Adam ConoverAbout to embark on a project I’ve been wanting to do for a long time: I’m playing through The Legend of Zelda, on an NES hooked up to a CRT, with only the manual and original map to guide me, just as though I were a kid in 1987. Wish me luck!
Going to turn this into a thread as I play through. This cartridge I picked up from a local shop already had a save file for “BUTT”. Looks like the person died 17 times and made no progress. No way I’m deleting that - I’ll save my file in slot 2.
I completely forgot about these screens where the camera suddenly shifts to being from the side rather than top down. Thought they only did this in Link’s Awakening! Also wild that you get BOTH the bow and the boomerang in the first dungeon, but if you actually want to USE the bow, you have leave the dungeon entirely, grind for money, and buy an arrow for 80 rupees! Wild game.
Finding the first dungeon was easy - it’s right on the map that comes with the game! One of the reasons I never made progress on this when I was a kid (in addition to being too young) is that I didn’t have the original manual or map. They give you SO many hints on where to go and what to try, it makes the game far less intimidating than I thought it was, and much more exciting to explore.
Outside the boss room with one heart. The fact that you can hear the boss roaring from a screen away is still terrifying
Update: I’m on Dungeon 5. I was getting my ass kicked by Darknuts (all time great video game enemy name), then realized that I needed to explore the overworld more. So glad I did. Secrets everywhere. Did you guys know that you have to bomb EVERYWHERE in this game?
I feel like I unlearned 30 years of game design today, and it was exhilarating. I've been trained to believe that every secret in a game is CLUED somehow. Instead, it never stops being shocking how many UN-clued secrets there are in LoZ. You just have to look for walls that COULD have an opening in them, and bomb them. I always thought this would be frustrating, but it's actually enormously freeing - secrets could be and ARE everywhere, right under your feet!
Fabio Bracht@adamconover Dude, you *gotta* play TUNIC after that. It’s the most first-Zelda-like modern game there is! And it gives out this exact feeling.
One of its main hooks is actually the fact that it has a charmingly old-school instruction booklet in-game, which gives out the clues for the game, in the exact way the first Zelda does. You collect its pages in-game.
It’s gorgeous, it has been mentioned in several Best of 2022 lists, and there’s apparently no way you’re NOT going to love it.
@bracht I loved Tunic, and it’s what inspired me to play LoZ this way!
@adamconover Ah! All the better!
I haven’t finished it yet myself. I think I went through the Quarry before I was supposed to, and then the Scavenger Boss just shut me off completely. Massive difficulty spike.
I think I should back off and explore somewhere else, but not knowing where has kept me from booting the game.