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News 
The Legend of Zelda
- Posted By Eric
Tajchman, 03.17.2003
In 1987, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES, Famicom in Japan) was still breaking into the American market. By late 1988, the popularity of Nintendo’s system had reached staggering proportions. The once-devastating rise and fall of Atari and the unstable industry it established had been nearly forgotten as developers learned from the mistakes of their predecessors. In fact, just about everyone associated with electronics was reaping the benefits of this huge Japan-based cash cow. This sudden boost in popularity was largely contributed to two games released that year, “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out” and “The Legend of Zelda.”
In “The Legend of Zelda” you play as Link, a sword-swinging magic-wielding elf who is called upon to gather the pieces of a mystical relic called the Triforce, defeat the evil-encompassing wizard, Ganon, and rescue the fair maiden, Zelda, the princess of Hyrule. But, unlike other games of that time, the Legend of Zelda was much more non-linear. Instead of a two-direction side-scroller like Super Mario Bros., the Legend of Zelda was a free-roaming multidirectional game where the player could move in any compass direction. Players could also use a variety of different weapons and items to journey through the game, while most other games were without any variation among controls or items. Players also journeyed through puzzle-ridden dungeons finding keys, unlocking doors, obtaining special items, and battling large, intimidating bosses.
Aside from the innovative gameplay, the Legend of Zelda also used revolutionary technology. The game pak was the first to implement an internal battery instead of the commonly-used password system, allowing the player to simply switch off the game and turn it back on and start at the same level without inputting long passwords or starting over from the beginning. The game pak itself also required more megabits to run than any other game before. Finally, to top it off, the game pak was housed in a shiny gold cartridge, starting a series trend that remains a favorite of fans today.
 
But the basis of the Legend of Zelda came from Shigeru Miyamoto’s own childhood and the many adventures he had. The emphasis on exploration in the Legend of Zelda is based largely on Miyamoto’s own exploration around his home near Kyoto, in a rural town called Sonebe. The surrounding land was Miyamoto’s playground where he hiked, fished, and created his own adventures. One of these adventures was stumbling upon a lake while hiking. He had never imagined a lake being there, and he wanted to evoke the same feeling in his games that he felt whenever he discovered the lake.
Much of the inspiration for Zelda can also be traced back to great literary works. Whenever Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi first assigned Miyamoto to create a game back in 1980, Miyamoto said he did not want to create the derivative shooter or Ping-Pong games common at the time. Instead, he wanted to produce games based on legends, fairy tales, and mythology. One of his favorite legends was that of Jason and the Argonuats, where the hero Jason and his followers traveled across the expansive world, battling weird and exotic creature and overcoming many superhuman obstacles. It’s easy to see the similarities between Jason and the Argonauts and the Legend of Zelda.
When the game was released in Japan, it was in instant hit among gamers. However, despite its success in Japan, there was a chance the game would not be released in America. When Nintendo of America President, Minoru Arakawa, received the first prototypes of the game for playtesting, he thought the game too complicated for Americans to grasp. For one thing, the game was in Japanese, and featured more text than most games of the time. NOA used Japanese-speaking workers to translate the game for playtesters whenever text appeared. Also, it took much longer for people to warm up to it, as this was not the ordinary pick-up-and-play game that characterized a majority of titles. However, the play mechanics and puzzles were so innovative and fun that Arakawa approved the project for American release, but as a precaution added a toll-free telephone numbers for players to call if they had any difficulties. This number eventually became the famous Nintendo Power Line.
From a single 152-pixel character came the foundation for one of the most praised and revered series of all time. Those 152-pixels of elfin might struggled through a large, sprawling world which many had never before imagined and traversed perilous dangers, defeated evil brutes and beasts, overcame obstacles of almost mythological proportions, and found his way into the hearts of millions of people around the world.
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