The Legend of Zelda is the STANDARD for adventure games! It is the game that made me want to become a game maker.
I was introduced to it one night when I was dragged along with my mother to her friends house… the adults were playing Dungeons and Dragons on the kitchen table, so they let me play with their Nintendo to keep me occupied. I saw a gold cartridge in a stack of games, and decided to play that one. Needless to say, it was the only game I played that night. I couldn’t escape the land of Hyrule, though at the time I didn’t know what the world was called. I just knew I had to get back to it! Alas, I was not from a wealthy family, nor even a middle class family. I had to improvise!
I used to make individual rooms in a spiral notebook, and have reference numbers at the doorways to tell me which page to turn to to reach the next room.
I would torture anyone I could find and make them run through my gauntlet, fighting their way through paper monsters and finding secret passages with the help of attachable broken wall drawings. I eventually had my own paper route. This was the only way I would be able to afford a Nintendo Entertainment System, and the very first game I purchased was The Legend of Zelda. Success! I think I must have bombed every wall and burned every bush in the world, twice for good measure, as I carefully remembered every detail. There was no need to make a map, it was my world, I knew it like you know your city.
I eventually became so good at the game, that I could beat it in one sitting, without a single death. Both quests. But I never tired of it. The Zelda franchise has been the sole purpose for ever buying the new Nintendos when they were released. Sure, there are other great staples, such as Metroid and Mega Man, but Zelda will forever be etched in my mind as the pinnacle of gaming.
Here is a tribute I painted to Zelda in April of 2014. Link is shielding his eyes from the sun as he looks over the land of Hyrule. You can purchase it HERE!
You can relive your childhood, or introduce the next generation to real gaming by downloading The Legend of Zelda ROM HERE
An NES Emulator is available on the ROMS page.