cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43419708

Known in Japan as The Hyrule Fantasy: The Legend of Zelda. The main title was dropped in the US to make the name shorter and some claim it was to avoid confusion with the upcoming Squaresoft Final Fantasy game, which would debut a year later.

The Legend of Zelda was inspired by Shigeru Miyamoto’s explorations as a boy in the surrounding areas of his home in Sonobe, Japan. One of his most memorable experiences was finding a cave entrance in the middle of the woods. After some hesitation, he entered the cave and explored its depths with the aid of a lantern.

The story and setting were developed by Takashi Tezuka. He drew inspirations from fantasy books such The Lord of the Rings. The legend of the Triforce was written with inspirations from the battles of medieval Europe. The Master Sword was introduced as their version of Excalibur in A Link to the Past, which is regarded as reminiscent to the legend of King Arthur. Princess Zelda was named after American novelist, socialite and painter Zelda Fitzgerald. Tezuka modeled Link’s appearance after the eponymous character of Walt Disney’s Peter Pan.

What is your favorite Zelda memory?

  • TORFdot0@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 hours ago

    I played this game all the way through without a guide about 3 years ago. It has NES jank but the only really frustrating parts are unlocking the dungeon with the flute and with the candle. Everything else had a hint to tell you how to find it or was just out in the open

    The key was to write everything down. The dungeons are fine, it’s just the overworld that needs hints

  • coolfission@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    9 hours ago

    I remember playing Zelda I on an emulator. The progression was absolutely brutal since the game doesn’t give any hints on where to go. I don’t know how people back in the day did it without guides and walkthrough vids. Still an amazing game that was really ahead of its time (and I believe the first console game to save!)

    • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zipEnglish
      3·
      7 hours ago

      It was designed around needing to explore, but since there was always enough stuff to find and the enemy strength was one signpost of the type of area it was, it never felt tedious. The 80s and early 90s was also part of the era where you weren’t getting new games all the time, so if it took awhile to figure out the next step it wasn’t a big deal because it was the only thing you were focusing on.

    • SippyCup@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 hours ago

      I played it as a kid, though to be fair the only progress was made when my dad played. It was mostly brute force, “ok, can’t go any further here let’s try another path.” And eventually you were at the final boss. My dad eventually got to the end and thought he got lucky, that he’d just happened to go through the rest of the game first and collected everything he needed. I don’t actually think it’s possible to get to Ganon in the first game without going through all the dungeons.

    • ApollosArrow@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      9 hours ago

      I think the original game brought a printed map for you to fill in, plus some information in the manual. All of which obvious those of is who have emulated would not have.

  • thethrilloftime69@feddit.onlineEnglish
    3·
    9 hours ago

    I wasn’t old enough to have played the OG Zelda when it launched, but I recently played it. It is still an unbelievable masterpiece to this day. It accomplishes things that Zeldas that came after didn’t. It’s my second favorite Zelda of all time.

      • thethrilloftime69@feddit.onlineEnglish
        2·
        8 hours ago

        The series become increasingly linear starting with Zelda 2 until BOTW. The first game hides a bunch of stuff in the world and then gives you clues to find them and you can tackle them in any order you figure out the puzzles in. The wizards and witches give you cryptic hints, whereas the later games are just straight up like “hey go here, touch this item to this thing”. It’s super liberating to live and die by my own intuition.

        • ApollosArrow@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          2 hours ago

          I think the argument was that having it be linear allowed for better puzzles since you’d progressively need more items per dungeon. I think they kept the freedom more on the handheld games than the main 3D ones. If memory serves, you could do most of the dark world dungeons in any order, in A Link to the Past as well as a Link Between Worlds. Echoes of Wisdom recently also gave some ability to choose dungeons. I’m curious what the future holds post TotK.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    10 hours ago

    What is your favorite Zelda memory?

    Drawing in the missing map squares from the published map that came with the game:

    • m4ylame0wecm@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      8 hours ago

      Hand drawn overworld map. I forget the scale, probably 1x4 US Letter, colored pencil. Replaying using my map was great.

    • ApollosArrow@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      10 hours ago

      This is one of the things I feel like I missed out on from the earlier games. I think the closest we had to it again was drawing on the maps for the DS.

  • arniegeddon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    11 hours ago

    By some sort of crazy coincidence I completed the original Zelda today. Has been on my list for years!

  • JelloBrains@piefed.zipEnglish
    3·
    11 hours ago

    I just finished the first quest of the game for I guess close to the 40th time yesterday, it has been my go to for almost 40 years apparently, holy crap how time really does fly.

    I have never finished the second quest though. :/