The Legend of Zelda for NES: A Negative Walk Down Memory Lane

 This blog has some minor spoilers regarding The Legend of Zelda for NES. It isn't a game with many twists, but if you want a completely pure gaming experience, you might not want to read this.

 When I was starting up my new NES collection, I had to pick up a copy of The Legend of Zelda. I never actually owned the cartridge as a kid, but around 15 years ago, I had the opportunity to borrow a friend's copy and I successfully beat the first quest. My memories of the game were quite fond, and I was really looking forward to starting it up again.

                                             


The Legend of Zelda franchise is a very important one in video game history, and it has played a major role in the evolution of video games. The characters are beloved, and it is one of those franchises that prompts people (including me) to buy a Nintendo console. That being said, I'm going to run down the original game for a number of stupid things it does. When this game was new, people probably didn't have these gripes about it, but after being spoiled by modern games (games that had the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of this one, including latter games in the LOZ series), it is tough to ignore these problems.

The game doesn't tell you how anything works. If you don't have a manual, be prepared to misuse things and save up to buy items just to see what they do. What does the red ring do? You better save up and buy it to find out; if you don't have a manual, you'll never know otherwise. You can look these things up online, but that makes me feel like a cheater.

The game doesn't tell you how to get the better swords. I still don't know exactly how you "earn" these swords. It didn't take me long to find all of them, but I couldn't get the Master Sword until before the final dungeon, and this made the game ridiculously hard at different points. The liars in the sword caves tell you some lies about getting the new sword "after you master using it", but what does that mean? It means nothing. How about just telling me what the requirement is? I've already found the hidden places, what more must I do?

The game forces you to bomb walls to progress, but the bombing mechanic is done poorly. When I started the game up, I expected to see cracks in walls to prompt me where to bomb things. In hindsight, I think that this only happens in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on SNES. Unfortunately for the player, you have to bomb so many places, but you'll never know where. There's no rhyme or reason, you just have to try bombing random walls. The game only allow you to carry a limited number of bombs at one time, and if you run out of bombs while in a dungeon, prepare to walk all over the map to collect or buy more. Why make me bomb everything if you're only going to let me have a few bombs at a time?

The game does not let you save in a convenient way. Maybe there's an easy way to do this, but it definitely isn't clear how you save your game without dying. If I want to end my play session, why must I commit suicide?

There is never an overworld map.

The final boss of the game is just purely stupid. When I fought Ganon, I thought that perhaps I was missing out on some brilliant strategy and was playing the game recklessly. Well, the strategy is to stab at nothing and shoot Ganon with the silver arrow. That's it. Woo!

Why is there fire around Zelda at the end of the game? You have to stab the fire to save her, which doesn't make sense, and it only seems like the developers put that in the game just to give you the chance to die and replay the final dungeon all over again.

The dungeons are ridiculously unbalanced. Dungeon six is way harder than dungeon seven and eight.

Why is a dungeon shaped like a swastika? I don't care if the swastika in the game is "the good one", it is a poor choice to include that in the game.

This game is fixed. You won't be making any money.

                                   
 "Money making game" is unfair and pointless. Let's not play it.

Why does the game keep a count of the number of times you've died as opposed to keeping a stat like the number of enemies killed, rupees collected, dungeons completed, etc.?

Why is there a limit to the amount of rupees collected? I know subsequent Zelda games have done this, and I will always find it stupid.

There are too many dungeon rooms with the diamond pattern of blocks where you have to kill all the enemies and push a block. What's the point of even pushing the block if you've already had to do it so many times already? It is way too overused. 

There are no stat upgrades for killing enemies, and this is a game where you will be stuck if you don't already know where everything is. In many rpg/adventure games, there is a reward for killing enemies, but there isn't much reward in this one. Your money can be maxed out quickly, and the fact that you can only carry so many bombs and potions means that you have nothing to gain when you're stuck and walking around. You just walk around like a fool and kill things that get in your way.

The randomness of where the whistle takes you is bizarre and unhelpful. Why can't I just pick the dungeon where it takes me?

Some dungeon rooms are just cheap. The Wizzrobes in the game are ridiculous.

The manual for the game lies. I took a look at the manual and it tells you how blowing the whistle takes you to Ganon. It doesn't. This lie was especially aggravating as it caused me to blow the whistle over and over and in different places, but to no avail.

Upon completion of the first quest, why does the game save over my first quest and force me to start the second one? It would have been nice to have the opportunity to walk around with my powered up Link and find some of the secrets that I missed before completing the game, but the game doesn't care; it just makes you start the second quest, whether you want to or not, and it strips away all the items you've earned.

I'm sure that some people will disagree with the comments in this blog, and that's okay. I know it is a beloved franchise, but I'll definitely admit that my memories of Zelda were more positive than my gaming experience was the second time around. This is not the hardest NES game I've played through, or the second hardest, or the third hardest, but it is pretty hard, and in stupid ways. I don't mind games where I can improve my skills and get better, but I'm no fan of trial and error gameplay where I'm left in the dark about key game details.

The entire purpose of this blog post was to mention the negative points of LOZ, so I realize that I'm leaving out bunches of good points. The game isn't a bad one, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys classic gaming of any kind. It is worth playing because you get to see an important part of gaming history through the little golden cartridge in your NES, but if you don't have an interest in nostalgia, you're going to want to hit that golden cartridge with a hammer.