Die Legende von Zelda

The Legend of Zelda marked the birth of a series that is highly regarded in the gaming community as one of, if not the best series of games in existence. No review can really do the game justice but give it a try and find out for yourself! Shigeru Miyamoto (Creator of Zelda) is a Genius!!! Nintendo is simply the Best!

Yes, this game was a bit ground breaking in its day. An action game like no other I had played at the time as it was the first game I could save in and stop playing and pick up the game at another time where I had left off. It was also the first game I had personally played that had ending credits. It was also relatively simple to pick up on as I was rather young when I first played it. The story is rather simple, a boy named Link goes on a quest to save the princess Zelda from the evil Ganon by collecting pieces of an object known as the triforce. He goes through numerous dungeons to find the pieces and also must traverse a very large over world filled with many monsters and locales such as desert, sea, and cemeteries. He receives help from various people including an old man who provides him with a wooden sword to begin his quest. You also have grouches who proceed to take your money if you damage their door. You are also given life by faeries. The combat is simple for the most part, strike your enemies down with your sword. You usually collect objects in dungeons that help you continue further in your quest all the way to Death Mountain. The game could use a bit more depth and the enemies get rather annoying near the end, however this game was a game I could not put down when I first got it to the point I saw that screen shift when I would first go to bed after playing it so much.

Imagine what video games would be like without Zelda! Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, and many other great RPG and adventure series would probably never exist! Zelda is an excellent game that really shows how much more powerful the NES was over the Atari. There are no games on the Atari that can ever match the skills of searching and exploring needed in Zelda. Everyone should try this game at least once in their life!

The evil Ganon invades the land of Hyrule and steals the Triforce of Power. Princess Zelda, sensing danger, splits the Triforce of Wisdom into eight pieces and hides the pieces from Ganon and his minions in eight separate dungeons. Enraged, Ganon imprisons the princess, but not before Zelda dispatches Impa to find a savior. Impa finds the young Link and gives him his task: Reassemble the Triforce, defeat Ganon, and rescue the princess Zelda.

The Legend of Zelda's underworld was a tangled mess of deadly traps - a maze of twisty passages, none alike. Rooms were connected to the north, south, east, and west by open doors, locked doors, switch doors, one-way doors, and even bombed-out passageways. Old men (and hungry Goriyas) lived in these dungeons and dispensed poorly translated advice to would-be adventurers.

Link could wield a wooden, white, or magical sword and wear a blue or red ring to increase his defensive strength. A regular shield repelled most projectiles, but a magical shield defended against fireballs and magic. Heart containers (either found or won) increased Link's life force. The boomerang retrieved items from afar, while bombs damaged foes and opened blocked passageways. Candles burned bushes and lit up darkened rooms. Wooden and silver arrows could be shot for the cost of a rupee apiece. You could cross rivers with a ladder; cross lakes with a raft. The power bracelet let you push heavy things. A magic wand and book let Link send Wizzrobes packing with a taste of their own medicine.

When I first played this video game, I thought, 'Boy, what a dog of a video game! The graphics are terrible, the animation is slow (Compare to Mike Tyson's Punch Out and Metroid), and I have no idea what I'm supposed to do.' Not only that, but the combat is pretty trivial - all you have to do is dodge everything, and you'll pretty much escape all the rooms without a scratch. But I kept on playing, and after getting the first triforce piece (which took many days, since I didn't understand the point of the game), I started getting into it. The challenge was't in the battle; the whole point of the game was to find secrets and items(like the Digdogger, the Pols Voice, Ghoma, Dodongo, etc.). Once I finally understood the point of the game, I began to enjoy it, though it was more engrossing than it was exciting. I still don't think it was the best game made for the NES (I think Metroid, Punch-Out, and Castlevania were superior title), it was certainly one of the most original, and for that reason alone deserves to be rated as the classic that it is.