviving the enemies in the dungeon to get to the boss. You have to survive the many traps and pitfalls in the dungeon this time; the enemies are really just decoration.

In summary, A Link to the Past added pretty much everything to the series that we recognize about it today. Anything that you might mention as gameplay elements that are distinctly Zelda-like probably either came to fruition here, or was developed for this game. Rather than being frustratingly hard, A Link to the Past is a brain-teaser which will keep you thinking and provides real satisfaction whenever you figure anything out.

Next post: the review. Watch for it.

A Link to the Past: Oh my God, it's actually fantastic.

Title: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Triforce of the Gods in Japan)
Original Release: Nov. 21, 1991
Game #: 3
Chronologically: #8, Young Link timeline

After a long, four-year hiatus, Zelda reappeared once again on the Super Nintendo. Nintendo's new console was far superior in every way to the NES, allowing for graphics and a new complexity of gameplay that awed the anti-social basement dwellers of the time. A Link to the Past was released in Japan almost exactly a year after the SNES emerged in Japan, making it one of the first big-ticket games that this new gaming generation would experience.

In the production of A Link to the Past, the original team from The Legend of Zelda were back with a vengeance. Technology had finally caught up with their vision of what they wanted the original Zelda to be, and they used the new power of the SNES to make that vision a reality. Many gamers today still consider A Link to the Past to be the true sequel to The Legend of Zelda, as the Adventure of Link was produced by an entirely different team with a distinctly different feel. The game itself was almost twice as big as the average SNES game at the time, taking up a 1MB cartridge all to itself. This allowed for a vast, expansive world to explore, as well as a much larger soundtrack.

A Link to the Past is, I think, the very first modern Zelda game and the oldest one which I would recommend anyone play. It introduced several of the Zelda standbys which modern gamers recognize - three introductory dungeons, sidequests, the first appearance of the full triforce (all three pieces), the first Zelda 'gimmick' (in this game, two parallel worlds) - and technology had progressed to the point where, for the first time, complex and even challenging puzzles were possible. A Link to the Past was immediately successful, and to this day has sold over 4 million copies. It has been re-released on both the GBA and the Wii's Virtual Console.

For the first time in a Legend of Zelda game, a significantly more complex (although very familiar to today's gamer) plot was introduced. From Wikipedia:

"A young boy named Link is awakened by a telepathic message from Princess Zelda, who says that she is locked in the dungeon of Hyrule Castle. As the message closes, Link finds his uncle ready for battle, telling Link to remain in bed. After his uncle leaves, however, Link ignores his uncle's command and follows him to Hyrule Castle. When he arrives, he finds his uncle seriously wounded. Link's uncle tells Link to rescue Princess Zelda from her prison, giving him a sword and shield. After his uncle dies, Link navigates the castle and rescues Zelda from her cell, and the two escape into a secret passage through the sewers that leads to a sanctuary.

Link is told by a man in the sanctuary that Agahnim, a wizard who has usurped the throne, is planning to break a seal made hundreds of years ago by the Seven Sages. The seal was placed to imprison a dark wizard named Ganon in the Dark World, which was once the Sacred Realm before Ganon invaded, obtained the legendary Triforce and used its power to turn the realm into a land of darkness. Agahnim intends to break the seal by sending the descendants of the Seven Sages who made the seal into the Dark World. The only thing that can defeat him is the Master Sword, a sword forged to combat evil.

To prove that he is worthy to wield it, Link needs three magic pendants. After retrieving the pendants, Link takes them to the resting place of the Master Sword. As Link draws the sword from its pedestal, Zelda telepathically calls him to the Sanctuary, informing him that soldiers of Hyrule Castle have arrived. Link arrives at the Sanctuary moments after the soldiers have vacated, where he learns from the dying man that Zelda has been taken to Hyrule Castle. Link goes to rescue her but arrives too late; Agahnim sends Zelda to the Dark World. Link then defeats Agahnim in battle but is subsequently also sent to the Dark World.

To save Hyrule, Link is required to rescue the seven descendants of the Seven Sages from dungeons scattered across the Dark World. Once the seven maidens are freed, they use their power to break the barrier around Ganon's Tower, where Link faces Agahnim again. After Link battles Agahnim for a second time, Ganon rises up from Agahnim's body, turns into a bat, and flies away. Link chases him, finally confronting him inside the Pyramid of Power in the Dark World. After a battle resulting in Ganon's demise, Link touches the Triforce and restores Hyrule to how it was before Ganon intervened."

As you can tell, the plot is very similar to later games like Ocarina of Time (seven sages, Ganon has an alterego, Sacred Realm, etc.) but for 1991, this was a very impressive amount of plot for what was essentially a puzzle/adventure game. It doesn't compare with the plot of some of its contemporaries (Final Fantasy IV, for example) but it still stands up as a classic of gaming storytelling.

There's your introduction to Link to the Past! My next post will highlight some of the features of the game in more depth, followed by a review. I promise it won't take four months this time. Seriously.

The Adventure of Link: The badass, side-scrolling black sheep of the Legend of Zelda family.

Title: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Original Release: Jan. 14, 1987
Game #: 2
Chronologically: #6, Young Link timeline

A year after the fantastically popular (though I will never understand why) The Legend of Zelda was released in North America, the rabid fanboy audience of the late 1980s was presented with a new swashbuckling adventure for the NES. Simply titled Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (the only Zelda game not to include The Legend of Zelda in its title), the second game in the series was a complete departure from its predecessor.

An entirely different team than the rest of the Zelda games worked on The Adventure of Link, and it remains so different from any other title in the series that it's barely considered a "true" Zelda game by some fans. It's the only side-scrolling Zelda game ever made, it involves an incredibly difficult "dueling" combat system, Link can jump freely over obstacles at any time and it has several RPG elements including level-ups, HP and MP bars rather than the typical "heart container" system, semi-random battles and an overworld map.

The storyline of this game is interesting. Although Link is the same Link as in the first game, Princess Zelda is not the same one which he previously rescued. This is the only game to ever shed real light on the actual legend of Zelda, and it explains why there is a Zelda in every game. Taken from Wikipedia:

"Six years after the events of The Legend of Zelda, the now sixteen year old Link notices a strange mark on the back of his left hand, exactly like the crest of Hyrule. He seeks out Impa, who responds by taking Link to the North Castle, where a door has been magically sealed for generations. Impa places the back of Link's left hand on the door, and it opens, revealing a sleeping maiden. Impa tells Link that the maiden is Zelda, the princess of Hyrule from long ago, and the origin of the "Legend of Zelda."

Zelda's brother had tried to force her into telling their recently deceased father's secrets concerning the last of three sacred golden triangle treasures of his kingdom, known collectively as the Triforce. Princess Zelda refused to reveal its location, and the prince's wizard friend, in anger, tried to strike her down with a spell. Zelda fell under a powerful sleeping spell, but it also resulted in the wizard's own death. The prince, unable to reverse the spell, had his sister placed in the castle tower, in the hope that she would one day be awakened. He decreed that princesses born to the royal family from that point on would be named Zelda, in remembrance of this tragedy.

Impa says that the mark on Link's hand means that he is the hero chosen to awaken Zelda. She gives Link a chest containing six crystals and ancient writings that only a great future king of Hyrule can read. Link can read it and it indicates that each crystal needs to be placed in a different palace in Hyrule. This will open the way to the Great Palace, which contains the Triforce of Courage. This, combined with the other two parts, has the power to awaken the enchanted Zelda. Taking the crystals, Link sets out to restore them to their palaces. Meanwhile, the followers of Ganon are seeking to kill Link; sprinkling his blood on Ganon’s ashes would bring Ganon back to life."

Neat-o! Now you can bust out that knowledge at parties and people will buy you drinks, guaranteed. So basically, this game follows Link as he tries to revive the original Princess Zelda from her magically-induced slumber.

There's your basic introduction to the game! It looks much better than the first one already.

...Or is it?

Well, at least this Zelda is asleep, so she can't make you go through horrendously difficult levels for no reason.

...Or can she?

Stay tuned, gentle readers! Same geek-time, same geek-channel!

The Legend of Zelda Conclusion: Too many enemies, too little point.

Gameplay/Difficulty: 5/20
Like I said before, I would consider this game very nearly unplayable without save states - not because it takes time to learn the weaknesses of each enemy or the puzzles are too complex to solve in one go, but because a lot of the time your survival comes down to luck rather than skill. The sheer number of enemies in each room made the game mostly about staying alive long enough to get through each level, which was frustrating and made the game feel more like a chore than entertainment.

I give The Legend of Zelda a 5 instead of a 0 mainly because while the gameplay was repetitive, boring and stupid-hard, the controls were very intuitive and could be easily learned in a matter of minutes.


Music/Sound: 7/20
The Legend of Zelda has a total of 4 pieces of music - the overworld theme, the title theme, the dungeon theme, and the theme of Ganon's Tower. Every single one of these (except maybe the title theme) becomes annoying enough that you mute your game every time you turn it on.

However, I gave this game a 7 instead of a 0 because the score (if you can call it that) is iconic and recognizable to even the staunchest non-gamer. The tracks themselves are well composed even if they do make you want to shoot your speakers. Basically, the music suffers more from repetitiveness than lack of quality.

The sound is fairly unremarkable and is basic NES quality. Not much to say here. Notable is the "Zelda secret music" - the little jingle that plays every time you figure out a secret or solve a puzzle. It can be found in almost every other Zelda game since and is incredibly recognizable.


Design/Graphics: 5/20
Yes, I realize that for 1986 it was a graphical gem. I know. I get that. That's why it gets some marks. I'm sorry, this game is ugly. It really is. Not simply for the graphics themselves, but the color palette - the lime green dungeons, the orange snail-boulders, etc, etc. Everything you see is a palette-swap of something else, every dungeon room you've seen has been seen elsewhere. The game isn't just boring and frustrating to play - it's boring and frustrating to look at.


Charm/Nostalgia Factor: 15/20
This is where The Legend of Zelda really shines. It's iconic. It was revolutionary. It was the first game to use battery-powered saves instead of a password system, allowing for your saved game to be totally unique from anyone else's. It spawned its own television show, Spaghetti-O's ripoff, and merchandise. Link is instantly recognizable to anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last twenty years. Every convention on the entire planet features at least one terrible Zelda cosplay. It is, in my opinion, the most important video game ever released, next maybe only to Super Mario Bros.

Unfortunately, this game sucks, so I can't really give it full marks.


Story/Concept: 10/20
The story is completely generic - get the shiny triangle bits, beat the giant blue pig, save the sadistic Princess, yadda yadda. It only gets half marks because it had a great amount of potential which was only later realized in A Link to the Past, the Triforce is a cool magical item, and because I said so.



Total: 42/100
It's a terrible game with an immense legacy. Fortunately for us, Nintendo didn't stop there!

On to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link!

The Legend of Zelda Part 2: Okay, I saved the princess, does that mean I can stop playing now?

I could give you many excuses as to why this post has been so long in the making. I could tell you that school has been busy, or work has kept me away from Zelda. Unfortunately, none of them would be true.

I actually spent two weeks trying to finish the last two dungeons. Why did it take so long? Let me explain.

Every dungeon after about the 4th level consists of pretty much nothing except palette-swapped enemies and rooms. (Yes, you can even palette-swap a room, apparently!) Although the individual room layouts are completely identical from level to level except for the palette-swapped enemies that are in them, the layouts get increasingly more confusing and require you to bomb walls to get around a lot of the time. This is a Zelda staple and it wouldn't bother me except that there's no indication of which walls you're supposed to bomb.

As a result, every time you enter a room, you waste 2-3 bombs (of a maximum of 8, which eventually increases to 12 if you buy an upgrade) trying to find a doorway which may or may not be there, all while dodging so many enemies that they actually made my NES emulator lag. When you run out of bombs, you have to find and kill enemies which drop them, but unfortunately bomb-drops are not random like they are in the newer Zeldas and only specific enemies in a level have them. That makes working through each level pretty much the most tedious thing ever after about level 6.

The last level in the game is Ganon's Tower, just like it almost always is. This is what took the vast majority of the last two weeks. Let me show you a map of the level somebody made on Gamefaqs in a vain attempt to aid any poor sucker who feels like playing this game:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/nes/file/563433/12037

Everywhere you see those black cracked holes, you needed a bomb to get through. This was the first time in my life I experienced having to draw a little map for myself in order to remember where I was going and where each door led.

After getting through the level, I have to say that Ganon is the worst final boss ever. Besides being a blue pig, he's boring. Basically, he flies around and shoots little balls of fire at you, which if you'd made it through the game in the first place you should be able to easily dodge by now. Just to up the challenge, they made him invisible, so you have to run around like an idiot dodging the balls of fire and swinging your sword. If you hit him, he turns visible for a moment and then continues with his attack pattern.

Eventually, if you catch him enough times, he turns red and you simply shoot a Silver Arrow at him and he dies. One hit, dead. If you didn't find the Silver Arrow in the level, you cannot beat Ganon, and will have to let yourself be killed and try to find your way back all over again.

After you kill Ganon and take the Triforce of Power from his grisly remains, you head back into a modified version of the generic Triforce piece room. There, Princess Zelda is trapped behind a wall of flames (which can easily be swept away by just hitting them with your sword, so I'm not really sure what the point of putting them there in the first place was except as one last "we hate you" from the programmers? Maybe they were hoping the player would have a nervous breakdown at the idea of having to go back into the level to find yet another useless quest item? The Japanese are a mysterious people.)

Anyway, you sweep away the flames, step up to Zelda and the Princess is saved! Yay! You've beaten the game! Surely, there's a grand ending sequence waiting for you! Surely, Nintendo will be calling your home phone number at any moment to congratulate you for your tenacity!

Not exactly. To the left you can see the entirety of The Legend of Zelda's ending sequence.

"Thanks Link, You're the Hero of Hyrule"? Gee, thanks Zelda.

...Actually, now that I think about it, it was Zelda who hid the Triforce pieces in the dungeons across Hyrule, right?


That's better.

It's not really a Zelda post, I know. Sorry.

I'm still fighting my way through Zelda - things have taken a turn for the even more difficult. The creators of this game thought it would be really cool to make the boss of the last level be the sub-boss of the next level - sometimes in multiples. The situation displayed to the left (those are three versions of the boss of the second level, Dodongo) among other situations of increasing difficulty in this game has led me to use a TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE and charmingly retro approach that is TOTALLY NOT CHEATING to successfully beat the rest of this game without hurting myself or others.

They call him...the Game Genie.

If you're too young or too lame to remember the Game Genie, it was a system which allowed you to type in codes for your NES games which would alter the stats of your character, sometimes going as far as to make them invincible. Anyway, it's totally not cheating and is a fully legit and WIZARD way to get through a difficult game, so I'm rolling with it.

In any case, it helped me get from the situation above to VICTORY. The Dodongos also look uncannily like me after eating too much pie when you deposit a bomb into their stomachs, except cuter.


Anyway, this is not a real "finishing the game post," but I promise it is coming soon. I'm on the 7th level of the game and I'm pleased to report that after two remarkably monotonous levels, this one is a lot more puzzle-heavy - you even need to give a moblin a certain item (namely, a hunk of meat) in order for you to get through it, which is probably the very first "fetch quest" in history.

More later! Byeeeee!

The Legend of Zelda Part 1: Save state. Die. Load state. Die. Load state...

When you start up the Legend of Zelda, either on your NES or your emulator, you're greeted with the eternally nostalgic Legend of Zelda theme and (in my opinion) quite a lovely start screen (for 1986) showing a picture of the Triforce of Wisdom and the White Sword (the second sword you get in the game.)

Notice that, unlike the more modern Zelda games, there's no Master Sword in sight - the White Sword looks more like a sabre than the traditional longsword we're used to seeing Link with.

Anyway, I like watching the intro sequences to games, so I decide to hold off on pressing the start button for now. After a few seconds, the screen goes dark and the player is presented with what might just be the most inelegant translation I've ever seen. (I particularly like the random quotation marks. "Link"! Go "save" Zelda from the "evil" "Gannon!")

...Well, that does sound like an epic quest. How could I possibly say no? I'm off to retrieve Zelda's units with Wisdom!

After you press start, you're greeted with the usual "enter your name here" screen with three save slots. If you've ever played another Zelda game in your life, you'll know what I mean. It's not interesting or pretty to look at, so I'm going to skip right into the meat of the game.

Basically, about 90% of this game is spent wandering around the impossible-to-navigate overworld map, either A: trying to dodge enemies with half a heart left and subsequently dying, or B: charging into the fray with berserker fury, praying one of the fifteen Octoroks on the screen will drop a heart so you can avoid situation A. (Most of the time, they don't.) The aim of this is to find the eight monstrously terrible dungeons scattered around the map, along with a few shops and other secrets liberally sprinkled around.

The other 10% is spent inside said infuriatingly confusing and repetitive dungeons presented in a series of monochromatic color schemes. All the dungeons share the same piece of music, about 15 seconds long, which repeats ad nauseum. These two combined factors make most of the challenge really involve making it to the end of the dungeon before your brain starts leaking out of your ears.

There are puzzles of a sort in that you're often left running back and forth between nearly identical rooms wondering where in God's name the next key is, but mostly the aim of the game is the same as when you're outside - survive long enough to make it to the boss.

Fortunately, most of the bosses are easy enough to beat - the boss of the third "level" (as they call dungeons in this game) can be killed in one hit by strategic bomb placement. They tend to be a bit of a letdown on the whole after the hardship you endure fighting your way through the dungeon, though, and the limitations of the NES make boss fights less than inspiring. We're not even given a change of tune to mark the occasion, so the only indication you have that you're about to fight the boss of the level is a "roaring" sound effect you can hear in the room immediately before the boss level.

Plus, they never look very intimidating - check out Dodongo, the boss of the second level, above. His little stubby legs make him more cute than scary, which is just disappointing after all that work. Seems to be a trend with this game.

After you defeat the boss, the next room always has the same layout regardless of the level, as you can see to the left. The only thing in there is the level's Triforce piece, and when you collect it you're restored to full health (an absolute blessing in this game, trust me) and kicked out of the dungeon with no direction as to where you're supposed to go from there. Thanks, Nintendo.

I've only played the first four levels so far (half of the game), and I think I should say here that I would consider this game completely unplayable if I wasn't doing so on an emulator. (Don't worry, boys and girls - I own a legal copy.) The tears and frustration our gaming ancestors would have had to endure to beat this game are absolutely unfathomable; almost as unfathomable as why in God's name this game was ever blessed with any sequels at all.

Giving credit where credit is due, though, this game was completely revolutionary when it came out. It was the first game to include a battery-powered save feature instead of the password system which was previously popular. Zelda opened the door to the heyday of the console RPG in the 90s. For the time it was released, it was incredibly complex and detailed - nobody had ever thought of hidden keys or caves which could only be revealed if you bombed the right wall, and the amount of little secrets in the game meant you could virtually play it forever. It was a beautiful game by 1986's standards, graphically.

Still, that doesn't mean I have to like playing it.

Next post, the THRILLING CONCLUSION of Zelda I, plus my final review of the first game in the series.

The Legend of Zelda: It's old and it shows.

Title: The Legend of Zelda (Zeruda no Densetsu)
Original Release: Feb. 21, 1986
Game #: 1
Chronologically: #5, Young Link timeline

According to Wikipedia, the first game in the series is "set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, the plot centers on a boy named Link, the playable protagonist, who aims to rescue Princess Zelda from the primary antagonist, Ganon, by collecting eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom, a powerful artifact." I'm not really sure why they haven't updated the basic plot in 24 years, but if it works for Mario I guess it works for Zelda, too.

For 1986, the graphics must have been pretty good, but honestly - the game looks awful. It really does.

For example, if you had to guess without context, what would you say this was? My first guess was a giant snail.


Actually, they're boulders, as you can see in the image to the right. At least, I think they're boulders. I'm still not completely convinced.

The basic layout of the screen is very simplistic, but not unfamiliar to the modern Zelda player. You can see an overworld map (kind of) in the top left of the screen, a section which counts the number of rupees (Zelda's currency), keys, and bombs the player has, and a section which directs the player to press A to swing Link's sword and B to use whichever quest item Link has equipped.

The Legend of Zelda doesn't use the traditional "HP" system to keep track of Link's health, and instead gives him a number of hearts (you can see those in the top right of the screen) that are taken away when Link is hit by an enemy. When all his hearts disappear, Link dies. There are a number of ways to restore his hearts in-game, and as Link progresses on his quest it's possible to increase his maximum number of hearts.

The Legend of Zelda series has changed a bit over the years, becoming more RPG-like in its more recent incarnations, but the first game in the series is very much a dungeon-crawler with puzzle elements. It's very non-linear - you can go where you want, when you want, and tackle the dungeons in any order you wish (although it's easier to defeat some of them having defeated others first, kind of like Megaman.) It's even possible to get to the final battle without having a sword!

Chronologically, there are many different arguments for when the first Zelda game takes place, but I'm most convinced by this theory, which is the one I'm using. (There have been some strong arguments made that Twilight Princess fits into the Young Link timeline, somewhere down the line, and Spirit Tracks is after the Phantom Hourglass on the Adult Link timeline.) This theory suggests that the Legend of Zelda is the third game on the Young Link timeline, and the fifth chronologically.

So that's the basic overview of this game. My next post will be (hopefully) my experiences actually playing the game, followed by my review of this title. Wish me luck!