The Legend of Zelda

*“MANY YEARS AGO PRINCE DARKNESS "GANNON" STOLE ONE OF THE TRIFORCE WITH POWER. PRINCESS ZELDA HAD ONE OF THE TRIFORCE WITH WISDOM. SHE DIVIDED IT INTO 8 UNITS TO HIDE IT FROM "GANNON" BEFORE SHE WAS CAPTURED. GO FIND THE "8" UNITS "LINK" TO SAVE HER.”*

— Intro

## The Legend of Zelda

* NES
* BS-X

### Platform

Nintendo Entertainment System
BS-X

### Release dates

 February 21, 1986
 August 22, 1987

## Map

***The Legend of Zelda*** is the first installment in the *The Legend of Zelda* series, released in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and is succeeded by *The Adventure of Link*. The Hero of Hyrule is the main protagonist and Ganon is the main antagonist. Ganon's minions serve as the villainous faction.

It is the first game in the series, but it is the penultimate game set in the Downfall Timeline. Hyrule entered The Golden Era after Yuga-Ganon was defeated, in which the wise Hyrule monarchs used the Triforce to govern the land. After the king's death and the attempt of the Prince of Hyrule to assemble the complete Triforce, Hyrule was lead into the 'Era of Decline'. The Prince of Darkness, Ganon was revived, leading to the events of this game.

In 1995, the first game was remade for the NES available only via the Satellaview add-on for the SNES titled ***BS The Legend of Zelda***.

## Official Description

*A long, long time ago the World was in an age of Chaos.*

*In the midst of this chaos, in a little kingdom in the land of Hyrule, a legend was being handed down from generation to generation, the legend of the 'Triforce'; golden triangles possessing mystical powers. One day, an evil army attacked this peaceful little kingdom and stole the Triforce of Power. This army was led by Ganon, the powerful Prince of Darkness who sought to plunge the World into fear and darkness under his rule. Fearing his wicked rule, Zelda, the princess of this kingdom, split up the Triforce of Wisdom into eight fragments and hid them throughout the realm to save the last remaining Triforce from the clutches of the evil Ganon. At the same time, she commanded her most trustworthy nursemaid, Impa, to secretly escape into the land and go find a man with enough courage to destroy the evil Ganon. Upon hearing this, Ganon grew angry, imprisoned the princess, and sent out a party in search of Impa."*

*"Braving forests and mountains, Impa fled for her life from her pursuers. As she reached the very limit of her energy she found herself surrounded by Ganon's evil henchmen. Cornered! What could she do? ... But wait! All was not lost. A young lad appeared. He skillfully drove off Ganon's henchmen, and saved Impa from a fate worse than death."*

*"His name was Link. During his travels, he had come across Impa and Ganon's henchmen. Impa told Link the whole story of Princess Zelda and the evil Ganon. Burning with a sense of justice, Link resolved to save Zelda, but Ganon was a powerful opponent. He held the Triforce of Power. And so, in order to fight off Ganon, Link had to bring the scattered eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom together to rebuild the mystical triangle. If he couldn't do this, there would be no chance Link could fight his way into Death Mountain where Ganon lived.*

## Summary

The story of *The Legend of Zelda* is described in the instruction booklet and during the short prologue which plays after the title screen: A small kingdom in the land of Hyrule is engulfed by chaos when an army led by Ganon, the prince of darkness, invaded and stole the Triforce of Power, one part of a magical artifact which alone bestows great strength. In an attempt to prevent him from acquiring the Triforce of Wisdom, Princess Zelda splits it into eight fragments and hides them in secret underground dungeons. Before eventually being kidnapped by Ganon, she commands her nursemaid Impa to find someone courageous enough to save the kingdom. While wandering the land, the old woman is surrounded by Ganon's henchmen, when a young boy named Link appears and rescues her. Upon hearing Impa's plea, he resolves to save Zelda and sets out to reassemble the scattered fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom, with which Ganon can then be defeated.

During the course of the tale, Link locates and braves the eight underworld labyrinths, and beyond their defeated guardian monsters retrieves each fragment. With the completed Triforce of Wisdom, he is able to infiltrate Ganon's hideout in Death Mountain, confronting the prince of darkness and destroying him with the Silver Arrow. Obtaining the Triforce of Power from Ganon's ashes, Link returns it and the restored Triforce of Wisdom to the rescued Princess Zelda, and peace returns to Hyrule.

## Shards of the Triforce of Wisdom

The Hero of Hyrule's goal in *The Legend of Zelda* is to acquire the eight shards of the Triforce of Wisdom so that he may be strong enough to defeat the Prince of Darkness, Ganon. The shards have been scattered throughout all of Hyrule by Princess Zelda.

## Media & Spin-Offs

 Japanese
 USA

### Manga adaptations (1989)

There were three manga adaptations based on *The Legend of Zelda* released in 1986, one by Maru Ran, published in September 1986 by Wanpaku Comics in Japan, and the other by Kobayashi Susumu. Ran's manga begins as Princess Zelda is abducted and taken to Ganon's stronghold. Ganon, who speaks to her through a monolithic statue in his likeness, demands that Zelda surrenders the Triforce of Wisdom to him. Link then appears to her aid, alongside his parrot companion Watto. He defeats and drives the monsters off with his Slingshot, blinding their were-boar leader in the process by shooting a splattering seed. In her dying breath, Impa entrusts Link with a magic pendant and instructs that he find an Old Man living in a cave. As Link holds the pendant it gives off a brilliant light, signifying that he is the chosen one Impa hoped to find. Happy to have fulfilled her task, Impa again tells Link to find the Old Man and save Zelda before passing away. Ganon furiously demands his henchmen to find Link and kill him.

The third adaptation, drawn and written by Yuu Mishouzaki and was published in September 1989. In this manga adaption, Link is an apprentice gardener living in Hyrule Castle who has pointed ears due to him being half-elf. Impa is also drastically younger. An interesting detail about this manga is that it names Zelda's mother, also named Zelda, and gives them numerical denominations, telling us exactly which number Zelda they are. Zelda's mother is Zelda XVI (16th) which makes her the XVII (seventeenth.)

### *Zelda Game & Watch* (1998)

A multiscreen Game & Watch game that was only released in English as a stand-alone system pre-loaded with the single game. It has dual screens which fold in a clamshell design, similar to the Nintendo DS. As the eight dragons cannot live in peace with humans, they decide to take over the world. Eventually, they kidnap Princess Zelda and lock her in a dungeon which can only be opened with the Triforce. Each of the dragons is located in their own labyrinth, and each guards a different fragment of the Triforce. Link sets out to destroy all eight dragons and reassemble the Triforce to free Zelda from the dragons' dungeon. Once Link defeats the last dragon, he reassembles the Triforce and frees Zelda from her prison.

### *The Legend of Zelda Game Watch* (1998)

It is a top-down game loosely based on the original *The Legend of Zelda* and includes such familiar foes as Aquamentus and Keese (here referred to as dragon and bat, respectively), as well as the exclusive Iron Balls.The game consists of four dungeons with four rooms each. In each room, Link has to collect a boomerang to defeat the Iron Balls. After all Iron Balls are defeated, he can get a sword to defeat the Keese, which first appear in the second dungeon. As a reward, he gains a key to the next room. When entering it, though, he loses his found items and has to recollect them, and if he does not make it to the next room within ten seconds of grabbing the key, 10 points will be deducted every second until they reach 0, at which point the game is over. The last two rooms of every dungeon also have Hearts to replenish Link's health. Once all the enemies in the fourth room are dealt with, the dungeon's boss (which is always Aquamentus) appears. To defeat him, Link has to collect a bomb and place it in front of Aquamentus. Following his victory, a Triforce fragment appears, which allows Link access to the next dungeon. After collecting all four pieces of the Triforce the game resets to level one.

## Trivia

* *The Hyrule Fantasy* was used as a subtitle for the Japanese version of *The Legend of Zelda*; however, this was dropped in subsequent games as adding a third subtitle (such as *A Link to the Past*) would have made the title too long. This choice was also made to avoid comparisons with *Final Fantasy*.
* During development of the game, a rearrangement of Maurice Ravel's Boléro by Koji Kondo was used as the title theme. However, shortly before finishing the game, the developers learned that the song was still under copyright. Since they could not delay the release of the Disk System and the game itself, Kondo wrote the actual title theme in a single night.
* Most *The Legend of Zelda* cartridges are gold, but the Classic Series version of the game came in standard grey cartridges.
* The 1969 hit song "April" from the rock band Deep Purple is seen as an inspiration for Koji Kondo to create the title and dungeon themes of this game. It also has a slight basis for the Hyrule Castle theme in later games.
* This game was almost remade for the Game Boy Color, but was scrapped and reworked into *Oracle of Seasons*.

## Continuity

* Zelda I is the penultimate game in the Downfall Timeline. It takes place a few hundred years after the events of *Tri Force Heroes* and *A Link Between Worlds*. Sometime between these games, Ganon and Yuga unfused.
* The Spectacle Rock in this game was hinted at possibly being the same one from *Breath of the Wild*.
* Several locations return in this version of Hyrule, such as Death Mountain and the Lost Woods.
* This version of Hyrule is but a small portion of the map in its sequel, *The Adventure of Link*, and it is able to be ventured to by going to the furthest area south, below the Death Mountain area.
* In *Encyclopedia*, it tries to explain that this version of Hyrule takes place in the upper eastern corner of the map, however that makes almost no sense at all, so it is disregarded on this Wiki.
* The entrance to *Level 1: The Eagle* is speculated to possibly be the husk remains of the Great Deku Tree.
* Between *A Link Between Worlds* and this game, the Triforce split again.
	+ After Ganon is defeated in *A Link to the Past*, *Oracle of Seasons* and *Oracle of Ages* and in *A Link Between Worlds* where Link and Zelda recovered the Triforce from Yuga-Ganon, Hyrule entered The Golden Era, in which the wise Hyrule monarchs used the Triforce to govern the land. After the king's death and the attempt of the Prince of Hyrule to assemble the complete Triforce, Hyrule was lead into the 'Era of Decline'. The Prince of Darkness, Ganon was revived, leading to the events of *The Legend of Zelda*.
* Since Lake Hylia dried up and moved to the east in *A Link to the Past*, it since flooded again and Lake Hylia in this game has two basins.
	+ This would line up with the idea that *The Eagle*'s entrance was once the Deku Tree because the easternmost basin of the lake in this game was once where Kokiri Forest was in *Ocarina of Time*, although the tree husk is not present in *A Link to the Past*.