Original Jacket of the NES cartridge (1987)

Introduction to the game

The Legend of Zelda is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Nintendo and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, the plot centers on a boy named Link, the playable protagonist, who aims to collect the eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom in order to rescue Princess Zelda from the antagonist, Ganon. During the course of the game, the player must navigate him through the overworld and several dungeons, defeating enemies and finding secrets along the way.
This is the first game of The Legend of Zelda series, it was originally released in Japan as a launch title for the Family Computer Disk System peripheral in 1986. More than a year later, North America and Europe received releases on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
The Legend of Zelda was a bestseller for Nintendo, selling over 6.5 million copies. It is often featured in lists of games considered the greatest or most influential. A solitary sequel, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, was first released in Japan less than a year after its predecessor's debut. The game spawned several prequels and a number of spin-offs, establishing a series that has become one of Nintendo's most popular.

Plot

First dungeon boss, Aquamentus.
[SPOILER ALERT]
The plot of The Legend of Zelda is described in the instruction booklet and in the short prologue after the title screen. A small kingdom in the land of Hyrule, the setting of the game, is engulfed in chaos after an army led by Ganon, the Prince of Darkness, invaded it and stole the Triforce of Power, a part of a magical artifact bestowing great strength. In an attempt to prevent Ganon from acquiring the Triforce of Wisdom, another of the pieces, Princess Zelda splits it and hides the eight fragments in secret dungeons throughout the land. Before the princess is eventually kidnapped by Ganon, she commands her nursemaid Impa to find someone courageous enough to save the kingdom. While wandering the land, the old woman is surrounded by Ganon's henchmen, though a young boy named Link appears and rescues her. After hearing Impa's plea, he resolves to save Zelda and sets out to reassemble the scattered fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom, to become powerful enough to defeat Ganon.
During the course of the game, Link locates the eight underground labyrinths, defeats several guardian monsters, and retrieves the fragments. With the completed Triforce of Wisdom, Link is able to infiltrate Ganon's hideout, Death Mountain, eventually confronting the pig-like enemy and destroying him with a Silver Arrow. Link picks up the Triforce of Power from Ganon's ashes and returns both pieces of the Triforce to the rescued Princess Zelda, restoring peace to Hyrule.

Timeline

According to the timeline revealed in Hyrule Historia, The Legend of Zelda takes place in the "Downfall" branch, which, in a whole, takes place after Ocarina of Time. After Ganon is defeated in A Link to the Past, the Oracle series and in A Link Between Worlds where Link and Zelda recovered the Triforce from Yuga-Ganon, Hyrule entered 'The Golden Era', in which the wise Hyrule monarchs used the Triforce to govern the land. After the king's death and the attempt of the Prince of Hyrule to assemble the complete Triforce, Hyrule was lead into the 'Era of Decline'. The Prince of Darkness, Ganon was revived, leading to the events of The Legend of Zelda. A few years later, the events of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link take place.
Both this game and its sequel are linked in continuity, since the first game revolves around retrieving two of the major fragments of the Triforce, and Ganon is fought in order to rescue Princess Zelda; the second game revolves around finding the third major fragment in order to revive an incarnation of Zelda that was comatose for a very long time, and to impede the revival of Ganon.

Fun facts

Right to left handed

Link was depicted in early art examples as right handed. However, in order to aid in the creation of the pixel art and for the purposes of configuration in game screens, he was altered to be left handed.

Subtitles

The Japanese version of “The Legend of Zelda” included the subtitle “The Hyrule Fantasy,” which made a lot of sense given it’s a fantasy set in Hyrule. The title itself didn’t seem to make much sense unless it meant Zelda was legendary at being kidnapped.

Speedrun

The world record was set by Lackattack24 (US), he finished the game in only 27m 57s. He has a Youtube channel where he posts his game plays. Here is the video of him setting the world record.

Mistranslations

The Legend of Zelda is littered with mistranslations, direct word-for-word translations, and odd quotes.

Introduction containing mistranslations.

• The intro story is written poorly, such as stating the Triforce piece Ganon stole is the "Triforce with power", instead of Triforce of Power. For the GBA and Wii Virtual Console ports, the message was entirely rewritten.
• This is the first Zelda game in which Ganon is written as Gannon. This spelling was also used in the Famicom Disk System version of The Adventure of Link and in the Super Famicom release of A Link to the Past.
• The Old Man is well known for his vagueness in messages. One of his most famous quotations is "DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE", indicating the Dodongo's weakness to bombs. Another odd quote is "DIGDOGGER HATES CERTAIN KINDS OF SOUND".
• The list of items is titled "all of treasures". The "of" was omitted in subsequent re-releases.
• When Link pays the Old Woman behind the waterfall, she will tell him to "Go up, up, the mountaintop." This was corrected to saying, "Go up, up, the mountain ahead". This refers to the path to Level-5.
  Source : https://zelda.gamepedia.com/The_Legend_of_Zelda_(Game)

Witchy Woman

Zelda was named after Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of “Great Gatsby” author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Miyamoto says he wanted the game’s princess to have a mysterious quality and Mrs. Fitzgerald fit the bill perfectly.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Robin Williams

Robin Williams was a huge fan of the series and had once expressed interest in voicing Ganon in a future game and also named his daughter after Princess Zelda. Yes her name is Zelda Williams.

Foor plans forming ZELDA

The floor plan, or dungeon maps, of first five dungeons of The Second Quest spell Z-E-L-D-A.

Credits

In the credits, all but the executive producer Hiroshi Yamauchi are listed under pseudonyms. Designer Takashi Tezuka is credited as "Ten Ten," sound composer Koji Kondo as "Konchan," programmer I. Marui as "Marumaru." At the time, nicknames were commonly used among Japanese game developers as a company measure against employee poaching.
Producer and director Shigeru Miyamoto is listed as "S. Miyahon," a mistranscription of his name — 本 can be read as either "moto" or "hon." This is widely believed to be another error in translation. However, in a leaked prototype of the game, many of the staff — including Miyamoto — were credited under their real names.[18] The pseudonym "Miyahon" was thus chosen deliberately for the final release

Pseudonyms are used in the credits.

Hyrule Historia

If you want to learn more about Hyrule, here is a promotional copy of the book (pdf). In case you wanna buy it, here's the link.

Wanna play it?

The game is supported on different platforms, it's available on NES,on Gameboy, 3DS and the Wii Virtual Console. You could play it with an emulator too by the way.
Myamoto’s advice to play this game is to get into it without any help nor hints.
The story leading to the game does’nt show up in the game itself. In fact, because of the limited memory, Nintendo decided to use the manual to introduce us to the plot. In order to start the game in the best conditions here's the booklet.

Check this out!

Want to learn more?

• Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda_(video_game)
• rpgamer’s review: http://www.rpgamer.com/games/zelda/z1/reviews/z1strev1.html
• Gamepedia: https://zelda.gamepedia.com/The_Legend_of_Zelda_(Game)
• Factinate : https://www.factinate.com/things/36-legend-of-zelda-facts/
• Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma & Akira Himekawa (2013), Hyrule Historia, Dark Horse Comics.

Interviews of the developers

• Developers interview (30th anniversary) : https://www.nintendo.com/nes-classic/the-legend-of-zelda-developer-interview
• Short interview made for the liner notes of the “Legend of Zelda: Sound and Drama” cd released in 1994 : http://shmuplations.com/zelda/

Guide

• Zelda Dungeon Guide: https://www.zeldadungeon.net/the-legend-of-zelda-walkthrough/the-gathering/