It was a dark and stormy night…

“Help me… please help me… I am a prisoner in the dungeon of the castle. My name is Zelda.”

Zelda’s telepathic message reaches Link and his uncle in the middle of the night. I’m not sure who else heard it; possibly only descendants of the Knights of Hyrule. Link’s uncle takes the family sword and shield and tells Link to remain at home while he tries to rescue Zelda. Link, being a good boy, goes back to sleep (even though his uncle carelessly left the light on, and he has no way to put it back out). He never sees his uncle again, and is mostly a helpless observer as the wise men’s seal breaks and Ganon returns to Hyrule and, after Agahnim already softened it up, Ganon easily conquers it.

…

Or, because that would make for a terrible game, Link ignores his uncle’s advice, takes a lamp from the treasure chest, and sets out to help. It’s raining hard, and most of the pathways to explore the overworld are blocked by soldiers, so the only thing he can do is find an entrance hidden under a bush that leads to a secret passage.

In the secret passage, Link finds his uncle, who’s dying. He hands the shield and sword to Link and teaches him the spin attack, then dies with a few final words: “Save the Princess… Zelda is your… … …” I first played this game around the first time I watched the Star Wars trilogy, so I can’t help but fill in “sister” there. I know that’s almost certainly Not True, but looking online I’m also not the only one who thought that. (The Japanese version apparently had him say, “You are the princess’…,” which has a lot more ways to fill in that make sense, starting with (still thinking of Star Wars) “…only hope.”) Anyway, regardless of possible relationships between the hero and the princess, we do have to rescue her.

Link takes the sword and shield and makes his way through the courtyard into the castle. The stairs to the dungeon are around the back; if Link stumbles out onto the ramparts, a soldier will tell him that Agahnim’s been taking control of the soldiers and he figures it’s just a matter of time for him, too. He’s standing where one of the bomb-throwing soldiers will later be, so he’s not wrong. The enemies inside the castle are all those possessed soldiers, but Link has little choice but to carve a path through them. Along the way, he picks up a boomerang. Guarding Zelda’s dungeon cell is a soldier with a flail, where the best strategy is to boomerang him, get in close, spin attack, get back out, and repeat until dead. It’s an easy fight, but they’ll get harder from here. (Also, because charging the spin attack leaves Link stuck facing one way but he can still throw the boomerang in any of eight directions, I was throwing the boomerang out of Link’s butt, which was an amusing visual.)

Zelda tells Link what we’ve already learned about the castle soldiers, and says she knows of a secret way out. Which means going back through what he’s already fought through, and a lot of those soldiers have respawned. The entrance to the tunnel is located behind the throne on the top floor of the castle, and gives Link the first real chance to play with the lamp. This is strictly optional; the little bit of default light when the lamp isn’t equipped is enough to deal with the Keeses and Ropes and Rats (they couldn’t have come up with a smeerp name for them, too?) inside the passageway. After passing through the sewers, Link and Zelda come to sanctuary, where the sage tells Link he’ll need the Master Sword to defeat Ganon and refers him to Sahasrahla, who knows more about the sword and can help Link find it.

Next: “Tra la la, look for Sahasrahla…”