No Zelda game is closer to Breath of the Wild than the NES original

In the mid-1980s in Kyoto, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, and their team were working side by side on two game designs meant to be two sides of the same coin. One is a linear one, an obstacle course, and one that rushes headlong toward the goal. The other is a non-linear, mysterious maze, an unpredictable world to explore. In contrast to the arcade games that defined the medium at that point, neither focused on player skill, prioritizing an immersive experience from start to finish. Miyamoto carefully considered new gameplay ideas from the team and assigned them to one of the games. You probably didn’t realize that he defined some of the fundamental precepts of video game design beyond just his two legendary series.the first game is Super mario bros. it was the second game legend of zelda.

Super mario bros. is a phenomenon and one of the best-selling games of all time. legend of zelda It was a hit, but only sold a fraction of the number. Perhaps it was inevitable that Zelda would later become more like its more popular twin. and keys) to give order to the player’s progression through the maze-like world. They’re probably better games than that, and certainly easier to enjoy.

2017 Breath of the Wild Shocking with its system, it reinvented the conventions of role-playing and open-world with incredible freedom, returning to Zelda’s original non-linear philosophy. Ironically, it far surpassed all its predecessors It was also the first Zelda game to outsell a modern Mario game. The world is finally ready for the kind of adventure Miyamoto and Tezuka envisioned 31 years before him.

Image: Nintendo

Image: Nintendo

Image: Nintendo

Image: Nintendo

Even if, like me, who’s been writing about Zelda games for 20 years and playing them for even longer, knowing all this background, playing it properly was just as shocking. legend of zelda first time. It’s a very old game now. By modern standards, it’s difficult, cryptic, and minimalist. Honestly, it’s not as fun to play as it was in 1991. link to the past, don’t worry about the later entries. But he’s also a raw game design genius. legend of zelda It’s a surprisingly brave and unhindered vision of what a playable adventure could be. , almost alien. Breath of the WildThat is.

The first thing you’ll notice is that most Zelda games (Breath of the Wild ) consciously locate themselves in traditions — places with history, usually repeated. legend of zelda Remove all context. Princess Zelda has hidden eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom in a series of dungeons and needs a hero to collect them and defeat the captive Ganon. Please enter the link you are just a guy. He doesn’t even have a sword.

Nothing is foretold or forgotten in this first adventure, everything is new. There’s a cave over there: what’s inside? But it can’t be helped, so Link has to go it alone. Monsters are everywhere, flying around in dangerous patterns. Which is the next piece of the Triforce? In thorn bushes, among bare rocks, on shores with roaring tides? This is a world without waypoints, signposts, or even names. It is a mystical iconography, a living map of which only a few can be seen.

of legend of zeldaThe first dungeon you discover is not necessarily the first “level” in the game. You may have jumped to 3rd or 4th. Likewise, if you set off, explore, and pay close attention, within the first hour of him, you can get to powerful items meant to be used later in the game. Riches are scattered about if you know where to look. If you buy a candle and burn the appropriate bush, you can climb underground and meet the secretive Moblin. I was.

Image: Nintendo

Image: Nintendo

Image: Nintendo

Even by modern standards, this is a deliberately open design. You can’t wander straight into an end boss lair, but you can put yourself in great danger, or power up Link to the point where the game almost feels broken. Gates feel like authentic mysteries that arise organically out of the landscape.I had a feeling that the Zelda designers were going to be experts at recreating, but over time it’s become more expected and almost It became ritualistic. I think there were very few Zelda fans who wanted to let go of that more linear evolutionary ritual, but the diminishing returns were a fact. Breath of the WildThe developers of Zelda were right to choose to get over them. bottom: legend of zeldaHyrule feels like a real unexplored wilderness, or the countryside that Miyamoto explored in his youth without a map, discovering landmarks as if he were there for the first time.

In contrast to the pristine Overworld, the dungeons of the first game, which would go on to become the most complex and rigorous puzzles in the Zelda series, feel a little more contained and surmountable even at their most difficult. It was not true at the time of release. These are the first words of the language and have been so elaborately crafted ever since that solving these riddles will become second nature to any veteran Zelda his player. The first game’s basic, ferocious 8-bit combat presents challenges, but as technically rudimentary as the game is, it’s never quite as sharp, responsive, or fair . Super mario bros. just a few months ago. (I had to spam the Nintendo Switch Online version’s snapshot and rewind features, though.)

legend of zelda It’s so modest in its clues, so sophisticated in design, and so jealous of its secrets that new players would probably be stumped if they tried to solve it without help. Please don’t be offended. Miyamoto may not have foreseen an online walkthrough, but it was always intended for the game’s players to talk to each other, share secrets, work together, and make it through through a joint effort.

unless you’re playing legend of zelda In some sort of cultural vacuum, it’s no longer possible to experience all the formidable mysteries the game had in 1986. It is now a known quantity, moving into modern versions of folk memory. A story already told, already a map. Drawn. In some ways, it’s a fitting ending to this early masterpiece. And we can still look down on this savage, savage little microcosm and wonder at it.So liberating and so far ahead of its time, it took 30 years for its own makers to catch up. It took years.