"The First Adventure"
While it didn't end up being a game that I liked, "The Legend of Zelda" certainly held up better than I expected it to. The game lacks direction, contains some simple and frustrating combat, and drags on way too long, but the structural core of this game is the heart and soul of the adventure genre itself. The lack of a map is annoying, but it also incentivizes you to memorize the game world and pay attention to small hints and quests that you're given.
The game is mechanically simple. You move in four directions, attack enemies, use an item, use a potion, and interact with people/objects. It's used pretty well for its time, and you're able to interact with a lot more than you may think at first. The combat can be frustrating since you attack in one of four directions, and the ability to either swipe attack or hit diagonally would've alleviated some of the frustration. But I still liked zooming around the world with the game's simple controls!
What I liked a bit less as time went on was the game's length. There's a lot of content, but it starts to feel really samey by the halfway point, and by then you also stop unlocking new items. The pacing slows to a crawl and the excitement of exploration is lost, and this is where a lot of the quality of life improvements of future games would've been useful.
The lack of a functioning map means you need to chart your journey by hand (unless you use an online map, but this spoils things). This makes sense to someone who has played the game before/for a while, but for a newcomer the expectation is that the game's length is much shorter than it actually is. Once I realized the true length of the adventure, I juggled with the feeling of wanting to create the map by hand or just using a guide - I went with the latter, which GREATLY sped things up but also ruined a lot of the potential surprises.
This was a decent little first attempt, but there are too many limitations for this game. The music is catchy but horribly repetitive, the visuals blend together way too much, and the mechanics start to show their simplicity much earlier than they were intended to last. A fine first step for the franchise, but I likely won't be recommending others to play this one unless they are like me and just NEED to play through a franchise from beginning to end.
Final Verdict: 5/10 (Average)
While it didn't end up being a game that I liked, "The Legend of Zelda" certainly held up better than I expected it to. The game lacks direction, contains some simple and frustrating combat, and drags on way too long, but the structural core of this game is the heart and soul of the adventure genre itself. The lack of a map is annoying, but it also incentivizes you to memorize the game world and pay attention to small hints and quests that you're given.
The game is mechanically simple. You move in four directions, attack enemies, use an item, use a potion, and interact with people/objects. It's used pretty well for its time, and you're able to interact with a lot more than you may think at first. The combat can be frustrating since you attack in one of four directions, and the ability to either swipe attack or hit diagonally would've alleviated some of the frustration. But I still liked zooming around the world with the game's simple controls!
What I liked a bit less as time went on was the game's length. There's a lot of content, but it starts to feel really samey by the halfway point, and by then you also stop unlocking new items. The pacing slows to a crawl and the excitement of exploration is lost, and this is where a lot of the quality of life improvements of future games would've been useful.
The lack of a functioning map means you need to chart your journey by hand (unless you use an online map, but this spoils things). This makes sense to someone who has played the game before/for a while, but for a newcomer the expectation is that the game's length is much shorter than it actually is. Once I realized the true length of the adventure, I juggled with the feeling of wanting to create the map by hand or just using a guide - I went with the latter, which GREATLY sped things up but also ruined a lot of the potential surprises.
This was a decent little first attempt, but there are too many limitations for this game. The music is catchy but horribly repetitive, the visuals blend together way too much, and the mechanics start to show their simplicity much earlier than they were intended to last. A fine first step for the franchise, but I likely won't be recommending others to play this one unless they are like me and just NEED to play through a franchise from beginning to end.
Final Verdict: 5/10 (Average)