Welcome to my old school game review of The Legend of Zelda. This is one of those games that has become a legend of it's own. Even if you're someone who doesn't play video games, you will probably still recognize the name and have some understanding of what it is. This original game came out in 1986 for the Nintendo Entertainment System and quickly became one of the most popular games of it's time. As far as I know it is the first game that could be considered a RPG, and it's template is still used in games today, just in a much larger scale. There have been many sequels to this original iteration and there was even a new one released recently for the Nintendo Switch that has gotten huge critical praise, showing that the franchise is still relevant today 31 years later.
I remember being a kid in the 80's playing this game with my brother as often as we could. Back then, without the aid of the internet, you were forced to try and figure out games for yourself. Even though this is a fairly simple game, it still has a lot of little things that can trip you up and leave you scratching your head on what to do next. But when you finally figured it out you got a feeling of accomplishment that was unique to gaming. That's something I will always love about gaming in general, figuring out a tough puzzle or beating a hard boss and overcoming something that seemed so difficult at first.
The Legend of Zelda is a top down, action based game, where you play as a boy named Link. You must traverse the open world, (also the first open world game I think) and try to find hidden dungeons that each contain one of eight pieces of the tri-force. Once you have all eight pieces you can confront the antagonist, Ganon, and try to save the Princess Zelda. Each dungeon also contains an item that you need in order to beat the next dungeon, thus preventing you from beating them out of order. This mechanic is still used by many games today.
A simple concept, but without any quest marker or any obvious way to go, it wasn't easy to find each dungeon let alone beat them and find the hidden item in each one. There are also many secrets to find in the overworld that you can completely miss if you don't search everywhere. Back when I was a kid playing this game I would often get stuck just trying to find where to go next, luckily today with the help of the internet, there are detailed maps that show you where everything is so you don't miss any of the good stuff. Also, some people might not know this, but after you beat the game you can start again from the beginning. Except this time everything, including the location of the dungeons, are completely different. This is called the second quest. Everything is harder to find and enemies are tougher to kill, giving the game some replay value.
The Legend of Zelda is a game that will live on in the hearts and minds of anyone who grew up playing video games. It has earned it's place in the history of gaming as one of the best games ever made. I still go back and play this today, with the help of my Nintendo Classic Mini, and love every minute of it. Many games have copied the template of this original idea in the thirty years that has passed, and people still love Zelda games, as you can see with Zelda Breath of the Wild. This is one of the games that made video games relevant, and without such quality titles like this, gaming might have not had such an impact on popular culture. For all these reasons and more, I give The Legend of Zelda a score of:
A+3