Digital Media Concepts/The Legend Of Zelda

Legend of Zelda Logo

The Legend of Zelda is a fantasy game based on a player named link who, in most game’s, objective is to save a princess named Zelda. The game was introduced to the public in japan on February 21, 1986 and released in the U.S. on July 29 , 1987 , Close to a year after the japanese initial release. In most cases of the game the player begins as a peasant or a common villager and discovers he is from a lineage of heroes and must save Hyrule kingdom from evil. Throughout the story link begins getting more and more equipment and sometimes magic powers from the dungeons he completes. After a certain amount of dungeons are completed he tackles the main boss head on. After completing the final boss, in most cases, the game will intentionally freeze, not letting you continue, causing you to restart your game. The game follows the typical hero going to save the princess, except in certain cases. According to the legend of zelda, Hyrule Historia, there is a specific, non linear, timeline that The Legend of Zelda follows.

History of the game

The Legend of Zelda began as a series on February 21, 1986 and its first release was the game ‘The Legend Of Zelda’ on an early nintendo cartridge. Then one year later on january 14, 1987, close to a year later, ‘Zelda 2: Adventures of link’ Was released. Then the Super NES was released, and also was a Zelda title, ‘A Link To The Past’ on November 21, 1991. Shortly after that, in 1993 the game ‘Links Awakening’ was released, the first handheld legend of zelda game on the game boy handheld. Then in November 1998, ‘The legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ Was released. This game added major elements to the storyline, that made it today. Ocarina of time added Epona, 3-D graphics, Lock on targeting (Z targeting) and various controls such as grabbing, climbing, and throwing items. After the ocarina of time, a similar, almost identical game,(with the exception of gameplay) named ‘Majoras Mask’ was released as a spinoff of ocarina of time in April 2000. Then the ‘Oracle of ages’ and ‘Oracle of Seasons’ were released at the same time for the Gameboy Advance. About a year later, Two different games were released in the same year, 2002. One of the games released in 2002, was ‘Four Swords’, which was a handheld game. The other game released that year was ‘Wind Waker’ Which was the first game on the gamecube platform, most recognized for its use of cell shading. Four years later the game ‘Twilight princess’ was released for both the gamecube and wii in 2006. Then a year later in 2007 another handheld game, for the nintendo DS was released, ‘Phantom hourglass’ and two years in 2009 later the sequel ‘Spirit tracks’ was released. Then in 2011, the game skyward sword was released on the wii. Following that, 2 years later, the game ‘A Link Between Two Worlds’ was released for the nintendo 3DS which was a spin-off of ‘A Link To The Past’ (1991). Recently in 2015 the handheld game, ‘tri-force heroes’ was released for the nintendo 3DS. Currently, there is a game to be released on March 3, 2017 called ‘The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wind’.

Game Developers

Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto is a japanese game designer, born in 1952, in the city of kyoto. In his early life, he would spend his time in class creating puppets, doing puppet shows, and drawing comics, he once said in an interview, that he hoped he got an illness when he was younger to keep him in the hospital, so all he could do is draw comics. Drawing comics was what he did most of his time in middle school. After Graduating from Kanazawa college, Miyamoto was recruited by nintendo for board game design, and toy box designs. After getting on the team, and being successful in the production of the arcade donkey kong, he was given the assignment of creating his own game. During this time the Famicom disc system was soon for release so he took advantage of that. Miyamoto wanted to produce a different platform, he was also working on mario at the time and that made him want to try something different, so he decided to make a platform where the player is a on a free roam map but must find their own path. The original concept of The Legend Of Zelda was for 2 players to design and build dungeons and play each others. When Beta-testers said they enjoyed playing the dungeons more, so half of the idea was scrapped. Thus The legend of zelda was born and was released in February 1986 on the famicom disc system. The name Zelda was after F. Scotts Fitzgerald’s wife. The name Link derived from Miyamoto’s days as a Link connector at nintendo. Miyamoto still makes Games and has produced every single zelda game since 1986.

Reception and popularity

The Legend Of Zelda has received great reception throughout its years. Some of the most significant titles are ‘the ocarina of time’, ‘the wind waker’ and ‘skyward sword’, scoring multiple perfect scores. ‘Ocarina of time’ is in the book of guinness world records for one of the highest rated games in history. The original ‘Legend Of Zelda’ is the fourth most bought NES game in history. Currently Ocarina of time has sold 7.6 Million copies worldwide. The games altogether received a 9.1 from gamespot and a 9.1 from IGN.