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| The Legend of Zelda box and golden cartridge |
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| Zelda box rear view |
From the rock bottom of NES games (see Review #2) I'll elevate you to the very top. It's time for a closer look to the Legend of Zelda.
This game was my first RPG experience as a gamer and, in my opinion, the best RPG game ever made on any system, as well as the best game ever. It spawned a series of over a dozen sequels, every and each one of them superb in their own way (I'm referring only to the Nintendo system series, not the Philips CD-i abominations) and it became one of the reasons to buy the new Nintendo system that comes out every now and then. It introduced the save feature, using battery back up, that no game of its time had and set the path for the top down RPG-Action-Adventure games to follow.
The plot is really simple: The prince of Darkness Ganon, kidnapped princess Zelda and stole the Triforce of Power. You, the young hero Link, must find the the Triforce of Wisdom that Zelda divided into 8 pieces to hide it from Ganon, so you can save Zelda and retrieve the stolen Triforce of Power.
To be honest, when I first saw the game I was not very impressed. The graphics didn't seem that exciting and the enemies didn't look that threatening. That was until I got the controller and started playing through level 1. WOW! The design of the dungeons, the music, the concept that in every level you get a new weapon or artifact that gives you new abilities, and the dungeon boss that is different in every level and has a different weak point was amazing.
The outworld was vast and full of secrets and your quest was accompanied with amazing Zelda signature music. The variety of enemies was stunning. Over 2 dozens of enemies each and every one with different abilities scattered everywhere. I still remember how much I hated Blue Wizzrobes, one of the most difficult enemies in the game.
The game dragged me into its world and I couldn't stop playing. I got stuck after level 6, as I couldn't find the entrance to level 7 ("There are secrets where fairies don't live", duh how hard was that?), no internet walkthroughs were available at that time (The year was 1990, I think) I stopped playing after exploring the map hundreds of times. I found level 7 about 3 months later, when I played the game a little bit and used the recorder at the lonely pond by accident. After that it was just a matter of time to beat the game.
A day later, I was at the entrance of level 9. What a huge maze. I ended up playing it a couple of days, I found the silver arrow and the red ring and faced Ganon. Defeating the Dark prince was easier than I thought. After a couple of shots, Ganon was dead and Zelda was saved. I saw the game ending and I thought the adventure was over ...NOT!
A 2nd quest popped up out of the blue! A whole new adventure for advanced players, very hard to beat with nerve cracking difficulty. I didn't play the 2nd quest too long because the NES was borrowed and I returned it back. I finished the 2nd quest years later, after getting my own NES.
Conclusion: This game is the best game on the NES and, in my opinion, the best game of all time. It has everything. Action, puzzle solving, secret finding all in one beautiful golden package, that tells you just by looking at it that this is the stuff that dreams are made of. A must for every NES owner and a top addition to every collection. I have two copies of the game: One factory sealed and one cartridge only to play with. You can find a sealed one on eBay for about 300 $ and a boxed version with manual for about 100 $.
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