the legend, of zelda! it's a series so huge, i can't help but say it all- okay, no, i'm not just gonna steal the intro from Egoraptor's OoT Sequelitis video. Zelda is a series i've long held a fondness and appreciation for though, but admittedly i've only beaten three of the games. Majora's Mask is in my top 10 favorite games of all time, i really loved my time with Link Between Worlds, and now i've finished Zelda 1. and like, honestly? whenever you go back to these old ass games, there's a stench of "this is cool, but kind of hard to get into." and yet, i never found myself getting rubbed the wrong way by any of the stuff Zelda 1 does. no archaic passwords like NEStroid, no grinding for HP every time you die like in NEStroid, the map is a lot easier to digest unlike NEStroid, i think i just hate Metroid for NES. that was the game i kept thinking about the whole time i was playing this one, it's another first entry in a long running Nintendo series for the NES that i played relatively recently, and the difference between the two in terms of "first entry syndrome" is pretty astonishing. unlike with that game, i absolutely loved Zelda 1 and think that it still absolutely stands the test of time, with no "ands" or "buts". (also i played the gba port of the nes game, i don't know why, i just like being quirky. i guess. it's not a bad port, honestly!)

unlike something like Link to the Past, Zelda 1 is INSANELY barebones in terms of mechanics, but that isn't to its detriment in my opinion. there's no magic meter to worry about, no arrows to keep track of, you only have Rupees, bombs, and keys in terms of numbered items. on top of that, the game doesn't really... tell you where to go, pretty much ever. it doesn't really tell you anything, actually. it just drops you into this huge map, and tells you to go wild. there's barely any cutscenes outside of the ending, information is given to you in cryptic hints spoken by old people in caves, you don't get a little textbox telling you what an item does when you pick it up... Zelda 1 is all about discovery, and i think that's so fucking killer, man. there's an item called the Magic Book that i got late into the game, and even after beating Ganon i STILL don't know what this shit does. y'know what- actually, i'm gonna go look this up as im writing this, i'm curious. -furious googling- ...huh. it makes the magic rod shoot flames. i'll be honest, i did notice that because i used the magic rod a lot in the late game to deal with Like Likes, but i thought that was because i got the Red Candle, not because of the book. neat.

hey- speaking of these items, lemme mention something. i'm a huge Binding of Isaac nut, i've been playing since the flash version, and like yeah i knew Isaac was heavily inspired by Zelda 1, but i didn't realize JUST how many things it plucks directly from it. for crying out loud, the hud is the exact damn same in the flash version! and you got items like the candles, the stepladder, the boomerang, the map and compass, shops which look IDENTICAL to their Zelda 1 counterpart, the crawlspaces in Rebirth are almost the exact same layout as the spaces you get items in in Zelda 1, a segmented boss that worms around and slowly loses segments as you damage it, and SO many more things that i can't even name. playing Zelda 1 was inadvertantly Isaac homework for me, i didn't realize JUST how much it took from it.

but going back to what i was saying, Zelda 1 is really openended, which is a unique quality only it has in terms of Zelda games. well, except for, y'know, Breath of the Wild. i always heard that the developers of BOTW were looking to go back to "zelda's roots" with it, and i always thought that was really dumb. what about this is going back to the series roots? it's nothing like literally any other zelda game! i always thought to myself, but after actually playing Zelda 1, i get what they meant now. i mean like, probably the most well known thing about BotW is "oh you can go directly to Ganon's castle as soon as you start the game!!!", but that's an idea taken directly from Zelda 1. well, kind of. you still have to get all of the Triforce segments from beating every dungeon before Level-9, but other than that the world is your oyster. sure, you need the raft and the stepladder to get to certain places, but they don't really limit your ability to go places outside of that. really it's more of a knowledge barrier than anything, which i think is sick. one of my least favorite things a game like this can do is for it to say, "you can only do this once your CHARACTER knows to go do it." it's frustrating to know the solution to a problem, have the tools to do it, and the game tell you "nuh-uh, you're not supposed to do that yet!!!!" but Zelda 1 very distinctly does not have this problem. with the exception of entering the rest of Level-9, you can pretty much go and do anything in any order. this is something i actually love about Majora's Mask, at least in a meta sense, because with the use of some crafty movement tech, you can get to certain areas WAY earlier than intended, and go and get stuff you aren't supposed to have yet, making your time with earlier areas way easier. this was something i did a lot in Zelda 1, i was struggling with a dungeon i was stuck on, so i was like, fuck it, i'm gonna run to a way later dungeon and get an item that'll help me here. and i was able to do that, and surprise surprise, it helped a fucking lot! that's so sick, man! the only thing about this that kinda pissed me off was the Magical Sword. i found it really early on, but was confused and frustrated as to why i couldn't pick it up. it turns out, it requires you to have 12 heart containers, but i didn't know that. so i kept running all the way back to the graveyard each time i got literally any item, just to see if it'd change my ability to get the sword.

and hey, i mentioned one dungeon that kicked my ass, and i wanna talk about it. FUCK Level-6. (actually, mini tangent, isn't it weird how the dungeons don't really have real names in this game? they're all called shit like "Level-1", "Level-2", "Level-3", and the floor layout is always some weird picture. it's such a game-y way to handle dungeon design, it's kinda funny.) it's full of these shitty wizard guys that teleport around and shoot beams that deal 2 full hearts of damage, are immune to everything but your sword, and you can only deflect them with an expensive shield that you have to buy. and to make matters worse, you can VERY easily lose this shield, because the dungeon is also full of Like-Likes! i always found these guys to be just a minor annoyance in the other games i'd played, they're pretty much a non-issue in MM, and i don't even remember seeing a single one in Link Between Worlds. but they're easily one of the scariest enemies in this game, because if they eat that shield, you're gonna start bleeding HP really fast due to the wizards, and on top of that, you have to go get another 90 rupees to get a replacement. anytime i got my shield ate i pretty much instantly reloaded a save, it was that devastating to me. once you get the Red Ring defense upgrade in Level-9 it becomes a little bit less of an issue because you take SUCH little damage at that point, but with only the blue clothes it's pretty scary. and geez louise, i can't even imagine the horrors of beating the game with only the green clothes... also, on the topic of annoying enemies, honorable mentions go out to the Dark Nuts. just like the wizards you can only hurt them with your sword, (or bombs) and you can only hit them from the back or sides. they also have this funny habit of turning on a dime RIGHT when you're about to hit them, and the blue ones are very tanky. Level-5 gave me a lot of trouble because of these fuckers, but at a certain point i started to get the hang of dealing with them. it's this dangerous dance of trying to get close enough to get some hits in, without getting hit yourself. it's honestly kind of cool, i think they're a well designed, if not annoying to deal with at first enemy.

in conclusion, Zelda 1 really impressed me. i think it still holds up VERY well, and is very worth anyone's time in the modern day. i knew this game was gold when i was getting giddy thinking to myself, "oooh, i wonder what the item in this dungeon is gonna be!" it's good shit, and it's a classic for a reason.