The Legend of Zelda
—Chrissie
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/hwts273--66948101
1984 was a busy year for Shigeru Miyamoto. The Nintendo Famicom (“Family Computer”) system had been released the year previous and, despite a few bugs, was quickly overtaking the Japanese video game market. A peripheral for the system, the Famicom Disk System, was set to release the next year, and Miyamoto was in charge of its launch title. This peripheral allowed for larger, longer, and more complex games because the disks had larger memory chips than did the cartridges for the original Famicom. For inspiration, Miyamoto looked to his childhood exploration of the forests, caves, and lakes around his home. The lack of structure of those days and the feeling that anything was possible prompted the creation of an open-world adventure game: The Legend of Zelda.
Miyamoto and his team were also working on the other mega-hit franchise for which they would come to be known: Super Mario Bros., and the two games were developed in tandem. Both games focused on gameplay, there was a point counter in Mario and both games required collecting currency, but these were not the means by which the game was won. A player had to see the story through to its conclusion, the number of points or coins or rupees collected was not as important as finding the princess. There were shared elements, like a kidnapped princess, firesticks in underground caverns, and enemies that spit stones or fire, but the developers also made a point to differentiate the two games, so they wouldn’t be confused and so that people wouldn’t become bored with either format of play. Mario was designed with a set path that operated linearly from the left to the right of the screen and from one event to the next, the player could not experience the game out of the sequence created by the designers. Zelda was the opposite, an open world which one could explore and stumble across elements and events however they chose. A player could experience the game differently every time they picked up the controller.
Fellow game designer Takashi Tezuka worked with Miyamoto to create the story and write the script for in-game interactions. He used elements of fairytales and fantasy as the basis for the story of a kidnapped princess, Zelda, who must be rescued by a young man, Link, who proved himself against enemies to collect pieces of the TriForce of Wisdom to return to Zelta once she has been rescued. Communication with characters is an important element of the game, as it gives clues about where to find needed elements. Communication between players was also encouraged and was even facilitated by Nintendo. American players could join a fan club, which put them on a mailing list which was used to share tips and ideas. By 1989, this newsletter had such a large subscription base that it became Nintendo Power Magazine, which could be found in many Nintendo player’s bathrooms for the next 24 years.
The game was released in Japan in February 1986 alongside the Famicom Disk System peripheral. It sold one million copies on the first day it was available. Because the game was on a floppy disk instead of a cartridge, players could save their progress at any point by writing to the disk. Until this point, most games did not have the option to stop the game and pick up where you left off; those that did used a system of passwords that were given to the player at the end of a level.
By the time of its release in the United States a year later, the Legend of Zelda was highly anticipated, selling one million copies in its first four months. The game cartridge was gold-colored, adding to the fantasy feel of the game as if it were a hidden treasure. Because the Nintendo system sold in the United States used cartridges and did not have the Disk System add-on, the company developed a battery-powered memory chip. This Memory Management Controller Chip was the first of its kind and its basic design was used and improved upon for many years to come.
The Legend of Zelda has one direct sequel, The Adventure of Link, and nineteen more games in the franchise. The most recent, Echoes of Wisdom, flips the script by making Zelda the player character, whose task it is to rescue the kidnapped Link.
The game was widely lauded at the time and is often rated among the best video games of all time, even decades later. It is often cited as the predecessor to modern role-playing and open world video games, full of quests and secrets to discover with no particular way to win. Miyamoto himself, however, does not like the RPG label for Zelda, because it is focused on player experience rather than gaining points and leveling up. Perhaps there is a life lesson in that.