Tendo City

The Legend of Zelda Review

By Derek Miller

Incredible game after incredible game, created by Shigeru Miyamoto and other brilliant game designers,was released for the NES in the early days. The market was still in itsinfancy and there was a lot of room to innovate. The Legend of Zeldawas one of those innovative games. Not only was it the first game to featurescreen scrolling in four different directions, but it was also the firstNES game to feature a save system. While the save system wasn't perfectthere is no way you could complete Zelda without the ability to save unless you had a lot of time on your hands or you used the trick I used sometimes and left the NES on while you were away. The Legendof Zelda didn't only bring about technical innovations, it also provided us with a seemingly never-ending quest that would keep us playing until our eyes were bleary. Then what happens? We are given a second quest, asomewhat new quest with brand new dungeons in new locations that was much harder than the original quest. 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 I'll give it a try.

Graphics

For it's time, Zelda had decent graphics. While it wasn't anything mind blowing like Donkey Kong Country was for the SNES, it looked up-to-par with the other early NES games. A limited number of colors were used to provide the mood of the different areas of the game. The early parts that Link could explore were bright and the green really made the place seem nice. Whereas the dungeons were dark and gloomy, and did a good job setting the tone along with the music. There were only a few occurrence of slowdown in the game, mainly in the dungeons, when there were a lot of enemies on screen but it didn't take much away from this great game.

7.5

Sound

Who doesn't remember the Zelda over world theme? Many gamers were shocked when the theme didn't reappear in Ocarina of Time. The sound, along with the graphics, provided the mood for this epic quest and the tunes, while some people may be annoyed by them, were good for the limited resources that the NES had to devote to sound. Not much you can do in the way of sound with an the 8-bit NES.

8.5

Gameplay

This is where the Legend of Zelda really shines. You start out as Link and you have nothing but your wits about you. When an old man gives you a sword, the fun really begins. You have to fight your way through a never-ending onslaught of monsters as you attempt to locate all the dungeons. Finding the dungeons was fun, but it didn't match the appeal of fighting your way through the dungeons themselves. Every dungeon contained at least one weapon or item for you to find, each essential to completing your quest. Not only did you have the main quest to keep you occupied, but the Zelda overworld contained many hidden secrets that you wouldn't find if you didn©ˆt explore. Hidden heart containers would boost your maximum heart containers and there were also secret places where you could buy these heart containers. There were also secret areas where people would give you money to help you along or sell you items at a discount. There were also two locations to upgrade your sword, but only if you were strong enough. While none of this was integral to the main quest it provided a sense of satisfaction when you finally found the most powerful sword or another heart container. Zelda was a game that was unmatched in it's time.

10.0

Modern Appeal

Zelda is the type of game that you yearn to play every once in a while. While it isn't the same type of epic quest as Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy, it does provide hours of pure 8-bit entertainment. It's not the type of game you will pick up and put down in a hour. When you are bored and don't have any new games to play, pick up the Legend of Zelda and go on a quest to save Princess Zelda and the Land of Hyrule from the evil clutches of the monster Ganon.

8.5

Purchase Price

Even the gold cartridge of Zelda, which isn't as rare as some might like you to think, won't cost you too much. You shouldn't pay more than $10 for this game.

Total (not an average) : 9.5

As time has gone on, this game's golden luster only grows.  It's been steadily approaching LTTP competing for my top 2D Zelda spot.  I think it has to do with the simple fact I've played all these old Zeldas multiple times already, so it's the replay value that's gone up in my estimation of what makes each one good.  And, for that reason, I end up favoring whichever ones let me switch up my play style or introduce new challenges to the game.  While both Link to the Past and Zelda 1 do allow a lot of variety in how each one is approached, Zelda 1 does so with greater freedom.  There's a reason Breath of the Wild took it's inspiration (and original development prototyping) directly from this game.

Graphically, I can't say it's the best looking game.  If I were being honest, the sprite design of Zelda 2 is superior and there's plenty of better looking NES games, but there's also plenty of worse looking ones and well... by this point Zelda 1 has earned it's "iconic" status, in that almost every sprite is literally an "icon" all by itself, most especially the triforce.  The visuals are also well designed simply by making sure every element on screen stands apart from every other element.  There's very little in the game you'd ever mix up with something else and everything "pops" from the background appropriately.  There's almost no "noise" to result in any confusion, even when a screen's so overfilled the NES can't keep up and the game slows down.  Heck the only thing that might blend in depending on the dungeon's background color is the dreaded wall master.  This is actually the only game where the "wall masters" come out of the walls instead of the ceiling. (Maybe in later games they should be called "roof masters"? Afraid "dungeon master" is taken...)

Sound design is perfection in PSG.  If you like that oldest of "chip tuning" (with just a little bit of PCM sampling thrown in) before either FM or wavetables came to prominence, you'll love these tunes.  Koji Kondo has always known how to make tunes that are both pleasing and endlessly repeatable, and these ones, all of them, have stood the test of time.  Alright, maybe the ending theme being a little intentionally campy and corny takes one out of the "serious" adventure, but is Zelda 1 really all that serious?

Well, the story is as basic as it gets.  "Kill a dark lord, rescue the damsel, save the land".  Tried and true old trope, but at least Zelda made Zelda's role more significant in that she took an active part both before and after her capture.  It was her efforts that even gave Link the chance to defeat Ganon after all.  It's not as though she isn't still a tired sexist trope example, but I've seen worse implementations.  Heck even Earthworm Jim's mockery of the trope with "Princess What's-Her-Name" (who is promptly crushed during the ending) still feels more like it's punching down.  All the same, combined with the gameplay it let me "sink into" the world's setting of the adventure more than most of Nintendo's contemporaries.  I never felt like I was "in" the land of Kid Icarus or Mario the way I did in Zelda.  Only Metroid came close to that level of immersion, but in all those cases the stories were clearly borrowing heavily from Western tales like Alice in Wonderland, Greek mythology, the Alien movies, the Rocky movies, and in this case, classic fantasy like The Hobbit.

I've little else to add, but I have to give credit to one thing that always gets well deserved credit.  This game's "second playthrough" is, to this day, the most well developed secondary game I've ever seen.  Later Castlevania games would have replay added via different characters with completely new mechanics or even a greatly expanded "side story" mode, but only this one really put all it's focus into developing ENTIRELY new maps and even new challenges.  The overworld is the same, but every last dungeon is drastically different and by altering the location of entry points and the hidden dungeon treasure, change the way you approach the overworld.  Even Ocarina of Time's "Master Quest" mode isn't done to this degree, as locked to the narrative flow of the original game as it is.

So, yes, I'd say this is an absolutely amazing early game.  It does stand pointing out though that this game is more of an action game than a puzzler.  A few exist, but by and large they're very simple and the focus is more on handling the arrangements of enemies.  It's also short and it's gameplay is simplistic compared to later titles.  For newcomers, I'd advise coming into this with appropriate expectations.  I also wouldn't be surprised if someone, having only played Breath of the Wild, found this game to be so lacking they didn't consider it worth playing.  For them, I'd recommend Link to the Past if anything.  At least if that one's gameplay is still too simple, it has a much better narrative "flow" (in that it actually has one).