The Legend Of Zelda is the Holy Grail of video games. The legendary golden cartridge, now priced at high prices on the retrogaming market, is the image of the game it contains: A treasure! With this first quest from Link, published in 1986, Shigeru Miyamoto outlines what will become of video games: a call to adventure, discovery, wonder.
Why is it cult?
Most of the mechanics that will make the series a success are already present on this first episode. It's an RPG-style adventure game with a rise in power which is not paced by the battles as in Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, but by the exploration of the world of Hyrule. In this huge dj playground, you can find everything: money, weapons, hearts, potions … Just be curious!
This is the main difference between Zelda and his pioneering contemporaries of Japanese role playing. While a Dragon Quest "Japaneseizes" the codes of the paper RPG Donjon & Dragons, which gives pride of place to fighting, Shigeru Miyamoto draws his inspiration from his childhood memories.
Graphically, this first Zelda is quite austere, and does not yet have the cartoony charm of the following episodes. But already, the game seems gigantic. Hyrule is spread over 128 notches, which are all about fights, puzzles and potential secrets. Even today, browsing and searching this vast playground takes time. If the plains, caves and mountains to be surveyed in this first episode are fairly minimalist, they form a coherent whole in which we get lost with pleasure.
To carry out h is quest, Link must find the Triforce, an artifact that will allow him to triumph over Ganondorf, and free Zelda. Lack of pot, the Triforce is delivered in kit, and the 8 pieces which compose it are scattered in as many sinister dungeons. These dungeons are the typical structure of any good Zelda. Each time there is a key object, a boss and … a fragment of Triforce (that's good, you follow). Thanks to the object found in a dungeon, you can generally access the next one, but also explore a little more the outside world.
What I prefer in this Zelda is its difficult "a la carte". Is a dungeon too hard? No problem, just take a walk outside, find a few extra hearts, a stock of potions, arrows … and go back to rub it. Generally, has happened! Even death is not penalizing, since Link resuscitates each time in the plain of Hyrule with all his equipment.
With a lifespan of ten hours, it is almost impossible to play the game in one go. The Legend Of Zelda is the first game to offer a lithium battery, housed in the bowels of the cartridge, which allows you to save every moment.
What would a Zelda be without the fairy music of Koji kondo? The man who has just composed the soundtrack for Super Mario Bros. signs some of the most emblematic music in the Nintendo universe here. The theme of Overworld is an absolute classic that transcends all the technical constraints of the time. Koji Kondo is nothing less than the man who plays video game music from a clump of unpleasant "beep beeps" from real little synthetic symphonies.
Replay potential: 9/10
To understand the interest of The Legend Of Zelda, it is enough to look at its countless suites. The original formula was so rigorously perfect that Nintendo will only lay clones, with some minor additions and graphic improvements. The whole genius of the series was already embodied in this first game, timeless and therefore essential.