The Legend of Zelda (video game)
is a 1986 action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo for the Family Computer Disk System. It is the first game in the Legend of Zelda series. It is set in the fantasy land of Hyrule and centers on an elf-like boy named Link, who aims to collect the eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom to rescue Princess Zelda from Ganon. The player controls Link from a top-down perspective and navigates the overworld and dungeons, collecting weapons, defeating enemies and uncovering secrets. It was designed and directed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka, being in development alongside Super Mario Bros. that released the previous year.
The Legend of Zelda was released in Japan as a launch game for the Family Computer Disk System in February 1986. More than a year later, it was released in North America and Europe on the Nintendo Entertainment System in cartridge format; the US version was one of the first games to include an internal battery for saving data. This version was released in Japan in 1994 as
The Legend of Zelda is regarded as one of the most influential and greatest video games of all time. It was a critical and commercial success, selling over 6.5 million copies and launching a major franchise. A sequel, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, was released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System less than a year later, and numerous sequels and spin-offs have been released since. The game has received numerous ports and remakes, in addition to re-releases on the Virtual Console and Nintendo Classics services. It was also one of 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition system.
Gameplay
The Legend of Zelda incorporates elements of action, adventure, and role-playing genres. The player controls Link from a flip-screen overhead perspective as he travels the overworld, a large outdoor map with various environments. Link begins the game equipped only with a small shield, but can enter a cave and receive a sword from an old man who advises, "" Throughout the adventure, Link finds and acquires various items that increase his abilities further, including heart containers which increase his life meter; magic rings which decrease the amount of damage Link takes from enemy attacks; and stronger swords which allow Link to inflict more damage to enemies. These items are mainly found in caves scattered throughout the land. Some are easily accessible, while others are hidden beneath obstacles such as rocks, trees, and waterfalls, as well as being purchasable from merchants. Defeated enemies sometimes drop items including hearts, which refill the life meter, and Rupees, the in-game currency. Rupees can also be found in hidden treasure caves and are used to buy equipment, information, and ability upgrades.Hidden in the overworld are entrances to eight large dungeons housing the pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom. Each dungeon has a unique maze-like layout of rooms connected by doors and secret passages, often barred by monsters or by blocks. Dungeons also contain useful items Link can add to his inventory, such as a boomerang for stunning enemies and retrieving distant items, and a magical recorder that lets Link teleport to the entrance of any dungeon he has previously cleared. Once Link has collected all eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom from these dungeons, he gains access to a ninth and final dungeon in order to defeat Ganon and rescue Zelda. The game may be completed by traversing any given dungeon on the overworld and is largely flexible to players, although gameplay steadily increases in difficulty, and some rooms can only be passed by using items gained in previous locations. There are dungeons with secret entrances which must be uncovered while freely wandering the overworld after acquiring useful items. This freedom allows many ways of progressing through the game. It is possible to reach the final boss without receiving the normally vital sword at its outset. The game world contains 600 separate scenes, with the overworld consisting of over 97 scenes and the underworld consisting of nine multi-scene labyrinths.
After initially completing the game, a player can begin a more difficult version referred to as the "Second Quest", which alters many locations, secrets, and includes entirely distinct dungeons and stronger enemies. Although more difficult "replays" were not unique to Zelda, few games offered completely different levels upon the second playthrough. By starting a new file with the name entered as "ZELDA", this mode can instead be accessed without needing to beat the game first.
Plot
Setting
Within the official Zelda Chronology, The Legend of Zelda takes place in an Era called "The Era of Decline", which is part of the "Defeated Hero" timeline that connects to an alternate reality scenario where the Hero of Time is defeated by Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time. In this era, Hyrule has been reduced to a small kingdom where the residents now live in caves, setting the background for The Legend of Zelda.Story
The story of The Legend of Zelda is described in the instruction booklet and during the short prologue which plays after the title screen: The small kingdom of Hyrule is engulfed by chaos when an army led by Ganon, the prince of darkness, invades and steals the Triforce of Power, one part of a magical artifact which alone bestows great strength. In an attempt to prevent him from acquiring the Triforce of Wisdom, Princess Zelda splits it into eight fragments and hides them in secret underground dungeons. Before eventually being kidnapped by Ganon, she commands her nursemaid Impa to find someone courageous enough to save the kingdom. While wandering the land, the old woman is surrounded by Ganon's henchmen, when a young boy named Link appears and rescues her. Upon hearing Impa's plea, he resolves to save Zelda and sets out to reassemble the scattered fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom, with which Ganon can then be defeated.During the course of the tale, Link locates and braves the eight underworld labyrinths, and beyond their defeated guardian monsters retrieves each fragment. With the completed Triforce of Wisdom, he is able to infiltrate Ganon's hideout in Death Mountain, confronting the prince of darkness and destroying him with the Silver Arrow. Obtaining the Triforce of Power from Ganon's ashes, Link returns it and the restored Triforce of Wisdom to the rescued Princess Zelda, and peace returns to Hyrule.
Development
The Legend of Zelda was directed and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Miyamoto produced the game, and Tezuka wrote the story and script. Much of the programming was done by Toshihiko Nakago of Nintendo's partner SRD. Keiji Terui, a screenwriter who worked on anime shows such as Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball, wrote the backstory for the manual, drawing inspiration from conflicts in medieval Europe. Development began in the fall of 1984, and the game was originally intended to be a launch game for the Famicom Disk System. The development team worked on The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. concurrently, and tried to separate their ideas: Super Mario Bros. was to be linear, where the action occurred in a strict sequence, whereas The Legend of Zelda would be the opposite. In Mario, Miyamoto downplayed the importance of the high score in favor of simply completing the game. This concept was carried over to The Legend of Zelda. Miyamoto was also in charge of deciding which concepts were "Zelda ideas" or "Mario ideas". Contrasting with Mario, Zelda was made non-linear and forced the players to think about what they should do next. According to Miyamoto, those in Japan were confused and had trouble finding their way through the multi-path dungeons, and in initial game designs, the player would start with the sword already in their inventory. Rather than merely simplifying matters for players, Miyamoto forced the player to listen to the old man who gives the player their sword, and encouraged interaction among people to share their ideas with each other to find the various hidden secrets, a new form of gaming communication. Relatedly, this concept turned into the root of another series to be developed many years in the future: Miyamoto said that Zelda became the inspiration for Animal Crossing, a game based solely on communication.With The Legend of Zelda, Miyamoto wanted to flesh out the idea of a game "world" even further, giving players a "miniature garden that they can put inside their drawer". He drew his inspiration from his experiences as a boy around Kyoto, where he explored nearby fields, woods, and caves, always trying through Zelda games to impart players some sense of that limitless wonder he felt through unknown exploration. According to Miyamoto: "When I was a child, I went hiking and found a lake. It was quite a surprise for me to stumble upon it. When I traveled around the country without a map, trying to find my way, stumbling on amazing things as I went, I realized how it felt to go on an adventure like this." The memory of being lost amid the maze of sliding doors in his family's home in Sonobe was recreated in Zeldas labyrinthian dungeons. Miyamoto was also influenced by The Black Onyx and Ultima, saying that he found the character's process of gaining strength to be fun. Tezuka finalized the designs for each "level" of dungeons and handed them all to Nakago in December 1985 so he could closely replicate them in the actual game. Nakago ended up using only half of all the dungeon pieces while copying the whole map. Miyamoto said it was good enough, and the team decided to use half of the left-over memory to create the Second Quest. Tezuka also wrote the setting to be a fairytale adventure, taking inspiration from fantasy books such as J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
According to Miyamoto, early concepts involved technological elements, with the Triforce fragments being electronic circuits and the game taking place in both the past and the future. The hero "Link" was named with the idea of being the one connecting the two. While the final game and subsequent games in the series follow a more traditional medieval-like sword and sorcery setting, later entries have incorporated some technology-based concepts. The name of the titular princess came from Zelda Fitzgerald. Miyamoto explained that "Zelda was the wife of famous novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name. So I took the liberty of using for the very first title."
Koji Kondo composed the game's five music tracks. Kondo had planned to use Maurice Ravel's Boléro as the title theme, as it perfectly matched its speed. However, Kondo was forced to change it in November 1985, late in the game's development, after learning that the piece was not yet in the public domain under Japanese law. As a result, Kondo wrote a new arrangement of the overworld theme within one day, which has become an iconic motif echoing throughout continued entries of the series.