For my first Blast From the Past blog, I will be reviewing one of my personal favorite games, The Legend of Zelda. The NES classic has to be my favorite game to ever be released on the NES. Featuring the best technology for video games in 1983, Zelda was a masterpiece that started a franchise that would continue through the years to come.
Ganon, the Prince of Darkness, stole the Triforce of Power, and used it to bring darkness to the land of Hyrule unleashing horrible monsters to terrorize the land. To stop Ganon from gaining further power, Zelda took the Triforce of Wisdom and split it into 8 pieces. It is the hero Links job to search the land for the 8 units and defeat Ganon to bring peace to the land.
Unlike many of its time, Zelda had an expansive world that kept players wondering what they had to do next. Zelda featured a non-linear world for you to explore, as well as dungeons that you would need to beat to get each piece of the triforce before finally reaching the end-game. Each dungeon would also give you an item that would help you defeat the boss, however, these items weren't only to be used to defeat each boss. Each item would help you discover new secret areas and caves in the "Overworld." For example, the bomb was probably the most used item in the game because a lot of the rocky areas had cave entrances that you could blow up to enter. Back before the internet walkthroughs, not a lot of people were able to find all of the game's secrets. Luckily, Nintendo was generous to the purchasers of the game. Many people who sent in the warranty card for their games were automatically sent a magazine from Nintendo that would, sometimes, offer tips and hints to the reader as to where to find the secret areas in the game.
(Well this must have been fun)
The game came with a map, which many would use and mark down secret locations so that they knew where to go when they needed supplies. Or they would mark down the shops and the different prices to know where to get the best deals (Sounds a lot like holiday shopping). There was even a Great Fairy who would heal your wounds when you were feeling weary. There were also special equipment items like the Magic Sword, which powered up Link's attack, and the rings, which would power up his defense (and a couple of them would give him a color change).
(Link Red Ring)
(Link Blue Ring)
The final feature I would like to talk about with Zelda is its "Second Quest," as it's referred to. This "Second Quest" is a replay of the game, however, it comes with a twist... The world has been rearranged. Items are no longer in the areas you remember originally. Enemies are a lot tougher and this altogether presents a greater challenge to the player. As if the final dungeon wasn't hard enough! Nevertheless, the challenge draws the player in to test his skills from the first playthrough to conquer this new and much less forgiving land of Hyrule.
I would very much like to thank you for reading this blast from the past review of Zelda! I had a lot of fun writing it and it inspired me to write more! I will be doing future reviews on other Zelda titles, but for now I'd like to focus on not just the gaming aspect of technology, but digging more into the roots of what created our technology-centered lives. My next post will be about the computers themselves and their origins.
