Kzinssie
(she/her)
So I recently decided to fire up Zelda 1 again and, for the first time, it properly clicked for me and I ended up playing through the whole thing over the course of 24 hours. That then inspired me, hey, what if I just played through all the Zelda games in release order? And not just the mainline ones - all the weird spinoffs, Satellaview games and CD-i games and Tingle games and the like. And while I'm there, why not read all the manga and watch the cartoon and such? And hell - there are several Nintendo games that might not technically be Zelda, but are in the same vein and worth appreciating in that context if I'm going that whole hog on it.
Long story short, I have compiled a list of 112 Zelda things, and I'm going to go down that list until I inevitably lose interest. I'd like to at least get through everything pre-OoT before I get there, though - that's where the series really finds its brand identity, and most of the weird stuff comes before it. While I do so, I'm going to do little mini-reviews of everything there. Before I start, though, here is my list so far - I'm open to suggestions on other Zelda-likes especially, but at minimum I'd like them to be Nintendo games - no Binding of Isaac or other non-Nintendo games clearly inspired by Zelda, or we'd be here for years.
With that out of the way, here are my thoughts on the first 3 things I did this with, which I think show the breadth of this project pretty well:
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA (1986)
As I mentioned at the top, I've tried to play this several times and it never quite clicked - for whatever reason, though, this time it fell into place. I honestly think part of it was my decision to map the game manually, which got me far more invested in exploring the edges of the map and seeing what I could find. My big complaint is that the combat never quite felt fun to me - the arcing slash introduced in later games definitely did a lot for top-down Zelda. Relatedly, starting you with 3 hearts every time you continue was just cruel and made the game much grindier than it needed to be. That's all my complaints, though - it was a fun time otherwise and I blazed through it. I opted not to do the Second Quest, at least not as part of this project. Really, what's there to say here that hasn't been said? It's Zelda 1.
THE MYSTERIOUS MURASAME CASTLE (1986)
This is the first of the "Zelda-likes" on my list - it's built on the same engine and released as a sort of companion game, so it's worth including. I gotta be honest here - I didn't have a great time with this one. I'm not generally huge on these sorts of twitch action games at the best of times, let alone on an engine with movement as janky as Zelda 1's leading to a lot of unfair hits. The biggest problem, though, is the lack of variety - you run through basically the same pair of levels, a village and a castle, 4 times in a row with different palette swaps and layouts, but never enough to make them feel meaningfully different. You can find every single powerup in the game within the first level! There's barely any enemy variety, with you dealing with the same ninjas for almost the entire game with a handful of more "elite" enemies that still don't manage to feel all that different. The final level, Murasame Castle itself, brings with it a different tileset and a new set of enemies, but it's too little too late. It's especially baffling considering this was a launch title for the FDS - the other three, Zelda, Metroid, and Kid Icarus, all boasted sprawling worlds with a ton of variety for the time, whereas I see no real reason for this not to have just gotten a normal cartridge release. In spite of all these gripes, though, I can't quite bring myself to hate it - maybe it's the music I'll probably be humming forever, or the goofy ninja sprites. It's a shame this never got any sequels, I could have easily seen it becoming a great franchise in a different timeline.
ZELDA NO DENSETSU: THE HYRULE FANTASY (RAN) (1986)
This is the first non-game media on my list, a single-issue manga published very soon after the game's original release. Only the first handful of pages have been translated, so from there I read a surprisingly detailed plot summary and just flipped through the rest of it for the art. It actually seems like a pretty good adaptation to have been so early on - most of the bosses and characters from the original game are pretty well represented here, most amusingly the old man who gives Link the sword seated between two torches in a pitch-black room, but there are a handful of oddities, like flying Octoroks. Unsurprisingly there's a bunch of new content added to pad things out - Link meets a local monster hunter who is later killed by Stalfos, befriends a village boy, ends up leading a peasant uprising against Ganon, that sort of thing. Link has a wisecracking parrot sidekick named Watto/Watt for some reason, and in an oddly prescient move he uses a slingshot before receiving his sword. I'm honestly a bit disappointed by how non weird this is, but looking at my list we've got plenty of bizarre pre-OoT interpretations of Hyrule to get through anyway.
Next up on my list: Zelda 2! I'm actually quite fond of this game and have played through it several times already, so I'm using this excuse to finally check out the Redux patch. I'll be back with my thoughts on that, as well as its manga and the Zelda Game & Watch, once I'm through with them.
Long story short, I have compiled a list of 112 Zelda things, and I'm going to go down that list until I inevitably lose interest. I'd like to at least get through everything pre-OoT before I get there, though - that's where the series really finds its brand identity, and most of the weird stuff comes before it. While I do so, I'm going to do little mini-reviews of everything there. Before I start, though, here is my list so far - I'm open to suggestions on other Zelda-likes especially, but at minimum I'd like them to be Nintendo games - no Binding of Isaac or other non-Nintendo games clearly inspired by Zelda, or we'd be here for years.
- The Legend of Zelda (86)
- The Mysterious Murasame Castle (86)
- Ran Zelda 1 Manga (86)
- Adventure of Link (87)
- Ran Adventure of Link Manga (87)
- Game & Watch (89)
- Mishouzaki Zelda 1 Manga (89)
- Animated Series (89)
- Game Watch (89)
- Valiant Comics (90)
- Molblin’s Magic Spear (90)
- Captain N Zelda Episodes (90)
- StarTropics (90)
- Mishouzaki Adventure of Link Manga (91)
- Link to the Past (91)
- The Crystal Trap (92)
- The Shadow Prince (92)
- Link to the Past Comic (92)
- Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (92)
- Link's Awakening (93)
- Faces of Evil (93)
- Wand of Gamelon (93)
- Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II (94)
- Zelda's Adventure (94)
- Link’s Awakening Manga (94)
- Oath of Riruto (94)
- Cagiva Link to the Past Manga (95)
- BS The Legend of Zelda Map 1 (95)
- BS The Legend of Zelda Map 2 (95)
- BS Marvelous: Time Athletics (96)
- Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima (96)
- BS Marvelous: Camp Arnold (96)
- BS The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets (97)
- Ocarina of Time (98)
- Ocarina of Time Manga (98)
- Ocarina of Time German Club Nintendo Comic (98)
- Link’s Awakening DX (98)
- Super Smash Bros. (99)
- Majora's Mask (00)
- Majora’s Mask Manga (00)
- Space World 2000 Demo (00)
- Oracle of Seasons (01)
- Oracle of Seasons Manga (01)
- Oracle of Ages (01)
- Oracle of Ages Manga (01)
- Super Smash Bros. Melee (01)
- Oracle of Seasons Novelization (01)
- Star Fox Adventures (02)
- OoT Master Quest (02)
- Link to the Past + Four Swords (02)
- Wind Waker (02)
- Oracle of Ages Novelization (03)
- Soulcalibur II (03)
- 4-koma Nautical Logbook (03)
- Four Swords Adventures (04)
- Four Swords Manga (04)
- Minish Cap (04)
- Himekawa Link to the Past Manga (05)
- Link and the Portal of Doom (06)
- Minish Cap Manga (06)
- Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland (06)
- Twilight Princess (06)
- Tingle's Balloon Fight (07)
- Phantom Hourglass (07)
- Link's Crossbow Training (07)
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl (08)
- Captain Rainbow (08)
- Phantom Hourglass Manga (09)
- Too Much Tingle Pack (09)
- Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love (09)
- Spirit Tracks (09)
- Ocarina of Time 3D (11)
- Four Swords Anniversary Edition (11)
- Skyward Sword Webcomic (11)
- Skyward Sword (11)
- Skyward Sword Manga (11)
- Hyrule Historia (11)
- Nintendo Land: Battle Quest (12)
- Wind Waker HD (13)
- Link Between Worlds (13)
- Sonic Lost World: The Legend of Zelda Zone (14)
- Hyrule Warriors (14)
- Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS (14)
- Hyrule Warriors: Master Quest (14)
- Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (14)
- Hyrule Warriors: Twilight Princess (14)
- Hyrule Warriors: Majora's Mask (15)
- Majora’s Mask 3D (15)
- Hyrule Warriors: Boss Pack (15)
- Tri Force Heroes (15)
- Twilight Princess Manga (16)
- Twilight Princess HD (16)
- Hyrule Warriors Legends (16)
- My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (16)
- Hyrule Warriors: Link's Awakening (16)
- Art & Artifacts (16)
- Hyrule Warriors: Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks (16)
- Hyrule Warriors: A Link Between Worlds (16)
- Encyclopedia (17)
- Breath of the Wild (17)
- Breath of the Wild: The Master Trials (17)
- Breath of the Wild: The Champions' Ballad (17)
- Creating A Champion (17)
- Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition (18)
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (18)
- Cadence of Hyrule (19)
- Link’s Awakening Switch (19)
- Cadence of Hyrule: Octavo Update (19)
- Cadence of Hyrule: Symphony of the Mask (20)
- Age of Calamity (20)
- Skyward Sword HD (21)
- lmao botw2 (???)
With that out of the way, here are my thoughts on the first 3 things I did this with, which I think show the breadth of this project pretty well:
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA (1986)
As I mentioned at the top, I've tried to play this several times and it never quite clicked - for whatever reason, though, this time it fell into place. I honestly think part of it was my decision to map the game manually, which got me far more invested in exploring the edges of the map and seeing what I could find. My big complaint is that the combat never quite felt fun to me - the arcing slash introduced in later games definitely did a lot for top-down Zelda. Relatedly, starting you with 3 hearts every time you continue was just cruel and made the game much grindier than it needed to be. That's all my complaints, though - it was a fun time otherwise and I blazed through it. I opted not to do the Second Quest, at least not as part of this project. Really, what's there to say here that hasn't been said? It's Zelda 1.
THE MYSTERIOUS MURASAME CASTLE (1986)
This is the first of the "Zelda-likes" on my list - it's built on the same engine and released as a sort of companion game, so it's worth including. I gotta be honest here - I didn't have a great time with this one. I'm not generally huge on these sorts of twitch action games at the best of times, let alone on an engine with movement as janky as Zelda 1's leading to a lot of unfair hits. The biggest problem, though, is the lack of variety - you run through basically the same pair of levels, a village and a castle, 4 times in a row with different palette swaps and layouts, but never enough to make them feel meaningfully different. You can find every single powerup in the game within the first level! There's barely any enemy variety, with you dealing with the same ninjas for almost the entire game with a handful of more "elite" enemies that still don't manage to feel all that different. The final level, Murasame Castle itself, brings with it a different tileset and a new set of enemies, but it's too little too late. It's especially baffling considering this was a launch title for the FDS - the other three, Zelda, Metroid, and Kid Icarus, all boasted sprawling worlds with a ton of variety for the time, whereas I see no real reason for this not to have just gotten a normal cartridge release. In spite of all these gripes, though, I can't quite bring myself to hate it - maybe it's the music I'll probably be humming forever, or the goofy ninja sprites. It's a shame this never got any sequels, I could have easily seen it becoming a great franchise in a different timeline.
ZELDA NO DENSETSU: THE HYRULE FANTASY (RAN) (1986)
This is the first non-game media on my list, a single-issue manga published very soon after the game's original release. Only the first handful of pages have been translated, so from there I read a surprisingly detailed plot summary and just flipped through the rest of it for the art. It actually seems like a pretty good adaptation to have been so early on - most of the bosses and characters from the original game are pretty well represented here, most amusingly the old man who gives Link the sword seated between two torches in a pitch-black room, but there are a handful of oddities, like flying Octoroks. Unsurprisingly there's a bunch of new content added to pad things out - Link meets a local monster hunter who is later killed by Stalfos, befriends a village boy, ends up leading a peasant uprising against Ganon, that sort of thing. Link has a wisecracking parrot sidekick named Watto/Watt for some reason, and in an oddly prescient move he uses a slingshot before receiving his sword. I'm honestly a bit disappointed by how non weird this is, but looking at my list we've got plenty of bizarre pre-OoT interpretations of Hyrule to get through anyway.
Next up on my list: Zelda 2! I'm actually quite fond of this game and have played through it several times already, so I'm using this excuse to finally check out the Redux patch. I'll be back with my thoughts on that, as well as its manga and the Zelda Game & Watch, once I'm through with them.
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