I think the original game brought a printed map for you to fill in, plus some information in the manual. All of which obvious those of is who have emulated would not have.
Comment on Today is the 40th Anniversay of Zelda!
coolfission@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I remember playing Zelda I on an emulator. The progression was absolutely brutal since the game doesn’t give any hints on where to go. I don’t know how people back in the day did it without guides and walkthrough vids. Still amazing game though really ahead of its time (and I believe the first console game to save!)
ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
SippyCup@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
I played it as a kid, though to be fair the only progress was made when my dad played. It was mostly brute force, “ok, can’t go any further here let’s try another path.” And eventually you were at the final boss. My dad eventually got to the end and thought he got lucky, that he’d just happened to go through the rest of the game first and collected everything he needed. I don’t actually think it’s possible to get to Ganon in the first game without going through all the dungeons.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
It was designed around needing to explore, but since there was always enough stuff to find and the enemy strength was one signpost of the type of area it was, it never felt tedious. The 80s and early 90s was also part of the era where you weren’t getting new games all the time, so if it took awhile to figure out the next step it wasn’t a big deal because it was the only thing you were focusing on.