Last night I decided to play the original Zelda for the first time. I had never done it! It was an interesting experience.
I started playing and wandered around for about 10 minutes. It struck me how open the game actually was. Since I bought it on Virtual Console and did not get the original box and manual, the game's introduction was pretty perplexing. You just get dropped into this pretty big world and you get to wander around. So I wandered around! I thought this was pretty challenging, as I was struggling to find some rupees to buy bombs and stay alive. Heart drops are not nearly as common as they are in Zelda nowadays...
After that, I got pretty frustrated just wandering around, so I pulled up a map. I followed that pretty closely and managed to get my heart containers to about five, and I got a better sword, a better shield, and lots of money. This made the game much more enjoyable. Bombing and burning random spots on the map was pretty weird-- I understand that they were going for discovery, but sometimes I felt like things were pushed a little too far in that direction (burn the fifth bush of the third row, etc).
I went to the first dungeon. The first Zelda I have played was Zelda 3, so I expected the dungeons to be pretty similar. I guess they aren't so much! Before I got bored, I managed to complete the first four dungeons. They're not really very puzzle oriented. You can generally walk around and whack things and get through the dungeons. Cool dungeon music. Got a bunch of the familiar Zelda items, like a boomerang, a bow, and...a raft? That was new.
Overall, fun experience, but I ended up getting a little bored. Seemed like the game could be completed in a few hours if you knew where you were going. I think it might be pretty frustrating without a guide telling you to bomb random things and throw whatever into various fountains.
I started playing and wandered around for about 10 minutes. It struck me how open the game actually was. Since I bought it on Virtual Console and did not get the original box and manual, the game's introduction was pretty perplexing. You just get dropped into this pretty big world and you get to wander around. So I wandered around! I thought this was pretty challenging, as I was struggling to find some rupees to buy bombs and stay alive. Heart drops are not nearly as common as they are in Zelda nowadays...
After that, I got pretty frustrated just wandering around, so I pulled up a map. I followed that pretty closely and managed to get my heart containers to about five, and I got a better sword, a better shield, and lots of money. This made the game much more enjoyable. Bombing and burning random spots on the map was pretty weird-- I understand that they were going for discovery, but sometimes I felt like things were pushed a little too far in that direction (burn the fifth bush of the third row, etc).
I went to the first dungeon. The first Zelda I have played was Zelda 3, so I expected the dungeons to be pretty similar. I guess they aren't so much! Before I got bored, I managed to complete the first four dungeons. They're not really very puzzle oriented. You can generally walk around and whack things and get through the dungeons. Cool dungeon music. Got a bunch of the familiar Zelda items, like a boomerang, a bow, and...a raft? That was new.
Overall, fun experience, but I ended up getting a little bored. Seemed like the game could be completed in a few hours if you knew where you were going. I think it might be pretty frustrating without a guide telling you to bomb random things and throw whatever into various fountains.
