Legend of Zelda, The (NES, Famicom) Review

 (Originally posted on June, 2017)

(1987, NES)

(Though I own the game, it was played on an emulator)

I can still remember maybe my first moment with The Legend of Zelda. In the center of an elaborate ‘World of Nintendo’ display at a Sears…I stood before the screen, dazzled at the immense array of power-ups scrolling upwards as I began to fall under the lull of the title music. Already well versed in sliding down pipes, I was of course perfectly at ease with entering the cave: where I talked to the old man and soon emerged with a sword. I can’t remember if I successfully landed a blow on any enemies before dying, but just that brief experience was enough. Along with millions of others, since that early moment the series has been more or less synonymous with gaming. Whether the preceding games changed things up for better or worse, they never failed to draw everyone’s attention at the very least.

While experiencing one of the best gaming adventures ever with Breath of the Wild, a number of times I was struck by how the 2017 title seemed to not only capture, but even further realize the intent of the NES original. Whether aimlessly wandering around for the fun of it, or carefully considering just how to take down a group of enemies, I often couldn’t help but be reminded of doing this so many years before. Already successful enough in its own right, it’s as if BOTW doesn’t care much that it so closely links to a legend 30 years prior. Like deciding to bomb a wall that’s only the slightest bit suspicious, hints and themes towards the past were delicately placed for only the keenest observers to spot. Another reason for playing the original Legend of Zelda is that I still had some unfinished business in having not actually beaten the game. While missing from my personal stack of NES software in the 80s, I still watched the ridiculous cartoon, was gifted the gaudy plastic wallet, ate the overly sweet, color dyed cereal and perhaps, most tortuous of all…put endless hours into trying to make sense of my copy of Zelda 2! Of course, so many other kids owned LOZ that I never felt left out enough to bug my parents for it. One time a friend slept over and brought his cartridge, which we played late into the night. Sometime past 12AM, I finally witnessed Ganon’s defeat. Many Nintendo consoles later, it was about time I slay him by my own hand…

Do not mind that the game is over 30 years old and seemingly archaic, even for the NES…it’s still so immediately fun and engaging! No matter which screen you’re on, none of the enemies are entirely predictable in their movement. In being programmed to behave as such, the game never completely surrenders the sense of tension and danger, no matter how strong Link eventually grows. While slowly figuring out this overwhelming world, often wandering into locations you don’t yet have any business, you’ll constantly die, but those setbacks never feel like a waste. Besides building your mental (or hand drawn) map of the world, just accumulating even a few more rupees to buy your next dungeon key or costly equipment upgrade makes the smallest steps of progress meaningful. Even with the weary, secluded survivors of the wasteland that is Hyrule providing tiny clues, getting around the world is tough without an internet search or the wealth of magazine coverage and playground knowledge floating around in the 80s. Hidden passages are everywhere, but require intuition and careful observation, never revealing themselves with fissures, wood rot or whatever else as later games in the series would begin doing.

Also unlike the later adventures, dungeons are less a series of puzzles and more about pure twitch gaming skill and answering the call to persist through overwhelming hostility. There’s even a degree of tactical sense demanded in certain rooms. Finding yourself crowded with a mix of highly impervious Darknuts, nimble Wizrobes and shield devouring Likelikes…the only chance of victory comes from first asking yourself: Which enemy type should I start with? What’s my strategy for avoiding the others? Is it worth using my effective, but hard to obtain bombs…or shall I play expecting to lose…giving this round to Ganon’s minions, but hopefully gaining some sense of their patterns? While making your way through these lairs, listening to that overbearing music loop not too dissimilar from Bowser’s Castle in SMB, the immense challenge is worth the effort. Hidden in bat-filled basements are treasures granting valuable new abilities/upgrades to further open up the world. Defeating the fearsome, giant boss will reward you an increased life meter and a fragment of the omnipotent Tri-Force, bringing you that much closer to the end goal…

Though the graphics are simple and squat, they’re in other ways still some of the best on the NES, just barely shying away from using the super deformed style that’s easy to mock, but quite suitable for underpowered consoles. Never going too far towards realistic proportions, the colors pop as sometimes a dozen moblins, octorocks and fairies dance around the screen, appearing just as eternally pleasing in 2017 as they were in 1987. Little touches like the dungeon bosses roaring a couple rooms over still bring a surprising tension and dread not necessarily felt in later, more advanced games. Sure, the music is extremely limited and certainly gets repetitive over the course of double digit hours one may require. The over world theme, at least, gets a pass just for the fact that it’s a piece of music iconic as almost anything else in all media.

Before winding down this, I must warn players not to accidentally “break” the game as I did. In this latest attempt to defeat Ganon, I was using an emulator, recording my progress exclusively with save/load states and never taking advantage of the intended (and groundbreaking at the time) battery save feature. Making it deep inside Ganon’s lair, a door locked behind me upon entering a particular room. As soon as I dispatched of the enemies, I found myself STUCK in the room as the only possible exit was a locked door, to which I was all out of keys to pass. In disbelief that Nintendo of all companies could allow this to happen, I save-stated at that very moment and went to research the issue. It turns out this can happen if you miss the ‘Magical Key’ in the prior dungeon and don’t have any more regular keys. Making matters worse, since I just save-stated myself right there, this particular quest rendered me forever locked away just a few rooms away from Ganon! This isn’t a criticism towards the game itself of course, as had I saved conventionally; all I would need to do is simply backtrack a bit and get another key. Technically this glitch is possible even on Nintendo’s own Virtual Console, so it’s good advice to always have at least a couple saves available when playing anything.

Some big, big obscure bugs aside, The Legend of Zelda hasn’t aged much at all and is one of the rare NES games still just as challenging, engrossing and fun to play today as back then. No matter the stillness of the tiny trees and waves missing from the ocean shores, I can just as easily be drawn into this desolate but action packed open-ended world. Even right after experiencing the amazing degree of immersion and cutting edge design of Breath of the Wild, the original Legend of Zelda is still a fast-paced, refreshing adventure. I once again had a great time in old school Hyrule, even if it ended with me going to youtube and merely watching Ganon being defeated, just like a sleep deprived weekend some 25 years ago.