Set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, the plot centers on a boy named Link, the playable protagonist, who aims to collect the eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom in order to rescue Princess Zelda from the antagonist, Ganon. During the course of the game, the player sees Link from a top-down perspective and must navigate him through the overworld and several dungeons, defeating enemies and finding secrets along the way.
In the small kingdom in the land of Hyrule, is engulfed in chaos after an army led by Ganon, the Prince of Darkness, invaded it and stole the Triforce of Power, a part of a magical artifact bestowing great strength. In an attempt to prevent Ganon from acquiring the Triforce of Wisdom, another of the pieces, Princess Zelda splits it and hides the eight fragments in secret dungeons throughout the land. Before the princess is eventually 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, though a young boy named Link appears and rescues her. After hearing Impa's plea, he resolves to save Zelda and sets out to reassemble the scattered fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom, to become powerful enough to defeat Ganon.
The Legend of Zelda Game Series [View The Legend of Zelda Full Game Series]
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – The Champions’ Ballad
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
- Hyrule Warriors
- The Legend of Zelda
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Started a video game revolution
Sense of accomplishment
Not really fun
Here’s the deal – back in the day, it must have been a fantastic game for the whole circle of friends and family, sharing tips and tricks where to find items, how to progress, or what to do. For a single player experience without a guide or a walk-through, this game is a nightmare. It is hard to rate. I decided to beat it because of its importance to video games in general. Beating the final boss is an incredible feeling, though.
- Open world
- Game can be played in any order
- Classic gameplay, the first game in an amazing series
- Outdated control system
- Almost impossible without a guide
- Poor translations into English make game incredibly cryptic
Much like Breath of the Wild, the most recent addition to the series, Zelda 1 has an open world which is fully explorable the second the game starts. You can go anywhere, tackle pretty much any dungeon in any order, and collect as few or as many items as you want. It’s all up to you. You could even get away with not collecting a sword, but you’re gonna want to because the enemies in this game are merciless. On the overworld the worst you’ll have to deal with are Lynels, which at the start of the game can kill you in one or two hits. In the dungeons however the plethora of things that will make your life a living hell is enormous. Dark nuts and Wizrobes are the worst, and the game will spring 6 or 7 on you at once in the later dungeons. The at some points frustratingly high difficulty is not helped by the now outdated controls. Instead of swinging his sword Link only stabs in 4 directions, which enormously limits his attack range. This makes combat feel especially difficult and clunky because enemies move at such a high speed and some are only vulnerable at certain angles.
The Legend of Zelda’s overworld is filled with secret caves, items and ways to earn rupees. It’s a shame that finding any of this is agonisingly painful without a guide. In future Zelda games you need to look for different visual cues and changes in the environment, aswell as have an understanding of the game in order to find secrets. However, in Zelda 1 the locations where secrets are hidden are no different to anywhere else which makes it agonising to try to find anything without a guide because you might have to burn EVERY bush before you find the right one. What’s more, sometimes the secrets you find are bad secrets and you lose rupees. No player should have to spend hours burning bushes and bombing walls only for what you find to be bad or not worth it. This isn’t helped at all by the poor English translations. Some cryptic hints are made even more cryptic due to bad translations.