Why traveling the unfamiliar path and getting lost was actually a good thing.
With the NES my sword and Super Mario Bros. my symbol of courage, I was now prepared to venture out into the world and brave the unknown in search of new treasures. The first stop on the journey--the "Level 1" in this newly initiated life quest--had already been marked on my map: It was 1051 73rd Street, where lived my aunt and grandmother. That Christmas, they'd be waiting for me there with sacred artifacts in hand.
This was truly something out of the ordinary. For as long as I'd been alive, it had always been that we'd spend Christmas Day at home and celebrate the holiday by treating our friends and relatives to a big dinner and inviting them to partake in a number of fun activities. But today was different; for the first time ever, we were breaking from this tradition because my aunt believed that it was finally time to return the favor--to invite us over to her house and treat us to a Christmas Day celebration!
Well, OK--I wasn't exactly thrilled about the change in setting, since I loved the home atmosphere and considered it to be an essential piece of any Christmas celebration (not to mention that our house was a hell of a lot bigger than theirs and could accommodate much-larger gatherings), but I didn't see any use in whining about the situation. "Whatever," I thought; the scale wouldn't be quite the same, no, but I was still going to be in a good place surrounded by people I loved.
It worked out, though, that the events that developed on 73rd Street that day would forever resonate with me and for that matter come to form some of my fondest Christmas memories.
I can recall each moment, like how I began to reap rewards immediately upon arriving: As I entered their home, my aunt and my grandmother greeted me with wishes of a Merry Christmas and promptly extended their arms out to me; each was holding what was clearly an NES-box-sized gift in her hand. I graciously received these offerings and took them over to the dining room table, whereupon I excitedly tore off the gifts' wrapping. Doing so revealed two contrastingly hued prizes: One was the silver-colored Metroid, with which I was only vaguely familiar, and the other was the shiny-gold The Legend of Zelda, which was more recognizable to me because I'd sampled it in the past.
My immediate reactions were typical of the 1980s-era me: I was very much eager to start digging my claws into The Legend of Zelda, the recognized property, but not so much into Metroid, to which I had no connection; I looked over its box cover with only the mildest of interest.
Though, I had no time to further explore my thoughts (nor did I have time to continue wondering about how my aunt and grandmother had miraculously gained foreknowledge of my NES ownership and somehow knew to buy me NES games for Christmas, not making the obvious deduction that my parents could have, you know, simply called them up and told them about it) because our hosts announced that the hors d'oeuvres were ready, and thereafter we'd be devoting all of our attention to food, conversation and the usual poker games.
Still, while I was highly invested in the festivities, as I'd always been, I couldn't help but occasionally retreat inward and momentarily give myself over to the persistently surfacing thoughts of an upcoming December 26th wherein I'd finally have all the free time necessary to start fully enjoying my new console and these intriguing new games! It was going to be an amazing time, I knew.
And that it was. I spent the rest of my Christmas vacation--a glorious seven-day period--forming an intimate connection with my NES and its wonderfully alluring games, whose power was such that they were actively changing my life's trajectory. Suddenly a whole new world was spreading out before me, both in the commercial sense and in terms of what the games were endeavoring to display on my 20-inch Sony-brand television. More than any other, it was The Legend of Zelda that truly encapsulated this phenomenon, the 8-bit adventure classic able to play a dual role in formally introducing me to a new breed of console game and serving as a portal into Hyrule's magical, mysterious world.
For sure, I liked it a hell of a lot more than I did Metroid, which left me feeling mystified. As it lacked for the context of an established genre, I couldn't get any sense for what it was or what it wanted me to do. Zelda, on the other hand, had the benefit of resembling Adventure (one of my Atari 2600 favorites), with its item-procuring and screen-to-screen movement, which rendered it instantly accessible. But Metroid had no such progenitor--nothing that might have prepared me for its particular brand of exploratory action; it was simply impenetrable, so I had no misgivings about setting it aside and instead focusing my energy on Zelda, which had already succeeded in capturing my imagination and was actively satisfying my adventure-game craving; that week, I split my time between both it and Super Mario Bros., two games that I could sense were connected in spirit.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of the essential aspects of my introduction to The Legend of Zelda: the unpacking and assessing of its box's contents. I remember how it was when I removed the available items from that golden box and found myself instantly taken with the game's wonderfully designed manual--a bulky 48-page handbook that supplied an exhaustive amount of information. I mean, really: It explained the game's backstory in great detail and therein laid out the histories of the main characters: Link, Zelda, Impa and Ganon. It provided cool illustrations and interesting descriptions for each and every one of the game's weapons, items and enemies. And, in an aesthetic touch that endowed the manual with an additional touch of character, it offered a number of somewhat-helpful hints as highlighted in the pink boxes that ran across the bottom portions of certain pages.
I tell you, man: I absolutely loved this manual. I must've read through it thirty or forty times over the years. If ever I had to kill time before dinner or if I was just simply bored, I'd bust out the Zelda manual (which I stored in the bottom-left drawer of my room's mirrored dresser along with all of the other game manuals and pack-ins) and read it from cover to cover. Over time, its pages came loose and grew more and more tattered--mostly as a result of my carelessly stuffing it into a drawer and piling about 100 other manuals on top of it (since I always stacked them in alphabetical order)--yet it resiliently held itself together and continued to serve as a reliable source of entertainment.
But there was nothing more wondrous than the The Legend of Zelda, itself. Indeed it was my portal into a whole new world--one that had the power to stir my imagination and inspire me to wonder. I could explore and analyze it at my leisure--meticulously search every screen and attempt to uncover all of Hyrule's secrets.
It was true that a small portion of the game had been spoiled for me, since I'd watched my friend Dominick tackle at least two dungeons and traverse a fair bit of the map, but still a huge chunk of it was unknown to me; still there was much to discover.
The problem, I learned, was that there was a certain opacity to Zelda's mode of progression. The next level or item could be hidden literally anywhere, and it was typical that there'd be no clear indication as to where you should look. The majority of the time, I'd be completely lost for direction. And in the great many instances when there was no obvious path forward, I had to rely on the type of mystery-unraveling processes that defined this era of gaming. Mainly, I had to burn every bush, push up against every block, and bomb of every section of wall on every screen. Hell--there were times when I'd be stuck even after (seemingly) exhausting every possibility; in any such instance, I'd have to resort to seeking advice from my friends and classmates (I'm certain that it was Dominick who taught me the correct methods for successfully advancing through the Lost Woods and accessing Level 5).
But becoming hopelessly lost in the wilds of Hyrule wasn't a bad thing. No--it was a foundational element of the Zelda experience. It was what helped you to form an everlasting emotional connection to its world. It was what made each new discovery feel like a special event. I'll never forget the feelings of elation that would consume me whenever I'd uncover a hidden shop; randomly awaken an Armos Knight only to discover that it was concealing a staircase or, say, a Power Bracelet; or find a Heart Container in a cave beneath an unassuming tree.
I spent countless hours of my Christmas break utterly engrossed in The Legend of Zelda. It was a magical time; for certain, that week as one of the most memorable in my gaming history. Really, it was the first time that I felt like I was part of something bigger--that I was part of a movement when it was at its most relevant. It didn't matter that I was late to the party with Zelda, which was released more than a year earlier, because back then the party always seemed to be ongoing. The world didn't move as quickly as it does now, so there was little disparity between the mid- and late-80s eras; what was hot then was still hot currently, as it time were frozen. Though, I do feel somewhat regretful for being tardy, since coming on late prevented me from partaking in a collective first experience--from playing it on day one, at the same time all of my friends were starting their respective journeys. I would have liked to compare notes with them and share in their moments of discovery.
Oh well. At least I got to share the game with them in some capacity. Watching each other play through it while engaging in banter always proved to be fun. Even better were any of those times when we'd play it together--when we'd alternate control, each person taking a dungeon and finishing up all of the between-level tasks before handing over the controller. Really, those made for some of my favorite memories of Zelda. I wish we'd done it more often.
But Zelda made its strongest impact when my interaction with it was more-personal--when I could give it my undivided attention and fully immerse myself in its world; when I could listen to it, observe it, and interpret its messages. It was in those moments when I could most appreciate how Zelda used aural and visual signals to influence how the player would approach exploring the map; the game's environments were so effective at conveying their associated levels of danger--subtly so, in most cases--and evoking specific emotions.
I would, for instance, become filled with apprehension anytime I'd travel near the middle-left portion of the map, since I knew that soon I'd be approaching that starkly white mountain region whose lower half was domain to those fearsome Lionels, who could kill me with a single hit. It was especially scary to navigate into and around this area early on in the game, when I only had four or five units of health, yet that's what I always did; I had to if I wanted to collect the Power Bracelet as part of my pre-dungeon item-collecting campaign (on which I'll elaborate in a bit).
I'd experience a similar level of anxiety whenever I'd travel up to map's north-most region--to the highest point of Death Mountain. I didn't want to go near this place if I didn't have to, and if ever I did wander on into it, I'd make it a priority to get the hell out as quickly as possible. Hell--I'd feel a bit distressed even when I was standing idle a Death Mountain screen on which there was no activity; that was the measure of the visuals' intimidation factor, the mountain's roughly carved, unsettlingly irregular walls, with their harshly projected reddish-brown hue, always able to arouse feelings of trepidation. If I was heading to Death Mountain, I was doing so for one reason and one reason only: to access Level 9. I could find no other possible justification for wanting to be there.
And then there were the dungeons, whose dreary environments and creepy, unnerving musical theme worked to create a pervasively uneasy atmosphere and keep me in a state of stress. The music, really, was the chief contributor when it came to establishing the dungeons' tenor. More so than their visuals or their associated enemies, it was the dungeons' hauntingly ominous tune that did the most to shape their personality and distinguish them from the game's exterior portions: Where the invigorating overworld theme would always imbue me with adventurous spirit, the disquieting, sinister-sounding dungeon theme created an air of oppression whose purveyance gave me the sense that these spaces were naturally hazardous--that I was somehow under assault even when I was idling about an empty room. It would be a bad idea, I felt, to stick around these places longer than necessary.
Also making a profound impact was a particular bit of innovative sound design--specifically how menacing roars would begin to resound whenever you'd enter a room that was adjacent to the boss' chamber. These battle cries would never fail to exacerbate my feelings of stress--sharply heighten my sense of looming danger. It was such an effective way of inducing feelings of alarm while communicating important information. I'd never seen (or heard, rather) anything like it in a game.
But no tune could induce feelings of fear quite like Level 9's, whose exclusive composition was just downright demonic-sounding. I'd be overcome by feelings of panic and dread whenever I'd attempt to navigate my way through Ganon's labyrinthine hellhouse, which would have me running in circles for hours, my movements always a combination of unsystematic and frenzied. Never would it become a place that didn't arouse such feelings--a place where for a moment I could feel at ease. It didn't help that Level 9 featured the nastiest of enemy clusters, the most confusing wall-bombing puzzles (oh, and what a helpless feeling it is when you're down to two or three bombs and there are somewhere around 150 potential bombing locations), and the most annoying sub-boss: Patra, whose swarm of orbiting protectors could cut you down in seconds if you got reckless.
It was rough in there, man.
Thirty years later, I still shudder when I think about that place.
I don't remember if it took me days or weeks, but eventually I discovered all of the game's secrets--all of the hidden entrances and stairways that could be uncovered by burning bushes, bombing walls and pushing blocks--and completed The Legend of Zelda. I have a very clear memory of my final push toward Ganon--of my final trek through Level 9. It was one of pure survival; I recall how my heart was racing as I entered that final room with only little health remaining. I have a vivid memory of the fight's culmination--of how cathartic it felt when I delivered the Silver Arrow shot that reduced the weakened, prone pig demon to ashes. I knew, in that moment, that I'd accomplished something special--that I was now a part of an elite club (back then, after all, people considered Zelda to be a very difficult game).
It was grand.
And I'd done it largely on my own, which is quite a feat when you take into account that the game offers almost none in the way of clear direction. It wasn't that Zelda didn't want to provide helpful clues, no, but that it couldn't, because Nintendo's localization just didn't seem to give a damn; its translations were completely indecipherable. This lack of effort produced one of the game's greatest challenges: figuring out what all of these NPC characters were trying to tell me! Considering what I was being given, how was I supposed to know what the "Grumble, Grumble..." guy wanted or that I could walk through the upper wall in the room located at the map's northeast tip? I mean, seriously: What were those old men talking about? "10th enemy has the bomb," one of them says. Well, what enemy? And where?
Did any of these places of which they spoke actually exist? The secret is "in the tip of the nose"? The old man "at the top of the waterfall"? A "peninsula" holds the secret?
"What peninsula?" I'd wonder. "And what the hell is a 'peninsula'?!" What--were they expecting me to have paid attention in school or something? Screw that--I had my custom-designed Double Dare obstacle courses to draw!
So I couldn't rely on them for help, no. Instead, I did what was common in that era: I'd seek advice from people who had a lot of experience with the game. Dominick, in particular, taught me a lot about it. He explained to me how to successfully navigate through the Lost Woods, as mentioned. He showed me where I could find one or two of the hidden Heart Containers. And he demonstrated for me how you could quickly produce large amounts of loot by spawning multiple Ghinis and promptly vanquishing all of them at once by killing the ringleader.
No one was going to figure all of this stuff out on his or her own, we thought. And this caused us to wonder about how anyone could. And if it was possible, how would they ever do it in under, say, a month? Someone had to have done it, though. I mean, as did every other neighborhood in the country, ours had a legend about a video-game savant who "bought the game, day one, and finished it in under two hours."
I would have asked for his help had I been able to find any sign of him. Really, none of us were ever able to locate him. He must have been hiding atop the waterfall near the tip of the nose.
But bonding with Dominick over the game was always fun. One of the more memorable aspects of our co-op and spectator sessions was how we engaged in banter and therein inspired each other to think in new ways. It was these exchanges that came to define our shared Zelda experience; and they'd be forever recurring. I remember, for instance, the scene that was likely to repeat whenever either of us would travel over to the right side of the map--to the eastern seaboard, whose visually appealing oceanic environment and wonderfully ambient whooshing sounds combined to render an area we were always keen to visit and absorb. There was a screen in which a heart container was positioned on the second fragment of a fractured pier (reaching it required using the ladder to cross over the watery gaps); above it was an identically designed room that held no such treasure, which led me to wonder about why it was even included. It was then that Dominick would remark, jokingly, that it was "well, uh, for decoration!" before suggesting to me that it was probably a case of the designers "saving space" by recycling assets. Until then, I wasn't able to come up with a solid explanation for why they always did such things.
Thanks, Dom! You taught me quite a lot!
That's how it was: You'd spend so much time in Zelda's world that it would become a part of who you were. Over the months and years, you'd form an unbreakable connection with it. Every screen would come to mean something to you; each would forever have a memory attached to it, be it a recollection of a conversation you used to have with a friend or a conjured mental image that would remind you of what was going on in your life at the time. And you'd spend so many hours listening to that iconic overworld theme that it would become permanently embedded in your brain; from there it would continue to play--become the perfect accompaniment to your thoughts during any moment of reminiscence.
And these were the building blocks of the classic Zelda experience. These were the moments that would form the everlasting memories of the time you and your friends spent exploring the magical world of Hyrule. Each was an essential piece.
Even years later--at a time when video games had become larger, prettier and ever-more-complex--it was still the manageably designed, visually modest Zelda to which I'd return whenever I needed an adventure fix. And each time I'd be excited to explore its 128-screens'-worth of nostalgically imbued, imagination-stoking forests, valleys, coastlines and mountain ranges. I'd look forward to entering the atmosphere-rich dungeons (well, any of those not populated by Wizrobes and Darknuts of the blue-colored variety) and embracing their challenges. Well, OK--I wasn't exactly in a rush to start my dungeon-crawling escapades, no; those residual feelings of apprehension were significant enough to dissuade me from entering Level 1 until I'd first acquired every item you could possibly get prior to taking the plunge (Blue Candle, Power Bracelet, White Sword, Magical Shield, Arrows, Bait, Blue Ring, and three Heart Containers).
So I liked to play it safe. Sue me.
The Legend of Zelda became the first example of what I liked to call a "Sunday game," named as such because that was the day when playing it felt most appropriate. That was the day when my grandfather--and sometimes other company--would come over for dinner and spend some fun-filled hours with us. And then at around 6:00 p.m.--when the sky would begin to darken and the adults would shift over to the dining room, wherein they'd engage in the comparatively uninteresting (read: boring) "grown-up" conversations--I'd head up to my room and load up Zelda. And for the next two or three hours, I'd merrily adventure my way around and across the game's wondrous 8-bit world, fueled by the spirit of family.
That's been the tradition ever since. Whenever I return to Zelda, I always make sure that my calendar (these days, the one on my desktop's toolbar) says "Sunday." That's when playing it feels oh-so-right.
Now, I've always had a strong aptitude for memorizing large game maps and item locations, but I have to admit that it's common for a fair amount of Zelda's secrets (typically the uncovered dwellings wherein friendly Moblins reward you with rupees and otherwise confuse you with their unintentionally cryptic "It's a secret to everybody" utterances) to escape my recollection. Then it's like 1988 all over again, and I have to start burning every bush in sight--even when I'm on a given screen and have a clear memory of it containing a burnable bush; it's never the one I think. And I tell you, man: To this day, I still inexplicably struggle to locate the entrance to Level 2 even though I know that it's positioned on the map's center-east portion. "I have to be a top-flight idiot," I think to myself as I fruitlessly circle the same eight or nine screens and wonder what I'm missing.
But you know what? I'm fine with not remembering every little detail. In all honesty, I prefer that I don't. That is, I don't wish for playing through Zelda to become a mere exercise. I don't want for it to become a game wherein you can't become lost or bewildered. So it's better that I forget--that Zelda retain its air of mystery and adventure. It's better that I'm left feeling as though its world is still hiding secrets that I've yet to find even after 30 years.
You'd think, then, that I'd be drawn to the "Second Quest" (a term Zelda coined), which kicks up the difficulty and alters the locations of the item rooms and dungeons, all of which sport new designs. I mean, talk about a brilliant way to keep a game feeling fresh!
Unfortunately, though, I've never been particularly enamored with the Second Quest, and I've mostly avoided playing through it. It's always been my feeling that the Second Quest is a bad combination of exasperating and opaque, with its huge, nasty enemy clusters and its over-reliance on the walking-through-walls mechanic, which you have to put to heavy use if you hope to find all of the dungeons and traverse your way through them. When the game's mode of progress already entails your having to burn every bush, bomb every wall, and push every block, the addition of having to test every wall for incorporeality ranks in as pure excess; it's just too much. Also, my disposition is such that I've never been keen on the idea of challenging rearranged modes or harder difficulties (except, of course, in Mega Man 2, whose "Difficult" mode is the true default difficulty, the mode forced to wear a disguise for a rather ignorant reason). It's not that I want to cheat myself out of extra content, no. It's just that I'm usually content with the main game--the part that constitutes the developer's original vision.
So it's exceptionally rare that I get the itch to play through the Second Quest. On average, I play through it about, oh, once a decade.
Though, thinking about it in the context of this piece, maybe I shouldn't overlook the Second Quest. Maybe it would make more sense for me to abandon this mindset or at least alter it somewhat. I mean, isn't that the point I've been trying to make--that venturing away from the beaten path can sometimes be a good thing? Isn't that what The Legend of Zelda is all about?
That's a matter upon which I should probably reflect.
In general, I revisit The Legend of Zelda about once every three or four years (though, I've been returning to it with greater frequency these last few years--at a time when I've been growing more and more passionate about older games). I come back to it because its gameplay never fails to enrapture me and because it has the power to transport me back in time--remind me of the old days, when we used to explore game worlds with wit and imagination our only guiding force. When a game would toss you out into the wild and leave you to your own devices--let you figure everything out on your own. It gives me exactly what I'm looking for--a kind of experience that modern developers simply don't care to provide.
As I play around with my 3DS Ambassador copy of Zelda, I'm reminded of how truly open and nonrestrictive the game is--how easy it is to jump right in and start exploring--compared to the more-modern series titles, which are intent on talking you to death and delaying the start of your adventure, and therein the brandishing of a simple sword, for as long as humanly possible. Now, I'm not suggesting that game design shouldn't evolve and that we should go back to the days when progression was a matter of burning every bush and bombing every wall, no; all I'm asking is that Nintendo understand why everyone fell in love with this series in the first place. The answer is right there, in The Legend of Zelda.
We don't want for the experience to be shackled by complex narratives and excessively long, obtrusive cut-scenes. We're not interested in traveling a straight line to the end. We don't want you to hold our hands every step of the way.
Rather, we desire for our acts of exploration and discovery to be the "story," for our uninhibited exploits to be the "adventure," and for our unassisted slaying of Ganon to be the "victory."
What we're looking for is freedom.
It's dangerous to go alone, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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