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Legend of Zelda Celebrates 20 Years
The Legend of Zelda is one of the most beloved gaming franchises Nintendo has created. It is also celebrating two decades of life this week. 1up has a great feature on the anniversary, exploring the different games in the series with a list of 'stuff to love'. From the article: "Twenty years ago this week -- February 21, 1986 -- thousands of Japanese gamers played The Legend of Zelda for the first time, and their perspective on gaming was forever changed. Here was a huge world, a massive quest, an open-ended odyssey that demanded exploration. When we Americans first placed that golden cartridge in our Nintendo Entertainment Systems a few months later, we learned what our friends overseas had already discovered: Zelda was addictive. It was adventurous. It was ambitious. It was amazing." Four Colour Rebellion also has commentary on this auspicious occasion, with a Happy Birthday look back and some fond remembrances.
When my parents kicked me off the Nintendo to make me play outside (which was frequent) they understood that they weren't ruining my last 20 minutes of gaming. Heck, my mom or dad would often sit co-pilot with the map helping me find where to go, but I wasn't allowd to play unless weather didn't permit me to go outside. I grew up in Minnesota, so we get a lot of extremes.
Ah.. memories.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Can't read it from work, but I hope the article mentions the miserable Phillips CD-i games in there somewhere.
If not, here's a brief history:
Originally, Nintendo worked with Sony to create a CD add-on to its then-successful SNES. Things were going along merrily, but, for some reason, Nintendo cut ties with Sony and changed to working with Phillips- and Sony didn't find out until Nintendo made a public announcement. As part of the agreement for developing a CD attachment for Nintendo, Phillips got to use some of Nintendo's properties for its own ill-fated CD-i game system.
There were three games in all (Wand of Gamelon or something is the only title I can remember.) One had a cartoon opening scene (dubbed "Gay Link", and you'll know why if you ever see the video), another had live-action scenes (I think it was something like Myst), and another had you messily controlling Zelda on her way to save Link (hey, it had to happen sometime.)
In the end, Nintendo did away with the whole CD thing anyway. So, out of this entire thing, we got:
-One (1) ill-fated gaming console by Phillips
-Three (3) horrible Zelda games which should only be referenced to prove that a good series can go bad
-No (0) CD add-on for the SNES
And, as you may have already guessed, Sony didn't stop production after Nintendo cut its ties- the project they were working on? You know it now as the Playstation.
That's right- Nintendo help create the very gaming console that now overshadows them. This was the first of many stupid decisions that lead up to the Gamecube (where they corrected many of the problems.)
As an aside, some of the other stupid decisions were: forcing N64 developers to work on the Virtual Boy (we all know how that faired), the Virtual Boy itself, using cartridges over CDs for the N64 (due to, as I understand it, mainly piracy concerns- you can't copy something if you lack the media), and losing Final Fantasy to Sony.
Blowing into an NES cartridge doesn't help it to work. If anything, it makes it worse over time. The source of the problem is the design of the connector inside the NES. Japanese Famicom users didn't have the same problems.
we learned that our friends overseas now have to blow like maniacs into their cartridge in order for the game to play.
Our friends overseas had top-loading Famicoms with card-edge connectors, which were not susceptible to the same cartridge problems as the front-loading ZIF-connector US version.
And does anyone remember those freaky comercials that came out for it with the guy popping his head up going "zelda?zelda?" I can't believe after all these years I still remember the damn commercial.Got to give credit to Nintendo.They really saved console gaming after the crash of '83.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Red clouds? I can't remember what you're talking about.
Don't forget how tough those Blue Darknuts were. It was a tossup whether a pack of those or of Blue Wizzrobes were nastier.
I still have my gold cartridge and the battery works (!), but I've taken to emulation because even with a new cartridge connector I still have to fellate my NES carts.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The white/multicolored sparkly clouds were in 1st quest. They took your sword away for a few seconds. 2nd quest had red clouds (took your sword away permenantly) and blue clouds (which restored it). Problem one, some dungeons had only red clouds, a real pain in the ass :(
At the time I really wasn't a huge fan of the game, being a little bit on the youngin' side of things, but in retrospect it was so nice to play a Nintendo game that wasn't a direct arcade port. Games like Contra where you were supposed to die a bunch and could put in another quarter to get some more lives, didn't work too well when your NES lacked a coin slot.
As for Zelda, the king and start of a long line or battery backed up save systems, kudos cause they got it right the first time, I could probably go pull my old cartridge and it would still have my save states from a decade ago.
Both, really. The NES had an extra lockout chip that the Famicon didn't. It was designed to keep third party developers from publishing games with out going through Nintendo. The chip on the console had to handshake with a chip on the cartridge before it would run. The extra chip also ment that a NES cartdige has a few more pins. To play a Famicon cartrige in a NES, you had to use an adapter which had a lockout chip in them. In some of the very early NES games (I think Kung Fu had this), inside the grey NES cart was a famicom board with a adapter fed through an adaptor. To play an NES cartidge in a famicon, you'd still need an adaptor, but it was just convert connectors.
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I have not experienced those ancient times, but still I can't seem to understand the sentimentalism around those old games - although I have played Zelda on my Gameboy.
:)
But if you want to have that Arcade feeling back, just go to http://www.addictinggames.com/arcadegames.html for example and spent some hours playing
There probably are like a ZILLION Astrosmash clones out there.. You could even program one with a decent game "click & develop" - enginge in 30min!
I beat Zelda 1 without using the sword until the Gannon Level. I prefer 2d Zelda to 3d Zelda
God spoke to me.