The examination of the Legend of Zelda series starts with an overview of my previous experience, things I know about what’s to come, and a look at the game’s story.

[The rest of this post was originally written over May and June, 2018 and posted June 18, 2018.]

A year or so ago, someone asked me if I played the Legend of Zelda series, and I said I did when I was younger but hadn’t played any since A Link to the Past. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that, and a while back I picked up and played Link’s Awakening. And now I’ve decided to revisit the series from its roots.

Beyond Link’s Awakening, I know:

• The general shape of the timeline. It fractured into three around the events of Ocarina of Time. All the games I’ve played are set in the same offshoot, in the following order:
  1. A Link to the Past (Link I, Zelda I, Ganon)
  2. Link’s Awakening (Link I, no Zelda unless you count Marin, Ganon only as a form assumed by final boss)
  3. Backstory of The Adventure of Link (no Link, Zelda II [“Sleeping Zelda”], no Ganon)
  4. The Legend of Zelda (Link II, Zelda III, Ganon)
  5. The Adventure of Link (Link II, Zelda II (III gets a couple mentions in the manual, but otherwise doesn’t appear), Ganon only when Link fails).
• There’s a character called Sheik who’s totally not Zelda in disguise.
• Navi says, “Hey! Listen!”1This is currently my phone’s text alert sound. (2023 update: Still.)
• There’s a character called Tingle, who is… erm, not beloved. I’ve seen pictures of him, and all I can think is Roberto Benigni playing Pinocchio… which probably explains why that is.
• A Link Between Worlds has Hyrule’s Mirror Universe version… Lorule2About twelve hours after learning about this, I realized that LoJack is the same goddamn pun. Twentysome years, and I only realized it now..
• I’ve played the start of Four Swords (into gameplay, but not very far) and Breath of the Wild (I did the bomb rune shrine).
• I’ve played some of Hyrule Warriors, so I’ll probably recognize some of those people when they show up. And I don’t recognize that game’s version of Impa at all.

Finally, for the first game, I’m going to talk about differences from the Japanese version of the game. Nearly everything I know about the Japanese version comes from Legends of Localization‘s excellent series of articles comparing the two, and I highly recommend them if you’re interested in that kind of stuff.

The Legend of Zelda is one of the games I remember watching my next-door neighbor/best friend, who introduced me to Nintendo, playing back before my family got a NES at Christmas 1988. Shortly after we got the NES, the game was one of the first ones we rented from the local video store, and… honestly, I think my dad liked it even more than I did, because it was only about three days after it had to go back that we had our very own copy of the game. I don’t remember spending much time on this game then. I beat it, sure, both quests, but then it was on to the next new shiny3Which wasn’t as shiny as the Legend of Zelda‘s gold cartridge, admittedly.. (Which I think was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.) But every time I’ve come back to the NES, this has been the first game I’d pick up.

Story

Princess Zelda has been kidnapped by Ganon.
Are you a bad enough Link to rescue the princess?4I realize I’m mashing up the arcade and NES versions here. I wanted to include Zelda’s name, but to me the “rescue the president” version of the quote is more memorable. So I did this as a compromise.

No, that’s not quite right. It’s not exactly wrong, either, but the game’s story is fun enough that it deserves to be quoted.

Many years ago Prince Darkness “Gannon” stole one of the Triforce with power. Princess Zelda had one of the Triforce with wisdom. She divided it into “8” units to hide it from “Gannon” before she was captured.
Go find the “8” units “Link” to save her.

To be fair, back in the NES era story really didn’t matter that much. Usually, it was tucked away in the manual with the assumption people might read it once, forget it if they did, and gleefully stomp turtles and mushrooms to rescue Princess Toadstool5As she was known then. without a care as to what’s actually going on. Sure, there were exceptions. I remember Ninja Gaiden‘s cutscenes being a fairly big deal. But generally, it was “You’re the good guy, go smash the bad guys,” and we liked it.

The manual has a little more on the story, about how Impa was sent by Zelda to find a hero, and she found Link6Or, perhaps more accurately, the other way around.. But that’s about all there is, and the game doesn’t throw any sidequests or plot twists or princesses in another castle; it’s just find the eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom, go to Death Mountain, beat Ganon, and rescue Zelda.

The biggest surprise to me about the Japanese version of the game is that the intro is exactly the same, in English. Which might explain why the English stands out as being particularly bad compared to the rest of the game’s text; the Japanese text was translated, but this was already in English, so they left it alone. That probably also explains the “Gannon” spelling.

Next: I poke at some of the cryptic old man’s hints.