Hey everyone,
A week or so ago, I decided I wanted to replay a Zelda game. Then I remembered a friend of mine who played every generation of Pokemon up to Sun and Moon, which made me finally decide to attempt a playthrough of every Zelda game.
Here's a list of every Zelda game in release order. I'll play through every game, though I'm debating about 2, Four Swords, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks. *bolded are the ones I've completed at some point in my life*->
The Legend of Zelda (1986)
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)
A Link to the Past (1991)
Link's Awakening (1993/1998)
Ocarina of Time (1998)
Majora's Mask (2000)
Oracle of Ages (2001)
Oracle of Seasons (2001)
Four Swords (2002)
Wind Waker (2002)
Minish Cap (2004)
Twilight Princess (2006)
Phantom Hourglass (2007)
Spirit Tracks (2009)
Skyward Sword (2011)
A Link Between Worlds (2015)
Breath of the Wild (2017)
So of course, I had to start with the NES' The Legend of Zelda.
I actually just beat the main quest last night, so no post-by-post update on this one.
Despite how old the game is, I'm surprised how much the franchise kept from it. The monsters, the music, Link getting different colored clothes, most of the tools, the Great Fairy.... The oldest Zelda game I played prior to this one was A Link to the Past which had most of the above, but this game really solidified to me how established the series is with its several elements and motifs.
I did find the game frustrating slightly a bit past the halfway point. I had to use a walkthrough to find the dungeons already, but around level 5 or 6 I had to resort to using walkthroughs for the dungeons themselves. Perhaps it's because the game is old, but it seems partly made for an arcade machine considering how easy it got to use up bombs for example and sometimes outright having to leave the dungeon to buy more. Fighting Darknuts got awful at times too (though it's pretty awesome that their backsides are their weakspot even back in 1986).
The bosses were pretty easy, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The whole idea about Zelda bosses, I think, is that they're puzzles themselves. Not necessarily complicated puzzles, but puzzles regardless.
Also, I thought it was pretty crazy that you could walk out of a dungeon with keys and use those keys elsewhere. Some dungeons have more keys than you need to get to the boss, which means they have locked doors that lead to optional stuff.
And speaking of optional stuff, the way gear was found threw me off. Some tools seem to be straight up optional, but others are placed in areas that are kind of out of the way and they end up being necessary. An example of this is the bow. You find it in the first dungeon, but you don't need it at all up until the final fight with Ganon. The only way I even found the bow was because I figured I missed out on something in the first dungeon and decided to jump in again after killing the boss.
Legend of Zelda felt sort of like a top-down Metroid in a sense, but with a bit more random item placement. I'm not sure how people back in the day found all the items and upgrades without placing a bomb and burning every pixel in every screen.
Oh well. Link saved Zelda. A deed is done.
Yeah, Ganon kicked my ass as you can tell.
Right now, I'm trying to decide if I want to move onto Zelda II or A Link to the Past (might do the SNES version?). Zelda II would be next on the playthrough of the entire series (may as well be going in release order considering I started at the very beginning) but it's so starkly different from the rest of the series.
A week or so ago, I decided I wanted to replay a Zelda game. Then I remembered a friend of mine who played every generation of Pokemon up to Sun and Moon, which made me finally decide to attempt a playthrough of every Zelda game.
Here's a list of every Zelda game in release order. I'll play through every game, though I'm debating about 2, Four Swords, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks. *bolded are the ones I've completed at some point in my life*->
The Legend of Zelda (1986)
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)
A Link to the Past (1991)
Link's Awakening (1993/1998)
Ocarina of Time (1998)
Majora's Mask (2000)
Oracle of Ages (2001)
Oracle of Seasons (2001)
Four Swords (2002)
Wind Waker (2002)
Minish Cap (2004)
Twilight Princess (2006)
Phantom Hourglass (2007)
Spirit Tracks (2009)
Skyward Sword (2011)
A Link Between Worlds (2015)
Breath of the Wild (2017)
So of course, I had to start with the NES' The Legend of Zelda.
I actually just beat the main quest last night, so no post-by-post update on this one.
Despite how old the game is, I'm surprised how much the franchise kept from it. The monsters, the music, Link getting different colored clothes, most of the tools, the Great Fairy.... The oldest Zelda game I played prior to this one was A Link to the Past which had most of the above, but this game really solidified to me how established the series is with its several elements and motifs.
I did find the game frustrating slightly a bit past the halfway point. I had to use a walkthrough to find the dungeons already, but around level 5 or 6 I had to resort to using walkthroughs for the dungeons themselves. Perhaps it's because the game is old, but it seems partly made for an arcade machine considering how easy it got to use up bombs for example and sometimes outright having to leave the dungeon to buy more. Fighting Darknuts got awful at times too (though it's pretty awesome that their backsides are their weakspot even back in 1986).
The bosses were pretty easy, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The whole idea about Zelda bosses, I think, is that they're puzzles themselves. Not necessarily complicated puzzles, but puzzles regardless.
Also, I thought it was pretty crazy that you could walk out of a dungeon with keys and use those keys elsewhere. Some dungeons have more keys than you need to get to the boss, which means they have locked doors that lead to optional stuff.
And speaking of optional stuff, the way gear was found threw me off. Some tools seem to be straight up optional, but others are placed in areas that are kind of out of the way and they end up being necessary. An example of this is the bow. You find it in the first dungeon, but you don't need it at all up until the final fight with Ganon. The only way I even found the bow was because I figured I missed out on something in the first dungeon and decided to jump in again after killing the boss.
Legend of Zelda felt sort of like a top-down Metroid in a sense, but with a bit more random item placement. I'm not sure how people back in the day found all the items and upgrades without placing a bomb and burning every pixel in every screen.
Oh well. Link saved Zelda. A deed is done.
Yeah, Ganon kicked my ass as you can tell.
Right now, I'm trying to decide if I want to move onto Zelda II or A Link to the Past (might do the SNES version?). Zelda II would be next on the playthrough of the entire series (may as well be going in release order considering I started at the very beginning) but it's so starkly different from the rest of the series.
