I played Zelda 1 for the first time last year completely blind with no walkthrough and I thought it held up pretty well. I was expecting it to be an archaic nearly impossible to play game, but it felt like playing an alpha BotW.
I think that most of the game holds up well, but I particularly struggled with finding the Dungeons in the correct order, since there isn't any advice on where to go next.
It basically is.. Save for the weapons constantly breaking.. I oft wondered if they got the projectile sword idea from the 80's movie Sword & the Sorcerer
I'm always surprised how many people find this game very difficult. Always younger people who didn't experience arcade/nes era difficulty. I always found that the combat has a learning curve that gets extremely satisfying once you get better at taking out certain enemies. A great example is the very "boss" you point out as bad game design, when you lean to place a bomb at just the right place as it is chasing you and kill it in one hit it feels great. In my opinion the biggest thing that hurts zelda now for young people is it is a game that is best enjoyed by full immersion, and today offers so many better graphical alternatives it's just not realistic for people to play in the same way
I played the game on my own when I was a kid, completed it 100% and did write my own map of the overworld and dungeons. I mostly remember this game as a fun experience of exploration. Also as a kid in this period we didn't have anything to compare it to, so the difficulty was manageable, you just needed to learn the enemy walking patterns. That being said, I don't think I would enjoy it today, at least as mentioned in the video, not without a guide, because I couldn't spend time now drawing a new map 😂
3:58 Level 1 giving players the Boomerang and Bow 👀 7:17 Manhandlas are one of the easiest bosses in the game since you can drop a bomb in the middle of them and take out all four heads at once. Gohmas and Aquamentus can be one-shot in the eye and horn using the bow Seriously though Zelda 1 is definitely a "knowledge" game like the original Dark Souls. The more you memorize and learn about the secrets in Hyrule the more powerful you become and the more the game opens up and becomes more fun to play. From accidentally dying by touching a sentient statue in front of a dungeon... to discovering the Blue Ring shop and the Power Braclet for fast travel gave more of a rush than any other Zelda game in a while. Hell just deciding to mess with the Recorder was how I found out it lets you fast travel to nearby dungeons you've been to before
played this game a lot as a child when I was ~4 or 5 back in the early 90's, Beat it quite a few times. It is strange to hear it being called difficult; though hearing a younger person's take on it is interesting,
Hey, I see you with the room full of darknuts, but in every other case LoZ is a terrifically designed game. Most of the enemies and bosses you struggled with have a particular weakness to exploit, and every mandatory secret in the game is hinted at. The game also came with a manual and a mostly completed map of the overworld. As for the exploration, few games even today do an open world better. The early dungeons are out in the open patrolled by weak enemies, and the later ones take more searching for but hints are provided. It's tough, but not unfair. Except for those darknuts. 😄
there were tactics and strategies that made the boss fights pretty easy. for example, the boss in the 3rd palace with the 4 pincers and bullet hell died from 1 well placed bomb. i remember playing this as when it first came out and i was maybe 4 or 5. it was an easy game. i come back to it now as it's a challenge only because modern games are so bubblewrapped and dumbed down, leading the player through by the nose that they provide very little entertainment value or challenge to me.
The thing about all of those dated qualities of the game (outside of hardware stuff) is that they are all more or less applicable to Dark Souls or Bloodborne. Much of the innovations of Soulsborne were callbacks to games like the first Zelda, especially the extremely archaic secrets that no one in a million years would find unless they looked it up or heard about it from some else. The combat in the original Zelda is certainly dated, but it's not thoughtless or bad design. The simple stab attack Link has (in addition to his sheild and boomerang etc) is the basis for how the enemies move, and thus the combat on your end is based around constant maneuvering to either get your stab in, or drop bombs, throw boomerangs etc. It's getting mileage out of simple concepts. I'm even fond of the Darknuts in how you have to be offset to hit their hurtboxes, and retreat. The boss fights are obviously primitive and absurd, but I've gotta say, they at least do not follow the tedious repetitive patterns of 90% of Zelda bosses (in otherwise great games.) Again, I found the Souls bosses refreshing for similar reasons; its just relentless, and you have to bob and weave the whole time. You have to be engaged. Even if there are strats that make it more streamlined, its better than the borderline cutscenes of bouncing a ball back and forth, or hitting the monster in the eye and throwing something in its mouth etc. Something else to consider: these old games were made for CRTs and are way more reflex based than would be reasonable for a modern setup with notably more input delay. Even something from the 2000s like Super Smash Bros Melee has practically no input buffering
Woah dude. This guy just said the original Legend of Zelda is bad game design. Bold. Then you admit to using a guide and say "Who wouldn't?" I'll tell you who wouldn't.... Anyone who actually played this before the era of having any possible answer to any question about any game somewhere on a wiki at their fingertips. And they loved it. If anything ,you had (or made) a map of the overworld and kept notes. Thousands of literal children were able to do it. Seriously it's crazy to suggest this would be impossible without looking up a 3rd party guide. Even the booklet that comes with the game (although helpful) isn't actually necessary to succeed. You're brave to have posted this take.
Yeah, I wish people would just say "I didn't get/like it" rather than defaulting to "it's bad because I didn't like it". The game is so carefully crafted around helping you find your way through hints and world design. There's more to games than quest markers.
The one issue you are facing here is Nintendo game manuals were important. It told you the goals, showed you the items, and I believe even gave an overworld map. They just didn't put the tools *in* the game
I'll admit that Zelda can be frustrating with combat especially against Darknuts, Lyonels and Wizrobes but there's a lot of tricks like finding the blue ring early by finding heart containers and using bombs to sometimes kill bosses in 1 hit. I grew up with the original gold cartridge and beat both quests but the 2nd quest is rough your first time through. There's invisible walls you can walk through and more higher level blue enemies
I actually like the combat in the original. I only used a guide find a couple of the levels so while I do think it was a bit cryptic I don't think it was too bad. I think this game is still very unique within the Zelda series. It gives you a lot of freedom, but still has a sense of progression as the levels were designed with an order in mind and are placed so that you are more likely to enter the easier dungeons early in the game and the harder dungeons later in the game. The closest any other Zelda game gets to this structure is the second half of A Link to the Past.
One of the subtly fun parts in the first quest is that if you're daring and skillful enough, you can pilfer items in Level 8 long before you start on places like Levels 1-3.
@@SamtheBravesFan Last time I played the game I started a new file and went straight to level 8 after nothing but buying the candle. I was able to beat the level, I used rewind a lot, but it verifies that the level could be beaten at the start by a skilled enough player.
pro tip - manhandla/testitart (level 3 boss) is WAY easier to kill with bombs I still wouldn't call it a good boss fight, but if you can kill it with a single bomb if you time/place it just right.
Me: *Stares at the the thumbnail* I've seen a lot of dumb theories out there. Zany and wacky. I've seen people ship Link with Zelda, sure. Paya, Saria, Mipha, Dark Link, Ganon! All good choices. But this takes the cake. How the bloody hell, could you ever think, that Link dated the dragon in that one dungeon?? Eventually Me: .... Oh, you mean is the game dated... ah.
So, I had an unusual journey with the Zelda series. My first Zelda was the Link to the Past in the mid 90s. Loved it. I didn’t have the bucks to get the n64 so went thifting and got z1 and z2 The gameplay of Zelda 1 requires a manual so much more than Metroid or Wizards and Warriors or Rygar. I’m glad the game has gone where it has, but in retrospect, as a kid, I’d have chosen a different franchise.
a lot of classic games have remasters by now. people who want to play old games can do so throigh these enhanced versions rather than the very clunky originals. Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy, Megaman to name a few... unfortunately, Zelda 1 isn't one of them for some reason... The original is still your only way of experiencing this game. it's a great game that sadly gets no love or appreciation from its creators.
A lot of it is fumbling around randomly without direction and requiring you to get a sword by going into a room next to the start rather then just start with it. I think just from these things it makes it okay at best compared to games at its time. The only thing it has going for it is open space similar to how Skyrim is beloved but the base game itself is pretty bad.
Zelda 1 having no remakes isn't entirely true. They did one for the SNES in Japan only for the Satellaview add on. They haven't done one since which is definitely a bummer
@@justanamericandoggo6725 BotW was partially inspired by the original, that's it. OG Zelda has more in common with all the other games in the series than BotW/TotK. Plenty of them have semi-open worlds with item progression and a linear story.
I think the only thing this game has going for it is open space, it is otherwise filled with empty space where you fumble in most of the time without direction. For its time it was giant and people love giant till you play it and realize it is empty. Combined with stuff like how you start weaponless and to get the sword you go into the cave next to you. It isn't a bad game, but it isn't good either. For its time it is okay and gained popularity mostly through size much like 3D Elder Scrolls did despite horrible issues plaguing the games.
Fact that you rate this game outdated when it has a strong speed running community that is growing is questionable. Also of you had to use a walkthrough to vest the game when many including myself, beat this game when i was under the age of ten is laughable.
im gonna be honest, i only saw the thumbnail and i thought this was a deep dive into whether or not link was in a romantic relationship with a dragon
Ok, I'm glad it wasn't just me.
The game was intended to be played with a guide which was provided with the cartridge. It’s easily found online if you want the intended experience
I played Zelda 1 for the first time last year completely blind with no walkthrough and I thought it held up pretty well. I was expecting it to be an archaic nearly impossible to play game, but it felt like playing an alpha BotW.
I think that most of the game holds up well, but I particularly struggled with finding the Dungeons in the correct order, since there isn't any advice on where to go next.
That's because it was an alpha BOTW. Miyamoto said BOTW was what he was imagining when he created Zelda 1.
It basically is.. Save for the weapons constantly breaking.. I oft wondered if they got the projectile sword idea from the 80's movie Sword & the Sorcerer
It's BotW with proper progression with the items and dungeons and carefully crafted restrictions in the overworld.
I'm always surprised how many people find this game very difficult. Always younger people who didn't experience arcade/nes era difficulty. I always found that the combat has a learning curve that gets extremely satisfying once you get better at taking out certain enemies. A great example is the very "boss" you point out as bad game design, when you lean to place a bomb at just the right place as it is chasing you and kill it in one hit it feels great. In my opinion the biggest thing that hurts zelda now for young people is it is a game that is best enjoyed by full immersion, and today offers so many better graphical alternatives it's just not realistic for people to play in the same way
I played the game on my own when I was a kid, completed it 100% and did write my own map of the overworld and dungeons.
I mostly remember this game as a fun experience of exploration. Also as a kid in this period we didn't have anything to compare it to, so the difficulty was manageable, you just needed to learn the enemy walking patterns.
That being said, I don't think I would enjoy it today, at least as mentioned in the video, not without a guide, because I couldn't spend time now drawing a new map 😂
3:58 Level 1 giving players the Boomerang and Bow 👀
7:17 Manhandlas are one of the easiest bosses in the game since you can drop a bomb in the middle of them and take out all four heads at once. Gohmas and Aquamentus can be one-shot in the eye and horn using the bow
Seriously though Zelda 1 is definitely a "knowledge" game like the original Dark Souls. The more you memorize and learn about the secrets in Hyrule the more powerful you become and the more the game opens up and becomes more fun to play. From accidentally dying by touching a sentient statue in front of a dungeon... to discovering the Blue Ring shop and the Power Braclet for fast travel gave more of a rush than any other Zelda game in a while. Hell just deciding to mess with the Recorder was how I found out it lets you fast travel to nearby dungeons you've been to before
played this game a lot as a child when I was ~4 or 5 back in the early 90's, Beat it quite a few times. It is strange to hear it being called difficult; though hearing a younger person's take on it is interesting,
Hey, I see you with the room full of darknuts, but in every other case LoZ is a terrifically designed game.
Most of the enemies and bosses you struggled with have a particular weakness to exploit, and every mandatory secret in the game is hinted at. The game also came with a manual and a mostly completed map of the overworld.
As for the exploration, few games even today do an open world better. The early dungeons are out in the open patrolled by weak enemies, and the later ones take more searching for but hints are provided.
It's tough, but not unfair. Except for those darknuts. 😄
there were tactics and strategies that made the boss fights pretty easy. for example, the boss in the 3rd palace with the 4 pincers and bullet hell died from 1 well placed bomb. i remember playing this as when it first came out and i was maybe 4 or 5. it was an easy game. i come back to it now as it's a challenge only because modern games are so bubblewrapped and dumbed down, leading the player through by the nose that they provide very little entertainment value or challenge to me.
The thing about all of those dated qualities of the game (outside of hardware stuff) is that they are all more or less applicable to Dark Souls or Bloodborne.
Much of the innovations of Soulsborne were callbacks to games like the first Zelda, especially the extremely archaic secrets that no one in a million years would find unless they looked it up or heard about it from some else. The combat in the original Zelda is certainly dated, but it's not thoughtless or bad design. The simple stab attack Link has (in addition to his sheild and boomerang etc) is the basis for how the enemies move, and thus the combat on your end is based around constant maneuvering to either get your stab in, or drop bombs, throw boomerangs etc. It's getting mileage out of simple concepts. I'm even fond of the Darknuts in how you have to be offset to hit their hurtboxes, and retreat. The boss fights are obviously primitive and absurd, but I've gotta say, they at least do not follow the tedious repetitive patterns of 90% of Zelda bosses (in otherwise great games.) Again, I found the Souls bosses refreshing for similar reasons; its just relentless, and you have to bob and weave the whole time. You have to be engaged. Even if there are strats that make it more streamlined, its better than the borderline cutscenes of bouncing a ball back and forth, or hitting the monster in the eye and throwing something in its mouth etc.
Something else to consider: these old games were made for CRTs and are way more reflex based than would be reasonable for a modern setup with notably more input delay. Even something from the 2000s like Super Smash Bros Melee has practically no input buffering
Woah dude. This guy just said the original Legend of Zelda is bad game design. Bold. Then you admit to using a guide and say "Who wouldn't?" I'll tell you who wouldn't.... Anyone who actually played this before the era of having any possible answer to any question about any game somewhere on a wiki at their fingertips. And they loved it. If anything ,you had (or made) a map of the overworld and kept notes. Thousands of literal children were able to do it. Seriously it's crazy to suggest this would be impossible without looking up a 3rd party guide. Even the booklet that comes with the game (although helpful) isn't actually necessary to succeed.
You're brave to have posted this take.
Yeah, I wish people would just say "I didn't get/like it" rather than defaulting to "it's bad because I didn't like it".
The game is so carefully crafted around helping you find your way through hints and world design. There's more to games than quest markers.
Yep
If you leave 1 enemy alive the rest will not respawn when you leave the screen and come back. This makes exploring the map easier.
The one issue you are facing here is Nintendo game manuals were important. It told you the goals, showed you the items, and I believe even gave an overworld map. They just didn't put the tools *in* the game
@Hud Nice Video!!! I Also Usually Use A Guide Whenever I Play This Game! 😉
I'll admit that Zelda can be frustrating with combat especially against Darknuts, Lyonels and Wizrobes but there's a lot of tricks like finding the blue ring early by finding heart containers and using bombs to sometimes kill bosses in 1 hit. I grew up with the original gold cartridge and beat both quests but the 2nd quest is rough your first time through. There's invisible walls you can walk through and more higher level blue enemies
I actually like the combat in the original. I only used a guide find a couple of the levels so while I do think it was a bit cryptic I don't think it was too bad.
I think this game is still very unique within the Zelda series. It gives you a lot of freedom, but still has a sense of progression as the levels were designed with an order in mind and are placed so that you are more likely to enter the easier dungeons early in the game and the harder dungeons later in the game. The closest any other Zelda game gets to this structure is the second half of A Link to the Past.
Yeah, it kinda felt like a flash game
One of the subtly fun parts in the first quest is that if you're daring and skillful enough, you can pilfer items in Level 8 long before you start on places like Levels 1-3.
@@SamtheBravesFan Last time I played the game I started a new file and went straight to level 8 after nothing but buying the candle. I was able to beat the level, I used rewind a lot, but it verifies that the level could be beaten at the start by a skilled enough player.
pro tip - manhandla/testitart (level 3 boss) is WAY easier to kill with bombs
I still wouldn't call it a good boss fight, but if you can kill it with a single bomb if you time/place it just right.
I saw the thumbnail first before I read the title so I'm just like "Wha? Link dated Aquamentis? Damn, what lore did I miss."
Me: *Stares at the the thumbnail*
I've seen a lot of dumb theories out there. Zany and wacky. I've seen people ship Link with Zelda, sure. Paya, Saria, Mipha, Dark Link, Ganon! All good choices.
But this takes the cake. How the bloody hell, could you ever think, that Link dated the dragon in that one dungeon??
Eventually Me: .... Oh, you mean is the game dated... ah.
LMAO
great Vid
So, I had an unusual journey with the Zelda series. My first Zelda was the Link to the Past in the mid 90s. Loved it. I didn’t have the bucks to get the n64 so went thifting and got z1 and z2
The gameplay of Zelda 1 requires a manual so much more than Metroid or Wizards and Warriors or Rygar.
I’m glad the game has gone where it has, but in retrospect, as a kid, I’d have chosen a different franchise.
DUDE IM WORKING ON AN OCARINA OF TIME VERSION OF THIS
You best be admitting it's goated
@@RealHud uhhhhhhh UHHHHHH
At the time this would have been one of a handful of games you would own, and you would just play it for a year until you figured everything out.
a lot of classic games have remasters by now. people who want to play old games can do so throigh these enhanced versions rather than the very clunky originals. Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy, Megaman to name a few...
unfortunately, Zelda 1 isn't one of them for some reason... The original is still your only way of experiencing this game.
it's a great game that sadly gets no love or appreciation from its creators.
I feel like it deserves the A Link Between Worlds Treatment.
BoTW was technically like a remaster of the original, moreso like a retelling or perfection though.
A lot of it is fumbling around randomly without direction and requiring you to get a sword by going into a room next to the start rather then just start with it. I think just from these things it makes it okay at best compared to games at its time. The only thing it has going for it is open space similar to how Skyrim is beloved but the base game itself is pretty bad.
Zelda 1 having no remakes isn't entirely true. They did one for the SNES in Japan only for the Satellaview add on. They haven't done one since which is definitely a bummer
@@justanamericandoggo6725 BotW was partially inspired by the original, that's it.
OG Zelda has more in common with all the other games in the series than BotW/TotK. Plenty of them have semi-open worlds with item progression and a linear story.
Yep, I guess I’m a Link simp.
I've gotta disagree with pretty much all of what you said, as for needing a guide....come on man, I finished the game as a kid at 5 year's old!
You actually had to be good at the game back in the day.
I think the only thing this game has going for it is open space, it is otherwise filled with empty space where you fumble in most of the time without direction. For its time it was giant and people love giant till you play it and realize it is empty.
Combined with stuff like how you start weaponless and to get the sword you go into the cave next to you.
It isn't a bad game, but it isn't good either. For its time it is okay and gained popularity mostly through size much like 3D Elder Scrolls did despite horrible issues plaguing the games.
The instruction booklet literally verbatim tells you "First go into the cave!"
Fact that you rate this game outdated when it has a strong speed running community that is growing is questionable.
Also of you had to use a walkthrough to vest the game when many including myself, beat this game when i was under the age of ten is laughable.
This is literally a 12 min video on how bad this guy sucks at playing this game 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I love Zelda 1, just doesn’t have any sense of direction
It has more direction than BotW? The dungeons are even numbered, and littered with old men giving you hints about where to find the next one.
@@vanyadolly there’s no direction to those men, the secrets are just random. That’s what’s good about the game, but that means no direction.
@@HylianLegend They're in the dungeons. The numbered ones. Hardly random.
Who is this guy, he would've made it 2 days back in 84'