The Legend of Zelda: A Retrospective
It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this.
Words iconic to one particular story. A tale of a princess, a knight, and a dark presence destined to relive their fateful battle in a never-ending cycle. Complete with castles, a world drowned under an ocean, cities lifted to the soaring skies, train tracks to new worlds, and twilight. Of silver arrows, ocarinas, talking bird hats, and the Master Sword.
It’s all part of The Legend of Zelda.
What has made Zelda such a powerhouse franchise for over 35 years? Is it the plethora of games to choose from? The way it has pushed innovations within its medium? The variety of different Hyrules or new worlds to explore? The accessibility for old, new, and young fans to enjoy? The lore? The characters? The story?
Yes.
All of the above.
And so much more!
I never played many video games when I was growing up as we didn’t have that much money. Anything I had was shared with my sister. As she was my older sister, she tended to lord over our shared Sega Genesis or Gameboy. I often found myself watching her play out adventures instead of partaking in them. Though perhaps that’s where I got a taste for watching Let’s Plays on YouTube.
Then one day, my friend got an N64 with a handful of games for Christmas. As avid Pokémon fans in elementary school, we of course spent a good chunk of our time battling our favorite pocket monsters in a 3D stadium or snapping the best pictures we could of them. Every week, it became one of our rituals.
During one weekend sleepover after we beat Pokémon Snap for the hundredth time, she offered a new choice, saying, “I have this other game if you want to play it. It’s a lot of fun!” Popping in the cartridge, she turned the game system on and handed me the controller.
On her small tv screen, the N64 logo came up. Then, that piano tune now so familiar to me began to play. As the moon set, the sounds of horse hooves grew louder. A figure in green rode in the morning light on his noble steed. As I soared overhead, a great castle rose in the distance. A mountain on the horizon wafted rings of smoke, dormant but ominous. Then finally, I soared into the woods where my journey began.
During all of this, the title The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time hovered on the screen.
I was hooked immediately. I’d never seen anything like it before! The graphics were so revolutionary that it was like I was playing out a movie where I was the hero. I quickly fell in love with Link, this brave child meeting the call to adventure. His struggles aging seven years to discover the world he loves destroyed. His home taken over. The shock of Sheik revealing themself to be Zelda in disguise. The epic final battle in the midst of the raging storm as I defeated Ganondorf on top of Hyrule Castle. Crying over my precious boy being sent back to his own time. This game had everything I loved in it!
It was always the story of Zelda that grabbed me. On its surface, it’s pretty simple. You’re the hero. Save the princess. Save the world from evil. But what makes Zelda so great is the accessibility of the narrative as well as the variety. With over twenty games, both official titles, side stories, and even those CD-i adventures, all of which have their own Link to guide, there is a Zelda game for everyone.
It also allows for many different kinds of play styles. Some people just play the adventure. Go in. Kick butt. Beat Ganon, Vaati, Demise, whoever is the bad guy! Finish the game and move on. There are also speedrunners who I am in awe of! They are amazing! There are also people like me who want to see every single nook and cranny the world has to offer. I actually don’t care about fighting in Zelda games. My friend jokingly calls me a “pacifist Zelda player.” Heck, I finished the entirety of the “From the Ground Up” side quest in Breath of the Wild before I ever fought my first divine beast!
Instead, I adore exploring the world. I love talking to all the characters. Maybe I want to see what Groose and his gang are up to. Perhaps help Anju and Kafei reunite in the final moments of Termina before the world ends. Help Agitha find all of her bugs. Or in a more recent favorite, enjoy watching Bolson and his little found family of construction workers help rebuild a calamity-filled kingdom one square house at a time. There is no one right way to play these games.
The lore is a beautiful one too allowing for a variety of fans to flourish. I look at something like Breath of the Wild and all of the Easter eggs from every single game, all of the timelines represented, and I fall in love with this franchise all over again. Sure, I’m not the most deep-diving fan even though the Zelda Timeline is the exact kind of messy narrative I love in stories. Deep dives are better saved for the superfan YouTubers like Hyrule Gamer, Zeltik, and Masked Nintendo Bandit (all of whom I adore). But these games are not daunting either allowing the most casual fan to enjoy them too. It goes back to that simple story of a knight and a princess versus great evil. It’s what makes Zelda so timeless.
In fact, one of my favorite things is seeing new fans discover their first Zelda game. While I’ve been somewhat unsuccessful in converting my nephew, though he does love playing with Link in Super Smash Brothers so I’ll take my win where I can get it, new fans are constantly discovering the franchise. One recent example I’ve adored is YouTuber Dee Bee Geek diving into the games for the first time, starting with Breath of the Wild. His joy at every discovery filled me with such warmth. I screamed at my computer when important key steps were missed. I felt his pain at the bitter losses. Watching him truly captured those moments of nostalgia for me, rekindling those memories of the first time I heard that classic music on the N64. He helped make our Zelda community a little bit bigger with his own call to adventure.
We all have our personal favorites. My old college roommate has her yearly playthrough of Link’s Awakening, still on the Gameboy Color from her childhood. My best friend and her husband have slowly grown their collection of all the masks from Majora’s Mask. While Ocarina of Time will always be my first and holds a special place in my heart, I have fallen completely for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Yes! Yes! I know this opinion is in the minority, and I do acknowledge that Breath of the Wild is a better game!
But boy, do I love the story more in Age of Calamity. The characters I adore so much got a much richer narrative. It hit personal story tropes I love like the timey-wimey of timelines streams crossing. I get to play as my fish wife, Mipha, and my new wife, Impa. What’s better than that? I also adore the music, some of my favorite in the entire franchise. It took the mild themes of Breath of the Wild and cranked them up into epic remixes that live rent-free on my writing playlists. Heck, I’m listening to “Searching the Lost Woods (Enemy Outpost)” as I am writing this!
And that’s the best part. Again, there’s no one right way to Zelda. It could be the tiny Link trampling along on an NES console or discovering the open world of Breath of the Wild. Regardless, there’s a reason The Legend of Zelda franchise means so much to so many people. It’s timeless, beautiful, and has something for everyone.
So on its birthday, here’s to the next 36 years of Zelda, Link, and all of their friends.
