The Legend of Zelda (NES 1986)

With this title, gaming-god, Shigeru Miyamoto, promised more depth than the shallow waters of arcade action. He was going to create a world to explore, inspired by his childhood adventures around the forests and caves of Kyoto.

But is it any good?

Yeeeaaahhh…and no.

His endeavour was clearly successful at the time, but this is MiSSEDiT, and we’re not talking about legacies and impact. We’re talking about whether or not I enjoyed playing it for the first time now. So, did I? I wish I did my friends, because I love the Zelda games. But during my playthrough I almost threw my Switch at the wall in favour of doing something more enjoyable like plucking my nose hairs. I did have a revelation though, about how to approach games from this era in a more evenhanded way.

But I’m racing ahead.

First I should preface things by clarifying how I’m playing this retro relic. For this title I’ll be using Nintendo Switch’s official NES emulation package, available through Nintendo Online’s yearly subscription service.

I utilised the CRT filter so I could imagine I was playing on my monstrous 12” childhood TV and yet found the small screen of the Switch was ideal for this type of game. When it magically appeared between my hands like the image on a Sheikah-Slate, that familiar music tinkled from the small Switch speakers and I, like the hero of time, regressed mentally back to the 80’s.

The music helped establish that familiarity that I was looking for, but it soon wore thin. As much as the Zelda theme is distinctive and familiar, it was just too repetitive to enjoy. After about five minutes I had to turn the sound off and got on with the job of dying more than Sean Bean. Because, yeah, this game is HARD.

Straight away I felt that friction between a player wanting to play a game, and a game that didn’t want to be played. This wasn’t going to be easy and every time the reaper kicked my knackers I was returned to the start of the game to question my decisions. It’s very unforgiving, and it explains nothing; there’s no story, there’s no guide, there’s no map (or at least I thought so) and going into this game blind was like flying with the blast shield down; you’re gonna crash and die, a lot. As I struggled for the first hour I had to seriously ask myself if I wanted to carry on.

However, the revelation awaited.

I was using save states to prevent being returned to the start, when, quite by accident, I came across what I presumed was a power bracelet. I could only presume this because the game doesn’t tell you what it is, what it does or how to use it. But it looked familiar simply from playing other Zelda games. Fortunately, I’d noticed a list of items that scrolled up shortly after the ‘story’ on the menu screen.

“I’ll watch that again so I can make sure I’ve got a power bracelet” I thought.

It was a power bracelet. But what does that mean? There was still no description of the items abilities or how to use it. Then it happened;

The fucking Manual. That thing you used to get with every game that told you the story, that told you what things did, how to do them and how to play the damn game. A short search later and I had a PDF of the whole map that came with the original release and a list of items, enemy types, instructions and strategies.

I realised that I hadn’t been fair, not because I was a dick, but because I’d simply forgotten how games were back then. Cartridge sizes were limited, so you got supplementary material and I had a tangible Zelda moment as I printed it out and held it high above my head. That familiar chime signalled;

“YOU GOT A MANUAL! PRESS YOUR FACE INTO IT AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS!”

And I did. Suddenly, a game that had felt insurmountably difficult and unenjoyable became…tolerable. With the help of the manual, map and save states I finally felt I had what I needed to play through this game and give it the chance its legacy warranted.

Within twenty minutes I’d found the first dungeon and felt the relief of discovering something that Miyamoto had wanted to bless upon the player all those years ago. And what a relief it was, because, let’s face it, Zelda is a bland looking game.

Now, I’m no graphics snob, but there’s a stark banality to the world of The Legend of Zelda. I know the limitations of the system don’t help, but when you look at what it was capable of, Super Mario Bros. 3 for instance, it seems painfully dull. Despite Miyamoto’s efforts to create a landscape worth exploring I didn’t enjoy traversing the overworld. It was just something I had to do to get to the next dungeon, because it was the ‘Underworld’ that gave this game it’s sense of identity.

The puzzle-based dungeons offered dimensionality where the graphics didn’t. The enemies therein, many of which are familiar from later games in the series, range from easy one-hit kills to creatures that require some form of strategy or a specific weapon to defeat. While it’s not always clear how to beat them, the manual and the game offer clues on how to tackle some of the tougher foes and the combat mechanics were something I appreciated.

However, it was during these clashes that the clunky controls became a little too apparent, making for some unforgiving and challenging encounters. Link’s four-directional movement didn’t map well to the Switch’s analog stick and I found myself using the ‘D-Pad’, resulting in an awkward grip on the console. Link’s limited manoeuvrability made for some very frustrating scuffles that left me wanting to put the game down and never pick it up again. But I calmed down and soon got an itch to ‘give it one more go’.

And that’s where Zelda excelled, the game is brutally challenging in places, but the feeling that you’re always close to completing that dungeon, or getting to that spot on the map, drew me back despite the punishing difficulty. It’s important to remember that this game was created during an era without DLC, where a child had to save for months for a new game, or even wait for Santa to squeeze one off down the chimney. So it better last! It had to test you, and that’s what this is about, it’s about trial and error, it’s about creating a sense of adventure by encouraging you to create your own maps and talk to friends about where you found the magic sword, how you killed Dodongo and just which dead-end that old guy was on about.

To be fair I think I would have relished this title as a kid. The supplementary addition of the half complete maps, the dungeons, the strange NPC’s giving you vague clues would have made me feel like a goddamn Goonie! And I would have loved that. It would have lasted months and talking about the experience with friends (Yeah I did have a few) about where we found items and how we got to X on the map would have embellished the experience. It’s a bit of a shame that I missed it, because playing it now as an adult, for the first time, just isn’t the same. I honestly didn’t enjoy it all that much, I really had to push myself to play the thing to completion, and at the end of the day, if a game is not worth finishing, is it even worth starting?

No.

While I appreciate the legacy that this game created, and I appreciate that what it did at the time was ground-breaking, in my MiSSEDiT opinion, it doesn’t hold up. The game lacks any real sense of story and character, has poor graphics, clunky controls, irritating sound and is just too difficult to enjoy. Did I start the second quest on completion?

Did I fuck.

Perhaps we’ve been spoiled, subsequent Zelda games have lifted the bar so high that they bury this title under a pile of Dodongo dung. And yet the first game is monumental in what it achieved, the battery save feature was a console first and the stimulation of 6.5 million imaginations can’t be understated.

But we’re not here to review the legacy this release has thrust upon us like a well-timed sword stroke. I’m glad I finished it, but not because of some satisfactory resolution to it’s non-existent story, just simply for the gratification of knowing that I don’t have to go through it ever again.

Verdict:

Frustrating…