My 100 Video Game Challenge (2024) #9: The Legend of Zelda

Played on: Nintendo Switch Online [NES]

The original Legend of Zelda game for NES was released before I was even born, and I didn't ultimately get a chance to play it until I was a teenager. As a result, much like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for Super Nintendo, I don't have the same degree of nostalgic fervor toward this game that some longtime gamers do. As I previously mentioned, I primarily cut my teeth on the Legend of Zelda series' side games as a kid, and didn't really reliably keep up with mainline entries until I'd become an adult.

Yet even without that veneer of nostalgic delight that many gamers older than me possess however, I still enjoy the original Legend of Zelda game a lot... Even if it's not one of the more accessible titles in the franchise.

I can't overstate how influential the original Legend of Zelda game from 1986 was for the video game industry at large. This game set the template for console-made, top-down adventure games, inspiring a legion of imitators not just on Nintendo's consoles, but even on competing consoles from rivals like Sega and PlayStation during the years ahead. Its premise also had yet to really balloon with the series' successive entries, with the original Legend of Zelda's storyline involving what would eventually become a series staple; The evil king of thieves, Ganon invading the fantasy kingdom of Hyrule with a legion of monsters and dark magic, and kidnapping Princess Zelda, another recurring trope that the Legend of Zelda series did eventually (mostly) move away from. Maybe to avoid stepping on Mario's toes?

In any case, the original Legend of Zelda game tasks players with taking control of Link, a wayward young boy thrust into an extraordinary destiny as a legendary hero, something else that would become a recurring trope throughout the series. After entering your name, players are then dropped into Hyrule with no direction, no objectives and no insight into what they're supposed to do, with the game simply allowing them to wander at their own pace, and access most of the game's world right from the get-go.

This staggering level of freedom was unprecedented for a console video game designed and released during the mid-80's, and one that the series has kind of come full circle on recently, with sprawling modern entries like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Of course, if this were a brand new NES copy you were playing in 1987, you would at least have an instruction manual that tells you exactly what you're supposed to do; Seek out the eight scattered pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom, hidden across eight secret dungeons, and unite them so that you may open the way into Death Mountain, the lair of the series' main antagonist, Ganon... Or, at least it was in this first game, before it became a disconnected Hyrulean landmark in future Legend of Zelda games.

Normally, Link wields the Triforce of Courage throughout the Legend of Zelda series, a macguffin that didn't even exist during its first game, with Zelda instead being the holder of the Triforce of Wisdom during future games. Still, Link would nonetheless be able to find and use a series of tools that would become instantly familiar within any Legend of Zelda game to come, right from this first title. Right on the first square you start on, for example, you can enter a cave and get a sword, complementing you starting with nothing but a small wooden shield, and the clothes on your back. From there, you battle enemies across the top-down 'squares' that make up Hyrule's simplistic map, amassing Rupees, the series' currency, so you can buy new items and tools in stores (which also take the form of caves), while hunting for the dungeons that contain swaths of enemies and winding paths, along with even more important tools that are required to complete Link's quest. This all culminates in a dungeon boss battle against a particularly dangerous enemy (or several), before you can secure that dungeon's piece of the Triforce of Wisdom.

While its gameplay is a little stiff, and more than a little obtuse by modern standards, the original Legend of Zelda for NES remains a masterpiece of then-cutting-edge design. Even if it can be tough to glean exactly what you're supposed to do at any given moment (something that can be remedied with no shortage of internet guides in the modern age), the fact that people can wander and create their own stories as they explore Hyrule felt genuinely ahead of its time during this game's original NES release. Moreover, the challenging, but fair enemies felt genuinely engaging and fun to battle, even if you constantly have to press Start to swap items around your B Button, with the A Button mapped exclusively to your sword.

The enemy balance in this first rendition of Hyrule certainly isn't perfect, what with regular enemies often ganging up on you in dungeons especially, and ironically becoming far more dangerous than the bosses at the end of each dungeon, who become common enemies themselves later on. Not only that, but there are more than a few cryptic, poorly translated clues within the game proper that don't give you a clear indication of what they mean, or exactly how you're supposed to solve whatever they're hinting you towards. The worst offender here is the infamous 'friendly monsters' that block your progress in certain dungeons, and simply say, "Grumble, grumble..." Most players probably wouldn't anticipate that these, "Grumbles" refer to the monster's stomach, and that they're hungry. You have to buy them Monster Bait at a cave/shop to get them to move out of your way, often necessitating a lot of needless backtracking and time-wasting.

The game's Second Quest is a particularly troublesome offender here, which you can unlock by defeating Ganon and beating the game, or by entering your name as, "Zelda" in the main menu, as something of a cheat code. The Second Quest adds fake walls throughout completely rearranged dungeons, rearranges item and dungeon locations to be borderline impossible to find without using a guide, and rather than being genuinely challenging, it just feels like it actively aspires to confuse you and waste your time. Sure, this probably wouldn't have felt so disagreeable in the 80's, when there were far fewer video games, and primo gaming customers were young children that were trying to whittle through a sleepy Summer holiday. Now though, with most modern gamers being busy, responsible adults, the Second Quest probably isn't worth your time outside of bragging rights, should you actually manage to see it through to the end.

Even if you're best off sticking with the original game suite however, The Legend of Zelda remains an incredible achievement for Nintendo, and video games as a whole. It may be much shorter and less refined than the series' successive games, but what's here still feels fun and rewarding, even if one should definitely bring a guide along for best results. This is probably only my fifth time through this game or so, having originally given this first Legend of Zelda game a go via a Game Boy Advance cartridge that I got for a family trip over Summer vacation (go figure), and later playing through it a couple of times when I got it as a free Virtual Console reward on my Nintendo 3DS. Like I said, I don't have nearly as much of a history with this game as I do with several later Legend of Zelda games like Link's Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, or even this game's own eccentric NES follow-up, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

To add insult to injury, I was finally, at long last, given a genuine, gold-finish NES cartridge of the original Legend of Zelda game around my 30th birthday by an ex-girlfriend, the second-to-last OG Legend of Zelda game I hadn't owned a copy of at that point (A Link to the Past is only one remaining unsecured for me now). Even today, I've never actually played that cartridge. It probably needs a replacement battery for its save backup anyway, but still, I hate that I've lost track of my NES somewhere within my house, assuming it's even still there. So, my original Legend of Zelda cartridge remains frustratingly untouched, sitting with my other NES games in storage. Hopefully, someday, I'll get a chance to enjoy it as it was originally meant to be enjoyed during the mid-80's, before I even existed.

Still, the original Legend of Zelda is a game I continue to enjoy well into adulthood, even if it's not one of my all-time favourites in the series. It's confusing, aimless and very much rooted in the secret-heavy adventure game design of the 80's, but its charming presentation, satisfying combat, and the rewarding feel of besting the winding, unpredictable paths of its dungeons still make it a top-tier NES classic. For anyone that appreciates Nintendo's debuting 8-bit game console, The Legend of Zelda is required playing, especially when you can see just how strongly the franchise operated, even right out of the gate!

IF I HAD TO SCORE IT: 9/10