The Legend of Zelda Review
Hello jeung wilujeng sumping ka pidio Game Harita teh ToriJ urang. The Legend of Zelda is an action-adventure game made by Nintendo that takes place in a high fantasy setting. It stars Link, a Hylian tasked with the duty of finding the eight scattered Triforce of Wisdom fragments and rescues Princess Zelda from the evil Ganon who controls the Triforce of Power. This game originally came out in Japan in 1986 and wouldn't make waves in North America until a full year later. The game became the first in one of Nintendo's staples series going on for three decades and coming up on its 30th year anniversary. I already reviewed Ocarina of Time, so let's dive into the game that started it all.
Right off the bat you have three empty file slots to register your name and begin playing the game. I named Link “ToriJ” because why not? You start right off in Hyrule with nothing but the clothes on your back and a small shield. Where he get the shield from? You'd think he'd grab a sword along with everything else. He must have spent all his rubies on the tunic. Luckily, there's a cave right next to you where an old man will give you a sword that shoots laser beams for free. That's a pretty valuable weapon to just give to a stranger! The man must be a Hyrule saint or something. Believe it or not, there's actually a challenge where you skip the cave and go through the whole game without the sword. Who would do that!? That's like going through Dark Souls with just the broken sword equipped. The thing is worthless! But I digress.
I have to note that I'm playing this game on the GameCube, and man are the controls trout. I'm running into so many walls I feel like I'm playing Resident Evil with the tank controls! Every time I need Link to go in one direction he goes in the complete opposite and there are enemies everywhere! I'm getting hit from all sides when all I'm trying to do is navigate! The control stick goes in more angles than Link was originally programmed to go making him screw up. The directional buttons are so small I can barely tap them. Why do they design these things to be so tiny?! The 3DS is a lot better with this so if you want to play the game I suggest playing on that if you don't have a working NES.
You can only use the laser if you're at full health. Gets hit even once and the laser is gone. That's actually a pretty good incentive to get so skilled at the game you don't get hit. You just memorize all the enemies patterns and know where to go to dodge and just fire at everyone from a distance. I guess you don't need it once you have the bow and arrow or the boomerang, but it's still a nice addition. I don't understand why it was never used again – at least not on the Zelda games I played. Ocarina of Time had the energy swing you could do but that was it.
Zelda's overworld is pretty expansive for a game made in 86. There are a lot of places to explore that look different from each other with different color schemes and more enemies than you can shake a stick at. You can't spit in Hyrule without hitting one of these things! You can use the shield to block but you have to be lined up perfectly. Whenever you kill an enemy they leave behind an item, either a ruby, secondary weapon, or a heart. Enemies also like to drop you a heart when you don't need one, but when you're in dire need for one they're nowhere to be found!
Because the world is so open there's no specific order you need to go on with the dungeons. You can end up going to a harder temple right at the beginning since you don't have the equipment necessary to complete it. I did manage to find the first temple that's recommended but that was by complete accident. There's no map or compass and I don't know if you can find one in the overworld anywhere. I know there are plenty of walkthroughs you can look up to help, and back in the day Nintendo covered the second quest in their magazine and had a tips helpline. Otherwise, you either had to rely on word of mouth or exploring every square inch of the map. This is probably why the game came with all the stuff shown on the cover.
The dungeons introduced new enemies and music you won't get on the overworld map. In order to get keys to unlock certain doors you need to defeat all the enemies in some of the rooms. The keys aren't matched to any specific lock so you can just use them on any locked door you find unless there's another means to open them like a block or something. Every dungeon has a map and compass you can find to assist you. At the end of the dungeon is a boss which requires a certain strategy to beat them instead of just hacking away at its health bar until it reaches zero.
Hell, even some common enemies require a certain level of strategy or an upgrade to beat. You can't even hope to damage the River Zora until you get the White Sword, and there are knights in the temple above that you can only hurt when hitting their backs. I can't even remember just how many bombs those guys took before they finally died! We also have secret rooms you can find that contains weapons like the crossbow, or secrets that help you on your quest. I found an old man in the first temple who actually attacks you with fire if you hit him. Yeah, an NPC that fought back in the 80's, I'm shocked. In some rooms if you use candles or the bombs you can find swords, shields, and health upgrades. There are a lot of things to uncover, all you have to do is take the time to explore.
At the end of the game you face Ganon (originally spelled with two N's), and let's be honest here, was he really anything like you imagined him to be? He's a giant blue pig! When I think of a great evil that took over a kingdom and is holding the Princess captive, the last thing I think about is a giant blue pig. Nintendo does a good job of building up the mystery behind who Ganon is in the instructions manual and leaves it the player to fill in the blanks all leading into the final battle between him and Link where Nintendo defies all expectations.
Not that I'm dissing the design or anything, I actually like it and Nintendo would improve upon this look in future titles like A Link to the Past, and how scary they made him in Ocarina of Time. It is possible to inflict damage on him with the wooden sword you start out with at the beginning, but I wouldn't recommend it. Funny how you can do damage against the main boss with the wooden sword but it's next to useless against River Zora. Does that mean River Zora is stronger than Ganon!? Thank Din, Nayru, and Farore that River Zora wasn't the one to take over Hyrule!
To wrap this up, The Legend of Zelda is awesome! You can see all the heart that went into making this game the best it can possibly be, and there are plenty of challenges awaiting you in Hyrule. If you like fantasy, action, adventure, or you're a Zelda fan who hasn't gotten around to checking out the original, then I definitely recommend it. See you guys next week.
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