The legend of Zelda: The Genius of the Original

I am a huge Zelda fan, but until a few weeks ago I had never played the original. I played Link’s Awakening and Link to the Past as a child, but never got far in them. My first real Zelda experience was Ocarina of Time for the N64.  Since then I have gone back and played a lot of the 2D titles but I never got around to the original. I mean why bother? Link to the Past was the seminal 2D Zelda game, surely the original was only a low-res, shorter, less epic predecessor? Wrong, the original is fucking amazing. 

The Story of The Legend of Zelda is very simple: Ganon has taken the Triforce of Power and captured the Princess Zelda. To protect the Triforce of Wisdom Zelda split it into eight pieces. As Link, you must gather the pieces of the Triforce and save Zelda. Unlike later games all of this is explained in the opening crawl. While in titles like Ocarina, the story serves as a form of immersion, in the original Zelda the story only serves as a backdrop: something to make sense of an otherwise incomprehensible quest. But this does little to detract from the game.

Where The Legend of Zelda shines is game design. Despite being small even by 90’s standards, it packs hours of gameplay through exploration and challenging enemies. While the game is not mind-numbingly hard, it does not hold your hand like latter Zelda titles. There are no glowing vulnerable points on bosses, no Navi or Midna from Twillight Princess constantly giving you advice or telling to where to go. There are few hints and regular enemies can still be quite challenging. Without a map you will find yourself wondering the overworld trying to find dungeons and secrets.

The overworld is probably the most praiseworthy element of the game. Aside from being difficult to navigate and dangerous early in the game, it is profoundly open. With few limits you can wander the map from the start of the game.  The dungeons too are mostly open to be found and explored. Many of them can be beaten out of order. Once you beat the game, you can play again with a new map which rearranges many of the dungeons and secrets. All on an 8-bit game from 1986! 

The Legend of Zelda has few if any faults, most of which stem from its age rather than its design. There is very little dialog in the game and what is there can be very vague. This can make the game very confusing without a guide. Most of the puzzles are either boringly simple or needlessly complex. They tend to boil down to blowing up walls or finding something hidden under a seemingly random bush or rock. The mazes on the over world that need to be repeated every time you enter them are especially annoying. The lack of storytelling elements and simple graphics also means that the immersion experience is poor. The gameplay itself is fun and challenging, but you never feel like you are part of the game. However none of these faults are good reasons not to play.

Playing Legend of Zelda for the first time; I felt refreshed. It was nice to play a game that was so good, yet did not rely on good graphics, cinematics, or even story. It was just well designed. One of the downsides of today’s complex game design is that there is more room for error. 3d physics are hard to program, and things like camera angle can plague even good games. While simple 8 and 16-bit games can never match the immersive experience of 3D graphics, games like the Legend of Zelda made due with less. Their excellence is in their simplicity.

Few games have endured like The Legend of Zelda, and there is much modern game designers can learn from this thirty year old title. While it is likely to be very different I am hopeful Breath of the Wild will recapture some of that on a modern platform. Until then I seriously recommend playing the original, whether for the first time or the first time in a long time. This game has stood the test of time. 

9.8 out of 10

-Gedaemon