The Legend of Zelda

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This article is about the first game in the series. For other uses, see The Legend of Zelda (disambiguation).
The Legend of Zelda

Gold boxart
Developer(s) Nintendo R&D4
Publisher(s) Nintendo
Designer(s) Shigeru Miyamoto
Koji Kondo
Takashi Tezuka
Toshihiko Nakago
Series The Legend of Zelda
Platform(s) FDS, NES/FC, GBA, GCN, Wii (VC)
Release date JP February 21, 1986[1]
NA August 22, 1987[2]
EU November 27, 1987
Genre(s) Action-adventure
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) ESRB: E
OFLC: G
Media Floppy disk (FDS version), 1 megabit cartridge (NES and FC version)
System requirements 22 blocks (Wii)

The Legend of Zelda (ゼルダの伝説 Zeruda no Densetsu?) is a video game designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and developed and published by Nintendo. 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 the eight fragments of the Triforce, a powerful artifact.

As the inaugural game of The Legend of Zelda series, it was first released in Japan as a launch title for the Famicom's Disk System peripheral, a year and five months before it was released in the United States. Because the Famicom Disk System was not released outside Japan, the game was published internationally on the Nintendo Entertainment System's cartridge format in 1987, with an internal battery to facilitate data saving. Nintendo released the game in Japan in 1994 on cartridge format for the Famicom.

Contents

[edit] Gameplay

When The Legend of Zelda was released, its gameplay defied categorization. The game incorporated elements from action games, adventure games, role-playing games, and puzzle games. The game begins with the player controlling Link from an overhead perspective, armed with a small shield. A sword becomes available to Link if he ventures into the cave, accessible from the beginning screen. When the game starts, Link spawns in the overworld, a large outdoor map with varied environments. Throughout the game, merchants, gamblers, old ladies, and other people guide Link with cryptic clues. These people are scattered across the overworld and hidden in caves, shrubbery, or behind walls and water falls

Barring Link's progress are creatures he must battle to locate the entrances to nine underground dungeons. Each dungeon is a unique, maze-like collection of rooms connected by doors and secret passages and guarded by monsters different from those found on the overworld. Link must successfully navigate each dungeon to obtain one of the eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom. Dungeons also hide useful items, such as a boomerang for retrieving items and stunning enemies, and a recorder with magical properties. The first six dungeons have visible entrances, but the entrances to the remaining three dungeons are hidden. Except for the final dungeon, which cannot be entered until the previous eight have been completed, the order of completing dungeons is somewhat arbitrary, but many dungeons can only be reached using items gained in the previous one.

Nonlinearity, the ability to take different paths to complete the game, separated Zelda from its contemporaries. Link can freely wander the overworld, finding and buying items at any point. This flexibility enables 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.[3] Nintendo of America's management initially feared that players might become frustrated with the new concept, left wondering what to do next. As a result, the American version of the game's manual contains many hints, tips, and suggestions for players.

After completing the game, the player has access to a more difficult quest, officially referred to as the Second Quest,[4] where dungeons and the placement of items are different and enemies stronger.[5] Although a more difficult "replay" was not unique to Zelda, few games offered a "second quest" with entirely different levels to complete.[3] Entering "ZELDA" as the player's name starts the second quest immediately.[6] The Second Quest can be replayed each time it is completed.

[edit] Story and characters

Link, carrying the many items he acquires in his quest.
Link, carrying the many items he acquires in his quest.

The Legend of Zelda's plot relies heavily on back story given in the short (in-game) prologue and the instruction booklet. Hyrule was engulfed in chaos after an army led by Ganon, the Prince of Darkness, invaded the kingdom and secured the Triforce of Power, a magical artifact bestowing great strength.[7] Hyrule's Princess Zelda split one of the artifact's two counterparts, the Triforce of Wisdom, into eight fragments, hiding them in secret dungeons throughout the land to prevent them from falling into Ganon's hands.

According to the manual, Impa fled for her life, but was overtaken by her pursuers. As Ganon's henchmen surrounded her, a youth drove the monsters off. The boy's name was Link, and Impa told him of Hyrule's plight.[8] Link resolved to save Zelda, but to fight Ganon he had to find and reassemble the scattered fragments of the Triforce. Undeterred, Link set off for Hyrule in an epic adventure.[8]

During the course of the game, Link locates the eight underground labyrinths (or dungeons) and retrieves the Triforce fragments from the clutches of powerful guardian monsters. Along the way, he picks up a variety of useful items and upgrades to aid him in his quest. With the Triforce of Wisdom, Link is able to infiltrate Ganon's fortress high upon Death Mountain. He confronts the Prince of Darkness, destroying him with a Silver Arrow discovered deep within Ganon's dungeons. Link picks up the Triforce of Power from Ganon's ashes and returns both Triforces to Princess Zelda, whom he releases from her nearby cell. According to Zelda's words, peace would then return to Hyrule.

A "symbol of courage, strength and wisdom",[9] Link was designed by Miyamoto as a coming-of-age motif for players to identify with: he begins the game an ordinary boy but grows in strength and fortitude to triumph over the ultimate evil.[10]

The name of the princess was inspired by Zelda Fitzgerald: "Zelda was the name of the wife of the famous novelist Francis Scott Fitzgerald. She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name. So I took the liberty of using her name for the very first Zelda title," Miyamoto explained.[11]

The original name for Link was Emmanuel.[citation needed]

[edit] Development

[edit] Concept and design

The Legend of Zelda was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto. His team worked on The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. concurrently, trying to separate the ideas: Super Mario Bros. was to be linear, where the action occurred in a strict sequence, whereas The Legend of Zelda would be the total opposite.[12] In Mario, Miyamoto downplayed the importance of the high score in favor of simply completing the game.[13] This concept was carried over to The Legend of Zelda. Miyamoto was also in charge of deciding which concepts were "Zelda ideas" or "Mario ideas." Contrasting with Mario, Zelda was made non-linear and forced the players to think about what they should do next with riddles and puzzles.[14] With The Legend of Zelda, Miyamoto wanted to take the idea of a game "world" even further, giving players a "miniature garden that they can put inside their drawer."[13] He drew his inspiration from his experiences as a boy around Kyoto, where he explored nearby fields, woods, and caves, and through the Zelda titles he always tries to impart to players some of the sense of exploration and limitless wonder he felt.[13] "When I was a child," he said, "I went hiking and found a lake. It was quite a surprise for me to stumble upon it. When I traveled around the country without a map, trying to find my way, stumbling on amazing things as I went, I realized how it felt to go on an adventure like this."[15] The memory of being lost amid the maze of sliding doors in his family's home in Sonobe was recreated in Zelda's labyrinthine dungeons.[16]

In the initial game designs, the player would start the game with the sword already in their inventory. According to Miyamoto, those in Japan were confused and had trouble finding their way through the multiple path dungeons. Rather than listening to the complaints, Miyamoto took away the sword, forcing players to communicate with each other and share their ideas to solve puzzles. This was a new form of game communication, and in that "Zelda became the inspiration for something very different: Animal Crossing. This was a game based solely on communication."[17]

[edit] Technology

Legend of Zelda Famicom Disk
Legend of Zelda Famicom Disk

In February 1986, Nintendo released the game on the Famicom's new Disk System peripheral. The Legend of Zelda was joined by a re-release of Super Mario Bros. and Tennis, Baseball, Golf, Soccer, and Mahjong in its introduction of the Famicom Disk System. It made full use of the Disk System’s advantages over the Famicom with a disk size of 128 kilobytes, which was expensive to produce on cartridge format.[13] Due to the still-limited amount of space on the disk, however, the Japanese version of the game was only in katakana. It used rewritable disks to save the game, rather than passwords.[18] The Japanese version used the extra sound channel provided by the Disk System for certain sound effects; most notable are the sounds of Link's sword when his health is full, and enemy death sounds. It also used the microphone built into the Famicom's controller that was not included in the NES. This led to confusion in the U.S. as the instruction manual reads that Pols Voice, a rabbit-like enemy in the game, "hates loud noise".[19] Blowing or shouting into the Famicom's microphone kills these creatures. However, they cannot be killed through use of the flute, and on the NES must be killed with either the sword or bow and arrow. The cartridge version made use of the Memory Management Controller chip, specifically MMC1 model. The MMC was smaller, cheaper, and held more memory than previous Nintendo game pak chips. They also allowed for battery powered RAM, which let players save progress.[20]

[edit] Release

Contrary to the fears of Nintendo's management, the game was wildly popular and well received. The game was so popular that within a year Nintendo issued the sequel The Legend of Zelda 2: Link no Bōken for the Famicom Disk System. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, as the second Zelda came to be known in the western markets, would not be released in America for almost two years after its initial release on the Famicon Disc System. The original Zelda had been out a year and a half and Zelda 2 a full six months before Nintendo brought the game to North America.

Nintendo published the game close to a year and a half later in North America, with a small portion of the box cut out to display the unique gold-colored cartridge. In 1987, The Legend of Zelda became the first NES title aside from Super Mario Bros. to sell one million copies.[21] In 1988, 7 million more NES units were sold, along with 33 million game cartridges. Nintendo of America sought to keep its strong base of fans: anyone who purchased a game and sent in a warranty card became a member of the Fun Club, whose members got a four-, eight-, and eventually thirty-two-page newsletter. Seven hundred copies of the first issue were sent out free of charge, but the number grew as the data bank of names got longer.[22]

From the success of magazines in Japan, Nintendo knew that game tips were an incredibly valued asset. Players enjoyed the bimonthly newsletter's crossword puzzles and jokes, but game secrets were most valued. The Fun Club drew kids in by offering tips for the more complicated games, especially Zelda, with its hidden rooms, secret keys, and passageways.[22] The mailing list grew. By early 1988, there were over 1 million Fun Club members, which led then-Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa to start Nintendo Power magazine.[22]

Since Nintendo did not have many products, it made only a few commercials a year, meaning the quality had to be phenomenal. The budget for a single commercial could reach US $5 million, easily four or five times more than most companies spent.[23] One of the first commercials made under Bill White, director of advertising and public relations, was the market introduction for The Legend of Zelda, which received a great deal of attention in the ad industry. In it, a wiry-haired, nerdy guy (John Kassir) walks through the dark making goofy noises, yelling out the names of some enemies from the game, and screaming for Zelda.[23]

The Legend of Zelda was a gold mine for Nintendo, which released a slew of Zelda-related merchandise, from toys and guidebooks to watches, apparel, trash cans, and even a breakfast cereal called the Nintendo Cereal System. The game and its sequel, The Adventure of Link were adapted into an animated series, episodes of which were shown each Friday on television's The Super Mario Bros. Super Show. Link and Zelda appeared in select episodes of Captain N: The Game Master that revolved around themes from The Adventure of Link.

[edit] Reception

The Legend of Zelda was a bestseller for Nintendo, selling over 6.5 million copies.[24] It was reissued in 1990 as part of Nintendo's "Classic Series", along with Zelda II, Metroid, and other high-profile games. The game placed first in the player's poll "Top 30" in Nintendo Power's first issue[25] and continued to dominate the list into the early 1990s. The Legend of Zelda was also voted by Nintendo Power readers as the "Best Challenge" in the Nintendo Power Awards '88.[26]

The Legend of Zelda places prominently in lists of games considered the greatest or most influential: it placed first in Game Informer's list of the greatest games ever, fifth in Electronic Gaming Monthly's 200th issue listing "The Greatest 200 Videogames of Their Time,"[27] seventh in Nintendo Power's list of the 200 Best Nintendo Games Ever,[28] and 80th among IGN readers' "Top 99 Games."[29] Zelda was inducted into GameSpy's Hall of Fame in August 2000[30] and voted by GameSpy's editors as the tenth best game of all time.[31] Editors of the popular Japanese magazine Famitsu voted the game among the best on the Famicom.[32]

Even in its Game Boy Advance port, created 17 years after its initial release, The Legend of Zelda passes the test of time, scoring 79% at the Game Rankings and 87% at the Game Ratio rankings compilations. In individual ratings, IGN scored The Legend of Zelda with an 8 out of 10, GamePro a 4.5 out of 5, Nintendo Power a 4.5 out of 5, and 1UP.com a 9 out of 10.[33][34]In Gamespot, both Game Boy Advance and the Wii scored 7.2 for its originality.

[edit] Impact and legacy

The Legend of Zelda is considered a spiritual forerunner of the console role-playing game (RPG) genre.[3] Though its gameplay elements are different from those of typical computer or console RPGs, its bright, cartoonish graphics, fantasy setting, and musical style were adopted by many RPGs. Its commercial success helped lay the groundwork for involved, nonlinear games in fantasy settings, such as those found in successful RPGs, including Crystalis, Soul Blazer, Square's Seiken Densetsu series, and more recently, Alundra and Brave Fencer Musashi.

The Legend of Zelda spawned numerous sequels and spin-offs and remains one of Nintendo's most popular series. Although the plot of Zelda is simplistic by today's standards, it established important characters and environments of the Zelda universe: Link, Princess Zelda, Ganon, Impa, and the Triforce as the power that binds Hyrule together.[13] The overworld theme and distinctive "secret found" jingle have appeared in one form or another in nearly every subsequent Zelda title. The theme has also appeared in various other games featuring Zelda series references.

[edit] Sequels and remakes

The Legend of Zelda has been re-released on multiple platforms, most recently on the Wii's Virtual Console in 2006. The game was re-released in cartridge format on the Famicom in 1994.[35] The Famicom version slightly modified the title screen of the FDS version of the game, reading The Legend of Zelda 1 instead of just The Legend of Zelda. The game also spawned a clone for the TRS-80 Color Computer III called "The Quest for Thelda," written by Eric A. Wolf and licensed to Sundog Systems. It was released in 1989 and was available on floppy disk only. The game can be played with either the keyboard or a joystick, and requires only the computer's stock 128K of RAM to run. Game play is set in the land of Galaduirl and revolves around a nameless squire who must rescue Princess Thelda from the evil wizard Divinax by collecting the six pieces of Life Force scattered throughout the underground.[36]

The game was also included in The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition for the Nintendo GameCube,[37] and is also obtainable in the GameCube game Animal Crossing using various cheat devices such as the Action Replay. The game was also re-released on the Game Boy Advance in 2004 along with its sequel, The Adventure of Link, as part of the Classic NES Series. A timed demo of the game is also available in the Vault section of the Wii game Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

BS Zelda no Densetsu, based on the original The Legend of Zelda, was released for download in four episodes on the Satellaview, a satellite modem add-on to Nintendo's Super Famicom system, from August 9, 1995 to August 30, 1995. The first game broadcast on the Satellaview, BS Zelda featured updated graphics, a smaller overworld, and different dungeons. Link was replaced by the Satellaview mascots, a boy wearing a backward baseball cap and a girl with red hair. It also featured "Sound Link", where every few minutes players were cautioned to listen carefully as a live narrator, broadcast over the network, gave them play clues.[38] When the game was rebroadcast in December 1996, the layout of the world was changed again. This revision had a smaller broadcast audience and is known as Map 2. Sometimes these two games are known as the Third and Fourth Quest, similar to the NES game's Second Quest.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Zelda no Densetsu. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  2. ^ The Legend of Zelda. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  3. ^ a b c Andrew Long. Oldest School. RPGamer. Retrieved on 2006-10-01.
  4. ^ ZELDA: The Second Quest Begins (1988), p. 27
  5. ^ ZELDA: The Second Quest Begins (1988), p. 28
  6. ^ ZELDA: The Second Quest Begins (1988), p. 26
  7. ^ The Legend of Zelda Instruction Booklet (1989), p. 3
  8. ^ a b The Legend of Zelda Instruction Booklet (1989), p. 4
  9. ^ The Great Hyrule Encyclopedia — Link. Zelda Universe (2006). Retrieved on 2005-09-20.
  10. ^ Shigeru Miyamoto Interview. Superplay Magazine (2003-04-23). Retrieved on 2006-09-24.
  11. ^ Mowatt, Todd. In the Game: Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto. Amazon.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-01.
  12. ^ “Miyamoto Speaks”, Nintendo Power 89: 64–67, October 1996, <http://www.miyamotoshrine.com/theman/interviews/1096.shtml> .
  13. ^ a b c d e Vestal, Andrew; Cliff O'Neill; and Brad Shoemaker (2000-11-14). History of Zelda. GameSpot. Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  14. ^ Bufton, Ben (2005-01-01). Shigeru Miyamoto Interview. ntsc-uk. Retrieved on 2006-09-23.
  15. ^ Sheff (1993), p. 51
  16. ^ Sheff (1993), p. 52
  17. ^ Fahey, Michael (2007-03-08). GDC07: Liveblogging Nintendo. Kotaku.
  18. ^ alistairw (September 8, 2006). Special: History of The Legend of Zelda Series. Nintendo. Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  19. ^ The Legend of Zelda Instruction Booklet (1987), p. 36
  20. ^ “Why Your Game Paks Never Forget”, Nintendo Power (Nintendo) (no. 20): 28–31, January 1991 
  21. ^ Sheff (1993), p. 172
  22. ^ a b c Sheff (1993), p. 178
  23. ^ a b Sheff (1993), p. 188
  24. ^ March 25, 2004. The Magic Box (2004-03-25). Archived from the original on 2005-11-26. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
  25. ^ “Top 30”, Nintendo Power 1: 102, July/August 1988 .
  26. ^ “Nester Awards”, Nintendo Power (Nintendo) (no. 6): 18-21, May/June 1989 
  27. ^ S.B. (February 2006). The 200 Greatest Video Games of their Time. Electronic Gaming Monthly. Retrieved on 2006-10-01.
  28. ^ “NP Top 200”, Nintendo Power 200: 58–66, February 2006 .
  29. ^ Readers' Picks Top 99 Games: 80-71. IGN (April 11, 2005). Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  30. ^ Buecheler, Christopher (August 2000). The Gamespy Hall of Fame. GameSpy. Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  31. ^ GameSpy Staff (July 2001). GameSpy's Top 50 Games of All Time. GameSpy. Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  32. ^ taragan (2006). Famitsu Readers' All-time Favorite Famicom Games. Pink Godzilla. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.
  33. ^ Classic NES Series: The Legend of Zelda. Game Rankings. Retrieved on 2006-10-01.
  34. ^ Classic NES Series: The Legend of Zelda. Game Ratio. Retrieved on 2006-10-01.
  35. ^ Fryguy64 (2001-06-28). The Legend of Zelda/The Hyrule Fantasy: Zelda no Densetsu (JP). Nintendo Database. Retrieved on 2008-02-18.
  36. ^ Quest For Thelda (2003-10-06). Retrieved on 2008-04-02.
  37. ^ IGN Staff (2003-10-06). True Zelda Love. IGN. Retrieved on 2006-10-01.
  38. ^ BS The Legend of Zelda. IGN. Retrieved on 2006-10-01.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Official sites
General resources
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The Legend of Zelda series
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Spin-offs
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