The Legend of Zelda
, or commonly abbreviated LoZ by fans, is the first game in the
Legend of Zelda series of
video games. It was made by
Nintendo under the direction of game creator
Shigeru Miyamoto, who also created
Mario. The game was inspired by Miyamoto's adventures in the hills of
Kyoto as a young child. It was released in Japan as the first game for the
Famicom Disk System add-on to the
Famicom on
February 21,
1986. As this add-on was not released outside of Japan, it was released in the US and other countries on the regular
NES cartridge format in
1987. The music, including the classic
Zelda theme, was composed by
Koji Kondo.
The game is set in the imaginary land of
Hyrule and revolves around a young Hylian named
Link, who must rescue
Princess Zelda from the clasps of the
villain Ganon by
collecting eight fragments of the
Triforce of Wisdom, one of three smaller pieces of the
Triforce.
The game was included in
The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition for the
Nintendo GameCube. In
2004, Nintendo re-released the original
The Legend of Zelda for the
Game Boy Advance, as part of the
Classic NES Series. The game was also re-released in 1994 in Japan as a Famicom game, rather than a Famicom Disk.
The
theme music from The Legend of Zelda has become part of pop culture and is easily recognizable even to non-gamers.
The game begins with the player controlling Link armed with a small shield. A simple
sword (often believed to be wooden due to its coloring) is immediately available in a cave behind him. To advance further, Link must explore the overworld, a large outdoor map with a variety of environments, fighting an assortment of small creatures in order to locate the entrances to nine underground dungeons. Each dungeon is a unique, labyrinthine collection of rooms connected by doors and secret passages and guarded by a variety of monsters, all of which are different from those found in the overworld. Link must navigate through each dungeon to obtain the eight pieces of the
Triforce of Wisdom along with other useful items, many of them necessary to complete his quest. For example, the third dungeon contains a raft which is needed to reach the entrance to the fourth dungeon. Other available items include upgrades for Link's sword and shield,
bombs for uncovering secret caverns, and a recorder with magical properties. The first six dungeons have visible entrances, but the remaining three are hidden from view. The order of completing the dungeons is relatively arbitrary, but the ninth and final dungeon can only be entered after collecting the entire Triforce of Wisdom.
Nonlinearity, the ability to take different paths in completing the game, is an important element of
Zelda which was largely absent in its contemporaries. Although the dungeons were designed to be completed in order, there are many possible orders. Similarly, Link can wander the overworld, finding and buying items at any point. This flexibility enabled some unusual ways of playing the game; for example, it is possible to reach the final boss of the game (but not defeat him) without taking a sword, which in a normally-played game is the preferred primary weapon. Nonlinearity is also a source of frustration, however, often leaving players wondering what to do next.
There are many classic Zelda bosses that first made appearances in this game. One of them appeared at the end of every dungeon, and often they would appear in other parts of a later dungeon as a miniboss. All of these bosses were reincarnated in upgraded forms in
Oracle of Seasons. Some of them also appear in other games.
Aquamentus
Aquamentus is a standard dragon that resembles a
unicorn. Its attack pattern had it slowly pace about and shoot fireballs in a spread pattern. By attacking its head, it was easily killed. The beams it shot could be blocked by the Magical Shield (no other boss in Zelda can have their beams blocked by the Magical Shield). Link could also stand on its body without taking damage.
Dodongo
Dodongo, described in the manual as a giant
rhinoceros, looked like
triceratops. This monster charged around the room and damaged anyone and anything in its path. In order to slay it, bombs had to be placed in front of his mouth; he would eat them and take damage when they exploded. Two bombs were required to kill Dodongo. However, if the first bomb exploded on him without him eating them, he would be stunned, at which point Link could kill him with a sword (a maneuver which always produced four new bombs as a reward.) At the beginning of the game, players only fought one Dodongo at a time; however, in later stages of the game they attacked in groups of three. Dodongo reappears as the boss of Dodongo's Cavern in The Ocarina of Time and is defeated using similar methods.
Manhandla
This beast was a gigantic blue
carnivorous plant. It had four mouths (or claws) surrounding an invulnerable body, all of which shot fireballs at Link. Link could only slay the beast by defeating all four heads. Each time a head was killed, Manhandla would move faster. The most effective way to destroy it was by placing a bomb near the center of Manhandla, which could destroy multiple appendages at once if not kill it immediately.
Gleeok
This large, multi-headed dragon is considered by many fans to be the hardest boss in the game. By attacking a head repeatedly, it would detach and begin to fly around the room, damaging Link if touched and continually shooting fireballs. The number of heads it started out with varied from two to four. After detaching all the heads, the body would die.
Digdogger
This guardian, described in the manual as a
sea urchin, is large, yellow, and round. Digdogger is normally invulnerable and moved slowly around the room. By blowing the recorder, it would turn into either one or three smaller spawns of itself. These moved very fast, but are vulnerable to attacks (and boomerang stuns).
Normally, killing all the small Digdoggers was required to defeat the boss. However, because of a glitch, if Link split Digdogger into 3 parts, killed one, and left the room, when he came back Digdogger would be slain. Another glitch occurs by playing the recorder before it has materialized out of the mystic smoke that all monsters appear from, causing it to switch back and forth several times between its initial and smaller forms until settling on the smaller form.
Gohma
This crablike monstrosity, with one huge eye for a face, would pace back and forth, shooting fireballs. The eye was Gohma's weak spot; to defeat him, Link had to shoot it with arrows when it opened. Red Gohma, which only appeared in Level 6 of the first quest, took one arrow to die. All subsequent Gohmas were blue, and required three arrows to be defeated. Gohma also appeared in
Ocarina of Time as the boss of the Deku Tree, in which he kept the eye weakness.
Ganon
Found only in the final dungeon (in both quests), this sorcerer is the central villain. He would cast an invisibility spell around himself, and move around the room shooting fireballs. By stabbing the air randomly, or figuring out his pattern, players could score a hit. After many hits, he would freeze and turn red. Only by shooting him with the silver arrow while he was in this red state could Ganon be defeated.
 |
Link battling in the overworld. |
Its gameplay defied categorization at its time of release, incorporating elements from
action-adventure games,
role-playing games, and
puzzles. The game was one of the most successful of its time, selling 6.5 million copies.
Zelda featured many technical innovations as well. It is famed for being one of the first games to include a built-in battery that allowed the player to
save progress, even after shutting the system down (previous games used
passwords, often long and complicated). Players could save progress when they died or by pressing
Up and
Start in the second
controller while playing. In addition, the plastic casing of the cartridge was gold just like the box instead of the usual gray, making it seem special from the very beginning. It was later re-released in a gray cartridge in 1990.
 |
Link, carrying all of the many and varied items he acquires in the course of his quest. |
The first
Zelda appears relatively simple by today's standards, but it was a very advanced game for its day. Innovations included the ability to use many different items, a vast world full of secrets to explore, and the freedom of relatively nonlinear gameplay. Many of these innovations became staples of the
Zelda series and other games, which followed its lead. The game was wildly popular in Japan and the United States, and many consider it one of the most important videogames ever made.
Zelda is also considered one of the spiritual forerunners of the
console role-playing game (CRPG) genre. Even though it contains gameplay elements different from those of a typical computer or console RPG, its aesthetics, such as its bright, cartoony graphics, fantasy setting, and music, would be adopted by a number of later RPGs, and its commercial success helped create a market for involved, nonlinear games in fantasy settings, such as those found in successful CRPGs.
Some RPGs that have been compared to
Zelda include Square's
Seiken Densetsu series, and more recently,
Alundra and
Brave Fencer Musashi.
The player could play a second, more difficult quest of the game either by completing the first quest of the game, or by entering "ZELDA" as the character's name after successfully completing the first quest at least once.
The basic overworld map was slightly changed, but the locations and layout of the dungeons were completely different. Also, most of the items and secrets were located in different places than before, many of them requiring Link to uncover them with the recorder. For example, only two of the nine dungeons had visible entrances, and the fifth dungeon is where the fourth dungeon used to be. Some enemies gained new powers, such as the ability to take away Link's sword permanently, the ability to take more damage before dying, or the ability to throw swords. Certain dungeon walls were illusory, and Link had to walk through them in order to proceed. Some items that the player got in earlier dungeons during the first quest come in later dungeons in the second quest. Also, some of the tougher enemies appeared in earlier dungeons. While a more difficult "replay" was not an innovation unique to
The Legend of Zelda, few games offered a "second quest" with entirely different levels to complete. This added a great deal to the
replay value of the game.
The layouts of the first five dungeons spelled out "ZELDA," (the first was shaped like an "E," the second an "A," the third an "L," the fourth a "D," and the fifth a "Z.") Level Six was a seemingly random layout of rooms that some say resembled Link's hat. The seventh and eighth ones were spirals that resembled the letter "G" (level 7 was an upside-down G or a small spiral, while the eighth level resembled a G on its side or a large spiral). The ninth and final level was shaped like Ganon's head.
When players completed the second quest, they could play the second quest again indefinitely.
A modified version with updated graphics, a smaller overworld, and completely different dungeons, known as
BS Zelda, was released in 1995 for the
Satellaview, the
Super Famicom's Japanese-only satellite-based add-on. Several Japanese sources allude to this as being intended as a "third quest", much like the
second quest (above). When the game was rebroadcast in 1996, they changed the dungeons (and probably the
overworld as well); this revision apparently had a smaller broadcast audience and is known only as "~map2~". This second map could well be thought of as a "fourth quest". Additionally, Link was replaced by the Satellaview mascots, a boy and a girl; the girl had red hair while the boy wore a backwards baseball cap. Additionally, a fanmade version developed for PC users,
Zelda Classic, allowed users to create custom quests with new tile sets and level layouts.
This game was advertised with the
NES in the same ad, and had a
rap sequence:
It's the legend of Zelda, and it's really rad.Those creatures from Ganon are pretty bad.Octorocks and Tektites, Leevers too.But with your help our hero pulls through: . . . .
The Nintendo Entertainment System! Your parents help you hook it up; The Legend of Zelda sold separately.[
1]
*Due to the amount of space on the disk, the Japanese version of the game was only in
katakana.
*The instruction manual says that
Pols Voice "hates loud noises", although the flute item has no effect on it. This text actually refers to a
microphone which was built into the Famicom's controller, but was not included in the
NES; blowing or shouting into the microphone killed these creatures.
*The game has been featured on the VH1 show I Love the 80's: 3D.
* Emulated for the
Classic NES Series (
2004,
Game Boy Advance)
* As part of
The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition (
2003,
GameCube)
* Remade by fans as
Zelda Classic (
1999,
PC)
*
The Legend of Zelda official site*
Speed Demos Archive -
Speedrun*
X-Entertainment's 10 Mysteries of The Legend of Zelda
