It was a short game, but absolutely punishing to beat. You have to have access to game manuals or you otherwise would have to use graph paper to write out what each room and area does because most of the game is not straight forward at all. Once you get to the second quest it's even worse, with rooms that you can't escape from that make you have to completely restart being in a dungeon. Thankfully with the use of the internet this was made a little easier and I don't know how people ever completed it before the advent of save states. I picked up every item in each quest (there are two of them and you have to rebeat the entire game to complete each) except superfluous keys and 1 bomb upgrade in quest 1 because I didn't realize that it would give me 16 vs 12 bombs.

I did not have a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) growing up. The first console we ever got in my house was a Super Nintendo, which we loved very much (thanks, Mom!). But that didn’t stop me from playing NES games over at friends’ houses. However, one game I never really got to play was The Legend of Zelda, which makes sense. While the Super Mario Bros. games allow for multiple players or you can switch off lives and levels, Zelda is a big, expansive game of trial-and-error. It’s a game the begs you to get lost in it, to dig out some graph paper, and to record the location of every secret treasure. It’s a game that demands you get together with your friends who are also playing it and figure out the location of the secret rooms and how to get into various dungeons. Before social networking became a thing, the social element of Zelda was essential (it was either that or pick up a strategy guide).

As a kid, I can imagine that playing The Legend of Zelda was a blast, but I am now an adult. The game is part of the NES Classics lineup on Nintendo Switch, so I decided to finally play through it. However, since my free time is more finite and all my friends aren’t playing a game from 1986, I decided to take a couple shortcuts. First up, I happily used an online strategy guide to help direct me in making my way around Hyrule. Second, and what I’m sure others will declare as blasphemous, I made use of the rewind feature when enemies started raining a beatdown on me. I regret nothing. I wanted to play the game, but I also realized that there was no way in 2019 for me to play it as originally intended unless I forsook other responsibilities like “spending time with my wife” and “my job.”

And having beaten the game (or at least the first quest; I don’t really see the point of completing the second quest), it’s no surprise why the game is a classic. I actually felt a little sad that I didn’t get to play this game when it came out because I can easily see getting lost in making maps and talking about how to beat dungeons with friends. That’s the communal aspect of video games that’s kind of lost right now and has kind of wandered over to “solving” TV shows like Lost and Westworld. Now the community of video games is who can you beat and how badly you can beat them rather than a small group of young friends coming together to get to the end of a quest. As an adult, I’m no longer the target audience for a 34-year-old video game, if that game has any large audience at all. But I’m grateful for the experience of having played it, shortcuts and all.

The Legend of Zelda was an amazing game, continues to be now and I suspect will be in the future. It feels like a game that shouldn't have been able to be made, it feels like a game that would need constrictions to function, yet its gameplay and mechanics synthesize almost seamlessly with its open world. Open world is a word used a lot these days, but Zelda almost seemed to forget where it began after the first game and the real world seemed to forget after A Link to the Past until more recent times. The Legend of Zelda is more open, more mysterious and perhaps more immersive than any Zelda game afterwards, with the few, subjective, exceptions.

Zelda's graphics are primitive, even for NES standards, yet engrossing and charming. Coming early on in the systems life, the graphics are tame, yet have the personality of thirty different NES games from lesser developers. Despite the fact that there seem to be many old men and women in this world with the same get-up, it doesn't feel lazy it feels mystical, mysterious and... I guess objectively resourceful.

Sound is once again primitive, but portrays the adventurous tone of the game perfectly. The dungeons feel dangerous, it is a place you have no business in and yet, ride on. The over-world is less dangerous and more to the point, this is the main world, this encompasses everywhere you will need to go to save the princess. The intro braces you for the adventure that is to come. Not ear-gratingly treble-heavy, not bass heavy, sonically and analytically, The Legend of Zelda sounds great but this game resonates emotionally, the music accentuates the feelings you already have exploring this world.

This game feels great, Link is responsive and has two methods of attack, you can either attack with your sword, or use an extra item to inflict damage. Oh by the way you don't even have to pick the sword up at the start of the game so even that is technically optional. This game is simple in execution and works almost flawlessly, whether you feel Link is a bit stiff is on you but in a world where moving both left and down at the same time was almost unheard of, The Legend of Zelda excels in game play.

I didn't play The Legend of Zelda until I was 19 years old, it was also the year I first completed it and have been obsessed with it and consequently, the series ever since. The original is just a world of wonder, a place where I am never restricted, a place that doesn't really tell me in-game that I am the savior of the world and all this stuff, I'm kinda just a kid in the woods fighting things and finding my way to becoming the hero of the world, it almost feels like coincidence that in the end, I beat the villain of this world. The Legend of Zelda is all of your childhood dreams, except this time it isn't a dream.

The original Zelda title may not exactly be remembered as one of the series' finest moments, but it definitely laid the foundation for better things to come. The sense of adventure and exploration, the dungeon crawling, the item collection, and the grand bosses are all here, if only on a smaller scale.

Being immediately hurled into Hyrule, with no tutorial, and a very basic backstory, is a wonder of an age long gone. It perfectly captures the essence of what an adventure should be; an exciting trek into the vast unknown. Upon entering the first cave, you'll be greeted by one of gaming's most iconic lines: "IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS." This only further solidifies that idea.

For an NES game, the immersion is there. Hyrule is a fairly large area given the console's limitations, and the dungeons can be fun to navigate and conquer, for the most part. That said, this is a difficult game for sure, and it's what holds it back from greatness. Finding and navigating certain dungeons can be a real chore in the latter parts, and without a guide, it would amount to a lot of hassle and trial and error.

Established fans of the series should not jump into this game expecting a similar ordeal to other 2D titles, as doing so may leave you underwhelmed with its relative simplicity; and possibly even irritated with its difficulty. For anyone willing to look past its archaic design; or anyone simply looking for an old school challenge, I recommend it.

It's interesting how different this game is from its sequels.
There's a very limited number of meaningful secrets to find; the dungeons are almost arcade-like in their design, being more a test of endurance than puzzle-solving; the overworld is open for meaningful exploration at any point as long as you have the items to reach places, and dungeons can be entered as soon as you find them.

None of the Zelda games since follow this completely, not even Breath of the Wild - and I can see why.
The game eventually turns into something extremely predictable, something solved: why wouldn't you always go for all the heart containers first, get the white sword and use the 100 rupees the Moblin in the northeast gives you to get a head start on affording all the various items - especially the blue ring?

It turns into a comfort food game unlike any other in the Zelda series, and it's for that reason I still like this game so much.

The NES is not a console that I used to consider had good games. I felt like most of them were absolutely held back by your inability to save, and while some of those like the Super Mario Bros. games tried to play around this by having very short games with warp zones to later worlds, I can't help but feel like this was playing around a system that was broken from the start. The Legend of Zelda is different. First of all, you can actually save in this game. Second of all, it is a wonderful open world game in an era long before open world games. This game drops you in a moderately sized world and asks you to do whatever you want. You can go in any direction you want, to any place you want as long as it isn't blocked off by an item you need. I have to praise the overworld a lot, because it is not too small, which makes it so that you don't get tired of it. At the same time, it isn't too big either. This is good because you have to start over from the beginning of the map if you die. And trust me, you will die a lot in this game, as it is brutally difficult at some points. I think I died more than 150 times throughout the 14 hours of gameplay. But if you die, you will restart in a map that easily allows you to get back to wherever you previously were. And if you die in a dungeon, you will simply restart from the start of that dungeon, a tradition that other Zelda games have also used. The gameplay is difficult, but fun. I like how you keep all the items you obtained even if you die, making this very Dark Souls-esque. In fact, I think the soulsborne series definitely was inspired by this game specifically. I also have to praise the final dungeon for how great it is design wise. It definitely feels like a true final gauntlet, and it is very satisfying to find your way through that lethal maze of a dungeon. However, not everything this game offers is perfect. The combat is pretty awkward sometimes, because Link stops every time he does something with an item or a sword. This definitely adds to the game's insane difficulty, and arguably in a way that isn't as fun. The soundtrack is also pretty one-note, only containing four songs in its entirety if I remember correctly. Still, this isn't a game that you should miss out on if you like challenging games. Definitely one of the best games for the NES!