RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

The year is 1987. The Nintendo Entertainment System is quickly becoming a household name. Most players have hopped and warped their way through Super Mario Bros., killed entire flocks of ducks in Duck Hunt, and probably taken more than a few potshots at that infernal dog that had a good laugh at you whenever you missed — man’s best friend indeed! Most NES-playing children were, by this point, pestering parents for new challenges. And for those who’d cut their teeth on the side-scrolling Super Mario, nothing could be more different than The Legend of Zelda.

The Legend of Zelda: baffling gamers since 1987.

The special golden cartridge was not only shiny, but also featured a game completley different from Mario’s timed, linear reality. The game started with Link, a young man peculiarly fond of green who was charged with finding the scattered pieces of the Triforce, restoring the Kingdom of Hyrule, and saving princess Zelda. (Clearly Link got shortchanged by not getting to be the titular character of the series even after doing all that work.) In The Legend of Zelda, players were thrust into the middle of a huge world with nothing but a shield. They could travel anywhere they wished over a sprawling map and enter a plethora of dungeons in pretty well any order they chose. There they would face new enemies, solve puzzles, and collect new items. All this is standard fare now, not only for Zelda but for a slew of other games, but at the time, the non-linearity of it all was revolutionary.

Remember when the only options were “A” and “B”?

Not only that, but the game featured a peculiar mix of adventure and RPG elements that is quite familiar now. At the time, though, the game was nigh-impossible to  categorise. Dragon Warrior, the grandfather of turn-based RPGs, was also released in Japan in 1987, but it wasn’t until 1989 that North American gamers would depart from Tantegel to wander a vast continent in search of Erdrick’s sword and armour. Two years before that, players were already baffled by Zelda and reading Nintendo’s free newsletter (which later became the not-so-free Nintendo Power magazine) for tips. Nowadays, we easily categorize The Legend of Zelda as the first action/adventure RPG, but at the time it was an oddity, a glittering, bewildering, memorable oddity.

Not to mention it was a colossal success. The original release sold 6.5 million copies and spawned one of Nintendo’s most longstanding and lucrative franchises. Egads! A game with RPG elements could be popular! The first action RPG turned out to be one of the biggest ever, so it’s not a tough call to name this one as a Game Changer.