The Legend of Zelda (NES) review "Hey, it's everyone's ringtone from 2005!"

One of the main reasons I wanted an NES as a kid was to play The Legend of Zelda. I hadn't played it myself back then, but looking at screenshots and watching a friend plow through it more than piqued my interest. The prospect of being transported to what was then a massive fantasy world was too tantalizing to deny. I didn't care if I ever figured the game out because all I wanted to do was explore. I wanted to nab the candle and burn every bush, snatch the bombs and check out every wall, and in general just get lost. I didn't merely want to rent the game and play it for a couple of days; I wanted to own it and know all of its nooks and crannies.

As we all know, media ages at varying rates. It's difficult to examine older games without keeping nostalgia in mind, particularly doing so by asking ourselves if we only still recommend a title simply because we enjoyed it as children. Part of me believes that to be the case with Zelda, but another part of me also declares this title to be more than mere warm, fuzzy feelings I had when I was ten. For many of us, this piece was our introduction to nonlinear adventures, high-fantasy video games, and open-world titles. It laid the foundation for innumerable projects we would come to love...

The biggest thing is that Zelda was one of those “social experience” kind of quests. It dropped you into a veritable maze decked out with all manner of land features, obstacles, and hidden goodies. Your initial order of business was obvious because the first thing that caught your eye was a cave. There, you grabbed your sword and ventured into the forbidding land, not knowing where to go next. You didn't voyage to a nearby village and hear the mutterings of some old kook who tells you outright where the first dungeon lie. You didn't watch a cutscene where Link spoke with supporting characters who blathered on about his mission, pointing him directly to the first challenge. You either figured it out on your own via exploration or with a friend clutching an issue of “Nintendo Power.”

Or hell, you called another friend who played through the campaign and annoyed them with your eightieth question of the day, such to the point that they started feeding you false info so you'd leave them alone.

The thing with Zelda was a vast portion of the land stood accessible early on. Though it sported a simple grid-based design where you ventured from one square to another pretty easily, the game took care to hide some of its campaign beats in strange places, sometimes even requiring you to use a tool to progress. You could conceivably have stumbled upon your next objective, but it might've taken you a fair amount of travel and some luck.

Even then, you're weren't guaranteed a win. While a lot of folks have complained about the game's lack of diagonal movement, others (like me) found it added to the experience's challenge factor. The fact that you could only attack vertically or horizontally meant you had to tread carefully and strike with precision. You couldn't hop into a room and mash buttons while running aimlessly. You had to watch your opponents, consider each step as you maneuver, and plan for various other hazards such as bladed traps or disembodied hands that snatch you and take you back to the beginning of the dungeon.

Even with their relatively simplistic designs, this entry's dungeons still provided solid entertainment for those who craved exploration. Granted, you didn't have the stages that were basically gigantic puzzles like Ocarina of Time, but at least you didn't have the hair-pulling, kick-to-the-groin type of gauntlets this game's sequel offers. Instead, you had mazes within a mazes. You had to fight your way through a mess of quadrants, all so you can find yourself in a smaller mess of quadrants, realizing after you'd gotten through a few chambers that you needed to locate various items and hit different parts of the labyrinth in a specific order. The thing is figuring out where you should head first...

Once again, Zelda didn't hold you hand. It left you to puzzle it out yourself or look over to your buddy so you could both pore over a wonderful color map in a magazine. You eventually learned to snatch all the keys, grab an in-game map that showed you most of the rooms, secure a compass, acquire a new item that would aid you on your journey, and finish it all off with a boss encounter.

Usually one that beat the ever-loving crap out of you... Seriously, nothing worked your nerves quite like hearing a boss roar from a few chambers over. You knew you were in for it, but you had no idea what you were up against until a multi-headed dragon, a carnivorous plant, or a massive spider appeared. If you didn't die as a result of panic, you'd live just long enough for your buddy to check out Nintendo Power's strategy for overcoming these villains.

Persevere and you eventually succeeded, all so you could do it all again. You traipsed back into gorgeous Hyrule countryside, listening to iconic theme music blast as you scoured the grounds for level two, blissfully unaware of the constraints the game was about to place upon you. You didn't know that some levels would require you to use bombs to blast through weakened walls, or purchase a piece of meat to feed a hungry NPC, or exude a magical flame that lights up pitch-black vaults. You either figured it out through exploration and experimentation, or you, again, turn to your book-laden companion and said, “What now?”.

Of course, these days it's more of a matter of looking up an FAQ, but isn't that still technically social to some degree? Someone is communicating with you, even if it's through written word or online video. Maybe they're not there in the room to make crude jokes with you while you hack up creatures that look like knockoffs of D&D monsters.

The thing is all that I've described above found its way into so many other games that have added so much more direct player guidance that this one sometimes gets dismissed. Sure, parts of it didn't age well, but this NES epic remains such an influential cultural relic that it's hard to at least appreciate it. This game laid the groundwork for so many other action-adventure and roleplaying pieces that I can't fathom simply turning my back on it like it never happened.

Community review by JoeTheDestroyer (August 15, 2023) Rumor has it that Joe is not actually a man, but a machine that likes video games, horror movies, and long walks on the beach. His/Its first contribution to HonestGamers was a review of Breath of Fire III.