Trudge on young explorer, you will find that dungeon yet! Be brave, and be patient, this one you will always reme
The game begins with a young boy named Link who is standing at the junction of three roads having absolutely no clue where to go, or what to do first. Back then, it was pretty risky to make a game like that. Actually, people would still be reluctant to play a game like this nowadays, since games tend to lead you by the hand, or point you in the right direction right off the bat while continuously supplying hints and tutorials for almost half the duration of the game. Basically, if you insist on playing the Legend of Zelda without any exterior help, you are likely to spend more time looking for the entrance to the next dungeon than it would take an informed gamer to beat the whole game. But it's not all torture. Although the game was revolutionary upon release, it remains the very embodiment of the action adventure genre in its purest form.
You won't find any side quests or customization options in this game. What is to be found is a melting pot of genres accompanied by a very strong conceptual foundation. Go wherever you fancy, and do whatever you feel like doing. There is nobody to tell you that you need to buy a lamp in order to advance in the game. You simply have to run into a dark room and realize on your own that you need to go purchase that expensive lamp. Even the dungeon maps don't tell the whole story, since often times you will find that walls need to be demolished in order to get to that well concealed boss. There are hidden stairwells that can only be triggered by pushing a particular block. You can spend hours upon days debating which wall needs to be blown up or which shrub needs to be burnt down. Trial and error seems to be your only exterior tool if you stay away from the wonderful gamefaqs and guides.
When you're not busy coping with the game mentally, there are physical challenges for your nimble (or not so nimble) fingers as well. The action can be compared to what you are likely to experience while playing a top down shoot'em-up style arcade game. In a typical situation you are surrounded by quick-on their feet monsters and their fear-seeking projectiles. The skills to overcome these challenges can only be developed with time, sweat and cursing, of course. But good cursing, really it's all quite fun, I swear! Apart from the thumb training, you will also collect many useful items and upgrades, like for example, the good ole boomerang. Actually, the boomerang reminded me of top down shooters, since I used it to dispatch bats and blobs of slime from a safe distance, usually while dodging balls of flame and several other dungeon mainstays.
All this may seem a bit standoffish, but the sheer satisfaction you get from overcoming a hurdle is totally worth the hours of toil. As your adventure unfolds, you really do feel stronger, and more prepared to face the oncoming difficulties. At first, you will be afraid of a certain room in the sixth dungeon because it seems impossible to clear it of monsters without losing all your health points, but in time you will overcome this fear and dispatch the baddies without breaking a sweat. Half of it is because Link becomes more resilient, but the other half is because your thumbs become more skilled and your eyes quicker. The Legend of Zelda balances challenging and addictive arcade gameplay with exploration, puzzles and rpg elements. It is truly gaming heaven for anybody that enjoys 8-bit treasures.
It is worth noting that half the fun is to be had in exploration. The game world is vast, by NES standards, and it is full of secrets and hidden essentials. Exploring the world for the first time and finding the entrances to the nine dungeons is an amusing pursuit, but it requires memorizing the map without actually having a map. Yes, you may have guessed it, the game is hard! But the difficulty only gets in the way if you give up too easily. So trudge on young explorer, you will find that dungeon yet! Be brave, and be patient, this one you will always remember.