I got about 55 stars and decided I got my fill. I've beaten the N64 version and I may come back to this and finish it sometime but for now I wanna focus on other games.

Anyways, dare I say, better than the original? I mean, obviously we have a ton of extra content here, so that's a plus. But the controls honestly aren't THAT big of a downgrade if you're playing with some sort of analog stick or the circle pad on the 3DS. It's not 1-to-1, moving around is still designed around the d-pad, but it's not bad! I also grew up with this version so there's heavy bias, but overall I love this version of the game.

Played through a few characters lately. This is probably my most replayed in the series cause it's really easy just to turn on my psp and play this game for a bit.

There's a reason this game is the most iconic in the series. Sure, I think later games are better, but I do give this game so much credit for what it did to the series. It feels like the most balanced in the series, the most grounded. Sure I may prefer the games with the revert, but with the revert the series feels more... idk... gamey? Without it I feel like there's more skill involved, not to mention this game just feels amazing to play and holds up remarkably well, even when compared to the remake (which is also spectacular). The first game was great, but this is where the series truly became the powerhouse it was.

It's always nice when you play through a game again after nearly 10 years and you end up appreciating the game a bit more!

Is Zelda 1 a hard game to get into in 2023? Absolutely, and I can see why this game would be off-putting to so many people. But, if you can get past the oldness and clunkiness here, you get a game that's incredibly impressive for it's time. It shows a game philosophy that you don't see as often nowadays: a game built around community. A game that's designed to share secrets about it with your elementary school classmates. A pre internet gem. It has it's issues, but in the end it's so charming and unique that I think it's worth going back to nowadays.

Yea I mean, when people say this game is held together by duct tape, they aren't wrong. It's pretty damn broken and unbalanced and also very simple, which is why I could see if being very hard to come back to for many.

However, this is where one of my favorite series got started! And it's still fun, even with it's problems! It's really cool to see how far this series has come, and a lot of this games flaws add to its charm. While definitely not a very rich gameplay experience, it's a very fun time that shouldn't be overlooked because future games outshined it.