The Legend of Zelda (Game Boy Advance Classic NES Series)
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| Released on June 7, 2004 by Nintendo, the Classic NES Series version of The Legend of Zelda is a pixel-perfect handheld port of the legendary 1986 action-adventure game. |
My main memories of the original NES The Legend of Zelda mostly involve thinking its golden cartridge looked cool, and wandering around having no idea what I was doing. I never had the game myself, and really just tinkered around with it at friends' houses. The first time I actually both owned and played the game all the way through came during my ninth semester in college in the fall of 2004, after Nintendo released the game on the Game Boy Advance, as a part of their Classic NES Series. I loved it then, and to celebrate the original NES release's recent 35th anniversary, I've just played through it--and loved it--again.
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| Now THAT is an opening screen |
The Legend of Zelda GBA port looks and sounds exactly as I remember the NES version. The playing perspective is a glorious 8-bit top-down view of a vast overworld, complex dungeons, well-designed enemies, and Link, a hero for the ages. Simply put, this game's visual appearance is iconic. There's no valid criticism to make, other than of the slightly choppy scrolling effect when you move from screen-to-screen--to be expected for a 1986 video game with a continuous overworld map composed of over 100 separate screens! As far as music, the Zelda overworld theme is one of the most recognizable video game themes ever written, and the bloops and shinks of the sound effects are aural dopamine triggers on steroids.
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| How it all began |
As for the gameplay, this first in a long and storied line of Zelda games remains timeless for not only the foolproof nature of its basic structure, but for how loosely it operates within that structure--far more loosely than most of the more linear Zelda games that followed. As Link, the player must recover eight Triforce shards in order to both save Princess Zelda from the evil Ganon and thwart Ganon's evil plan to takeover the land of Hyrule. Each Triforce shard is contained within one of eight dungeons scattered across Hyrule's overworld. The player can tackle these dungeons in any order they choose. However, some dungeons are far more difficult than others. This is where The Legend of Zelda's RPG elements come to play.
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| Perhaps the most iconic video game screen of all time |
Hidden in each dungeon is a unique item or power-up. One dungeon holds a boomerang. One has a bow. Another holds a torch that burns enemies and certain map objects, and lights up a dark room. The more of these items Link collects, the more options he has for attack and defense, and the easier he can pass through the more difficult dungeons. In addition, there's an extra, permanent heart piece at the end of each dungeon. Heart pieces act as Link's defense meter. He begins the game with three, and the more he collects, the more hits he can take. Of course, to get the extra heart pieces and Triforce shards, Link will have to not only make it through a given dungeon's enemy-loaded, maze-like layout, but defeat the tricky dungeon-ending boss. It's a formula that most others games in the series have followed since...as well as have many other games outside the Zelda franchise.
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| Hey, it's dangerous to go with a sword too! |
Of course, you'll also have to FIND all eight of these dungeons (as well as a game-ending ninth one). Some are quite tricky to discover, and the game doesn't tell you in which order the dungeons are best tackled. In fact, the game really doesn't tell you anything. That's the wonderful and terrifying freedom of The Legend of Zelda. It's a freedom Nintendo recreated on a massive 3D scale with 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It's a formula that works...but I used the word "terrifying" for a reason.
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| If the entrance is a monster's mouth, it's probably worth checking out |
The original 1986 release of this game featured a full-size map and the benefit of newness, meaning that if you got stuck, you could ask around the playground for a solution--at least some of your friends were probably playing this. Of course, maps, ones quite more detailed that what originally came with this game, are easily found online. However, if you want to complete The Legend of Zelda without any assistance, you're in for quite a challenge. Not only will you have to familiarize yourself with and memorize the overworld map as you traverse it, but you'll have to exercise a lot of trial-and-error when playing through a dungeon. While each dungeon also features its own discoverable map and compass, some feature paths that require the player to use bombs to blow secret pathways through certain walls...and TLOZ rarely gives the player hints as to which spots need to be bombed.
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| I'll just...bomb all of them, I guess |
This only serves to increase the game's RPG element. Much like grinding in an RPG, you'll sometimes have to farm both money and bombs from the game's overworld. You can find these in the dungeons too, particularly after killing certain enemies, but the enemies on the overworld map (who, once defeated, regenerate after you've travelled a few screens away) are a surer bet. You'll also use money to buy items and powerups from merchants strewn across and sometimes well-hidden throughout the overworld. Truly, The Legend of Zelda rewards exploration and curiosity above all things.
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| And giving yourself a cool name |
Some might say, with the creation of the Nintendo Switch's NES Online element, this Game Boy Advance version is now redundant. After all, you can now play The Legend of Zelda on your Switch wherever you go...as long as you have Internet...and as long as you have a subscription to Nintendo Switch Online...and as long as Nintendo decides to keep their NES Online feature active. Because of those variables, one of the safest, most reliable bets for playing this game whenever you want is to own a copy of the Classic NES Series The Legend of Zelda for the Game Boy Advance. You don't need to be online to play it...and you don't ever have to worry about it getting taken down by Nintendo. It will be playable as long as you've got a working Game Boy Advance or DS. As far as extra features unique to this version, there's little here to speak of. The original NES game was the first to ever offer battery-backed saving, so the ability to save here isn't an upgrade. Of course, you couldn't just fold up your NES and let the game sleep when you needed to take a break while playing the original version, which you can do here. As such, the Game Boy Advance provides the best handheld opportunity to play The Legend of Zelda.
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| Plus, if you've got a Game Boy Player for your GameCube, you can always pop The Legend of Zelda on your CRT whenever you want |
Of course, another option is the recently released Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda...but its screen is smaller...and I'll get to it later.
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