Just Beat: The Legend of Zelda

Confession time.

I’m just going to come clean. 

I’m not a Zelda fan.  

I have no issue with the series, and the games from it that I play I generally like, I’m just not a fan.  I recognize that the franchise is a long and storied one that has had significant impact on both the video game community and industry.  I also acknowledge that the Zelda games (with the exception of the odd Philips CDi ones) are all viewed very favorably. 

Let's just forget this ever happened...

It’s just… I don’t know… I don’t dislike Zelda… It’s more that I never caught the fever.

See, growing up, I wasn’t allowed to own any sort of game system.  So, I was limited in my exposure to the NES library by what games my friends owned or rented.  I fondly remember playing Mario and Mario 3 at John’s house after freezing our asses off building snow forts in his front yard.  I remember my life forever changing the first time I tried (and failed miserably) to play Metroid at my cousin’s house – I even remember that she told me of the rumored ‘Justin Bailey’ code, but couldn’t get it to work because she kept entering it as ‘Justin Bates’.  

Spoiler Alert:  Doesn't do anything

Contra, Bubble Bobble, TMNT, Mega Man, Gradius - nearly every NES game that has since achieved ‘classic’ status holds at least a passing flash of nostalgia in my childhood memory banks. 

Every game, that is, except The Legend of Zelda.

I mean, I knew it existed.  I very vaguely remember seeing it once or twice, maybe on TV or in a store, but nothing that stands out.  I think the issue is that once I started getting consoles and owning my own games, I had already formed my nostalgia-based opinions of the oh-so-wonderful NES early years.  And, unfortunately, I missed the boat when it came to Zelda.

Having finally sat down to play it, my honest reaction is one of casual ambivalence.  However, looking back, I can say that I understand why the Legend of Zelda made such an impact.

Many of the games that began long-standing franchises did so, I believe, because they gave the player such an immense sense of accomplishment.  Metroid, Final Fantasy, Zelda – all had an element of the unknown, of starting an adventure completely lost, with no idea of what to do or where to go.  It was up to the player to take those first tentative steps and start exploring and when the player beat a dungeon or found a new item, it was a direct result of the player’s own work.  Whether it was through memorizing or drawing maps, lengthy trial and error process, continually getting lost, or through pure force of will; it was the player that won the day.  

These games were not easy.  There were no checkpoints, limited save locations (or horrendous password systems), primitive to non-existent maps, no indication of what items actually did, no internet to provide guides, and only questionable Nintendo Power articles and playground rumors to help you along your way.  Oh… and we were SIX YEARS OLD!  

Either the world is a gray rectangle, or that's one shitty map.

That’s why we asked to borrow our parent’s camera to take a blurry picture of the final end screen when we succeeded.  We had undergone a long grueling ordeal that tasked us beyond our physical and mental limits.  We were damn right to be proud.  We just beat the game.

When I play the Legend of Zelda today, I have all the requisite knowledge of every other Zelda game I have ever played.  I have years of experience and a finely tuned intuition of where to look for secrets and how to handle dungeons and bosses.  Additionally, there are things that I just flat out know.  I knew where to bomb to open up Gannon’s Lair.  I knew to try and go into the waterfall with the raft.  I knew where to look for hearts, to burn bushes in weird spots, to play the flute at the empty pond, to…

The point is, The Legend of Zelda posed very little in the way of challenge to me now; and as a result, beating it really didn’t have much of an impact on me.  However, had six-year old Steke beaten this game (along with the rest of humanity) when it first came out, my reaction wouldn’t be an ambivalent ‘oh yeah, The Legend of Zelda… it’s pretty good,’ but rather, ‘IT’S THE MOTHER F*CKING LEGEND OF ZELDA, SON!’