As a fan of the Zelda games, it's taken me an almost shocking amount of time to properly indulge in the original title of the series. The game that every successive game still takes ideas and concepts from to form the baseline core of this longstanding series.

The Legend of Zelda is an interesting relic from its time. Relatively quaint and rather short for its massive franchise, the game generally manages to not overstay its welcome, however certain elements of the game are purposefully obtuse, some to the point of being a bit unfair without some sort of guide. This is mostly only an issue with minor caves, but unfortunately also an issue with discovering the entrance to one of the major required levels of the game.
I'd hesitate to say it succeeds in making the journey feel like a proper adventure with its shockingly small map, but discovering secrets and powering Link up throughout is generally satisfying overall, and being able to discover late game dungeons before even finding earlier ones, and challenging yourself with them gives a sense of freedom that other Zelda games still fail to replicate for the most part.
Unfortunately, the game gets rather frustrating in later levels and even in the overworld with certain enemies seemingly designed to do nothing but frustrate and get in the way, several with awkward random movements that make it hard to land hits without getting hurt yourself.

A decent curiosity to be sure, one worth visiting if you're already a fan of Zelda and want to peek into where it all began, however it's only something I could possibly reccommend to people with patience and a tolerance for older, stiffer games.