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Merry Christmas, everyone! We've got something special for you today: a prototype of Zelda no Densetsu, better known to most of us as The Legend of Zelda.
This is an early build of the original FDS version of Zelda, complete with different room layouts, sprite changes, new music, and odd glitches. As a lot of you guys know, it's very unusual for first party prototypes like this to make their way out to the public, so this is quite a find.
This build shows how the initial design of Zelda was notably less difficult than what we ended up playing on our NESes (and Famicoms). Practically all of the gameplay changes from this build to the final were made to make the game more challenging:
The prototype, pictured on the left, tends to use an easier selection of enemies than the final, seen on the right. Frequently the enemies are fewer in number in the prototype as well. Money is considerably easier to come by, too, as you can see from Link's maxed out rupies.
Some early designs for the monsters can be seen in this prototype also. For example, notice how the Pols Voice didn't initially have whiskers:
All of the known changes in this prototype, including altered gameplay mechanics and new game over music, have been documented in extreme detail and will be posted over at The Cutting Room Floor.
I always find early prototypes to be interesting, to see what they changed in the game etc.
