Eh, it's an amusing side note that he's never finished the first Zelda, but I've never finished it either so no big deal.  It is a hard and cryptically-designed game.  I'll take him spending his time working on new Zelda games instead.

I'm pretty sure Mr. Aonuma has discussed his dislike for Zelda 1 compared with Zelda 2 & 3 during at least one GDC presentation in the past.

EDIT: Found sources from 2004!

Listen to the (still active) audio recording of mine from Mr. Aonuma's 2004 presentation. A transcript of this can also be found here. The relevant excerpt:

Considering the original Zelda is literally impossible to beat without a guide, I'd imagine at least 90% of everyone who's played it never completed the game.  Plus it doesn't help that even with a guide, it's still a very cheap game since Links sword is way too damn short making combat more frustrating then fun.

Speaking about how context plays such an important role in the enjoyment of games, Zelda 1 is still one of my favorite games.

Yes it is a scavenger hunt of grand proportions, but there are hints throughout the game. Because of the effort put forth, I still remember where basically everything is (in the first quest at least). I played the game in grade school and had several friends playing it simultaneously. It was the regular lunch-time conversation for quite some time. We would share what we had found, be it locations of dungeons themselves, or just random special things. We coined our own terms for things. In a way, it was my first truly social gaming experience (outside of playing co-op games with my sisters).

As such, I thoroughly enjoyed playing Zelda 1. It's probably one of my most replayed game. I've finished the first quest countless times.

LttP is still my favorite game of all time though.

"Considering the original Zelda is literally impossible to beat without a guide..."

Not true!  I can't imagine many people beating the game for the first today without using a guide, but when I was a kid we invested a lot of time into games looking for every possible secret and searching to uncover hidden treasures. The internet didn't exist, so there weren't many guides available unless you were lucky enough to have a Nintendo Power issue covering the game.

Zelda can be beaten with some persistence and smart play, but is a long and difficult game if you discover everything on your own. This type of challenge isn't appreciated now and video games favor hand-holding over exploration because they know that making things too difficult will cause the vast majority of "gamers" to simply give up and move on to the next game.

But the beauty of Zelda is that once you've solved difficult puzzles on your own, or discovered well-hidden secrets, you tend to remember them well. Each time you revisit Zelda it gets easier to progress until eventually you've mastered the game. At that point (much like Metroid) the challenge becomes how quickly you can run through the game... although I don't think there is any real sequence breaking to be done here.

I remember secret caves and doorways you could access by placing bombs in certain places and there were secret places you could get by burning down certain bushes or moving certain statues and so forth. Most of these things would be very unlikely to be discovered be mere chance. I only learned because I saw someone else playing it and they showed me some of the secrets, but I still don't think I know about all of them.

I never beat the game either. I was just a little kid when I first played it.

It isn't hard to discover things by chance, it just takes the hunting mentality. Burning and bombing everything. It may not be for everyone.

But, like I said, I think part of the brilliant (and probably on accident) design is that it works best when you have someone to share findings with.

I beat Zelda 1 before getting a guide for it.  I missed a few things, Blue Ring, the first go around but I had the advantage of seeing different parts with a friend.  I really don't think its that bad.  I know my best has been doing the whole game from scratch in one sitting at roughly 30min - 1hour.  Though a game that I don't think you can beat without a guide is Crystalis.  How was I suppose to know those boots were in that generic tile?

Also on the first Zelda I love how you can pretty much do all the dungeons out of order.  Which I normally did.  I might go and visit one for an item but, I go get other ones first.

Absolutely - the first few rooms of Dungeon 3 were always great for rupee farming until you could afford that next ring/item/whatever. I've finished the first quest at least 3 times, and the second once that I can remember. I'll admit I did need to look up a map towards the end, but had I a NES during its prime instead of my paltry little Atari 2600, I would totally have spent the time and effort drawing up my own maps and taking notes until I'd solved it all on my own. In fact, almost all game manuals for the NES and SNES had a few blank memo pages in the back just for note-taking so you could remember that path sequence or puzzle solution.

Gamers these days are so impatient and quick to rage-quit.

Zelda wasn't a relatively hard game.  It was just a bit more complex than other Nintendo games--just opaque; like many other game of the time were.  All the enemies are pretty easily defeated and there aren't any really cheap moments in the game--unlike many games of that era that were difficult because of cheap AI/bad design.

I don't think a lot of people realize how huge NES Zelda became.  Cartoons on network TV, breakfast cereal, and merch up the ass.  Some people will look at OoT or other games as the pinnacle, but they weren't nearly as popular or ground-breaking as the NES games.  The first Zelda game is a certified classic--hearing Aonuma talk about not being able to get past the octorocks is like hearing a film maker brag about only watching the first 10 minutes of Casablanca--no wonder these games have fallen out of favor with people--they're being made by people that don't get what made them so memorable in the first place. 

Zelda 1 is challenging--but if you don't give up and learn to play the game, it makes sense and reveals itself to be this brilliant game that deserves the reverence it earned.  Some things in the game are dated--like critical secrets not being more obvious--but the open world is great and so is the ability to tackle dungeons or the sword quests as you see fit.  It's the freedom and challenge of the game that give the player the feeling of adventure and accomplishment--something the modern Zelda games sorely lack.

Well, Nintendo was so convinced that the game would be hard that they included a map with the game and set up a free hotline just for this game (they were so overwhelmed though that they kep expanding the number of operators). The game is OK now, and holds up better than most of the NES games in the Ambassador's Program, but not one of my favorite Zelda games and I can easily see why most people wouldn't beat it.

The game wasn't hard, it was new--no one had played an action adventure game before.  Information doesn't make the game easier, just less opaque.  Besides, hotlines and maps were common up until the mid 90's--nothing surprising about either.

eh.... I think a lot of the Zelda licensing was done by an early Nintendo that didn't quite understand what they were getting into.  There was a *lot* less licensing during the SNES-GCN time frame after Nintendo got "burnt" during the NES area.  I think the Mario Bros. movie was the turning point of when Nintendo said "what the **** are we doing?" and stopped signing any licensing agreement that came their way.

During the Wii-era, they've really loosened up again.  There's all kinds of Nintendo-themed shirts, toys, candies, etc.  I wonder if we'll ever see a Nintendo movie or TV show again though...

Well to that, sir, I say Pokemon.

Nintendo whore's itself out when it has a huge hit--it's just that their 8-bit games seem to produce the megastars.

Eh... Pokémon is a different beast altogether.  Licensing is handled by The Pokémon Company, not Nintendo.  That's how you end up with a Pokémon app on the iPhone.

Nintendo produced games that had huge cultural popularity after Zelda and Mario's reign--that's what I'm pointing out.  Pokemon had the TV show, the card game, wide release theatrical movies, toys, etc...  Aonuma isn't making Zelda popular.  Hell, the "greatest game of all time" (lol) wasn't even that popular.  Maybe the people making new (,unpopular,) Zelda games should figure out why the hell old Zelda was so popular and play the fucking game themselves!

I'm merely saying you can't use Pokémon as an example - while it's commonly considered a "Nintendo Property", it is really something else entirely.  I can't really think of an equivalent for what it is.

Who owns Pokemon?

I mean the Pokemon company is in charge of licensing.  Gamefreak developed the game.  Nintendo has done all the funding.

Sort of like a Nascar in a way.

Nintendo publishes the games and owns the Pokemon Company/Pokemon Ltd--The Pokemon Game became such a huge phenomenon that it became it's own entity OWNED by Nintendo.  It was the success of the game that drove the property to such heights, just like Zelda and Mario.

Actually, The Pokemon Company is not technically owned by Nintendo. Nintendo did create it, but it's an affiliate of Nintendo and not owned by it.

It's an affiliate owned by Nintendo.

Publishing the games mean nothing.  Nintendo has published Final Fantasy games - it does not mean they own them.
TPC/PCL/PCI is partially owned by Nintendo (I think 2/3rds).

As for what drove the success of the property so high... I'd actually argue that it wasn't just the games.  It was the marketing push behind them - the licensing, the branding, the TV show, the card game.

I worked at BK when the first Pokémon movie came out during the height of the Pokémon craze.  We had a HUGE promotion with Pokémon toys (you may remember, these had the killer Pokéballs with them).

Well, Tuesday nights at my store were "Family Night" - where kids meals were 99 cents.  You can imagine how huge this was during the Pokémon promotion.  In fact, store management talked about suspending the 99 cent kids meals during this time - parents were bringing their kids in and everyone would get 2-3 kids meals - including the parents.

Anyway - during this time, I would work the dining room, interacting with the kids, encourage trading of toys, run contests (stuffed, talking Pikachu was the "hard to get" toy and I always had some of those to give away).  One thing I did was I always bought my own GameBoy and a couple of link cables - always encouraging everyone to bring in their own and trade actual Pokémon.  This got *very* little response.

Hell, some weeks, I'd bring in a small TV, Smash Bros and my Nintendo 64.  Rarely anyone picked Pikachu or Jigglypuff. :D

The Pokémon Company is owned 1/3 by Nintendo themselves and 1/3 by Creatures, Inc. (wholly owned subsidiary of Nintendo).

The other 1/3 is owned by GameFreak - who originally developed Pokémon.  GameFreak is an independent company that has worked on a handful of games for the PlayStation, the Genesis and the TurboGrafx-16.

As interesting as this is, it really doesn't change the fact that Pokemon (a Nintendo published game made by a majority owned company) became a huge success as a game and then as an empire.

Zelda's popularity is on the wane.  The people that are responsible for the Zelda franchise didn't play the game that made Zelda popular.  I don't think this is a coincidence.

Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess both sold over sold 7 million copies compared to the NES original that sold over 6 million.  I'm not sure were you learned how to do math, but when something sells over 1 million copies more then the other, that makes it more popular.

Where is the Zelda empire these days, since Zelda is so popular?  Where is the cereal and TV show?  Why is shiggy threatening that skyward sword is going to be the last game if it's not successful?  Doesn't sound like a popular franchise to me.

Considering how much bigger the market is, Zelda should be selling a lot more.  Super Mario Kart sells 7 million copies.  Mario Kart Wii sells 25+ million.  How come Zelda isn't selling proportionally?  How come 25 years of market growth hasn't improved sales of Zelda?  Simple: it's not as popular as it was when the market was smaller.

@Luigi Dude

Not that I'm claiming wiki as a reliable source, but the numbers for TP are under that of Zelda 1.  Where are your numbers for sales of Zelda 1 and TP from?

Where's the Mario cereal and TV show?

Again, we've established, Nintendo isn't as loose with their licensing agreements as they once were.  Why is this so hard to understand?

I don't think Miyamoto ever said SS would be the last game if not successful.

Mario Kart is a casual series, anybody can pick it up and play. Zelda is not a casual series. The series has NOT gone down in popularity. Yes there are more people playing games, but not all like the same games. There are many people who play ONLY sports games, or who only play fitness games, etc. And Nintendo is more careful with licensing, you don't think they could have a Zelda cereal and TV show if they wanted to? They are not saturating the franchise and milking it to death. The series is still popular, even more so now.

To me, your argument is like saying "why are TV shows getting more viewers now than they were 30 years ago even though millions more people watch TV". It's because there are more choices for people to watch and not everyone likes the same shows. Yes more people are playing games, but there are far more games to choose from (there used to be like 400 games released a year in the mid-90s, now there are well over 1,000 each year), and many more types of gamers.

Mario has lost a lot of popularity, too.  Galaxy and Galaxy 2 combined didn't sell as much as SMB3.  Are you suggesting that Nintendo wouldn't license out popular franchises if there was demand?  I see Wii Fit licensed merch often enough.  There just isn't the demand for Mario or Zelda like there once was; it has nothing to do with Nintendo being "loose" because they will be "loose" if there's demand.  Why is this so hard to understand?

SMB3 Isn't exactly a fair comparison since it was the Best Selling Game of All Time in the Guiness Book of World Records before.

Neo Gaf members who have insider access to sales info like NPD have said when you combine the sales of the Wii and Gamecube version of Twilight Princess, it's sales over 7 million and it's the second best selling Zelda behind Ocarina of Time.

Wikipedia's TP numbers are outdated since they say the Wii version sold 4.5 million copies as of March 1, 2008.  The Wii version has continued to keep selling since then, which is why most stores still have copies of the game and why Nintendo keeps shipping copies of the game.  Yeah it might not have Mario, Pokemon and Wii _ style legs, but hardly any other series do.

That doesn't mean anything since New Super Mario Bros DS and Wii have both sold better then SMB3.  And this is something I don't need Neo Gaf members for since Nintendo provided these numbers.

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2011/110128e.pdf#page=6

New Super Mario Bros DS - 26 million
New Super Mario Bros Wii - 21 million

And even this info is about 8 months old and both games have continued to keep selling after that.

http://www.izelda.net/zelda-news/nintendo-developers-warned-future-zelda/

Nintendo cashes in while their franchises are hot.  They are careful, yes, but they'll take the money when it will help their popularity.

There have always been people that ONLY play whatever specific style of game.  Zelda USED TO be second to Mario in terms of sales and popularity.  The Zelda market share is shrinking.

I don't know what your TV analogy is but I'll just say that the Superbowl is the most watched thing on american TV year after year--does it mean that the Superbowl is gaining popularity or that population growth and cultural saturation ensure that the Superbowl will remain the most watched event every year?  If, one year, the superbowl wasn't the most watched event wouldn't that mean that the superbowl (and probably pro football in general) are declining in popularity?  I say "of course."

So if Zelda sells 7 million copies on the NES and the market expands and 20 years of people are born and Zelda still only sells 7 million copies--that's got to mean that Zelda isn't as popular.  What your saying is that, at best, Zelda will only sell 7 million copies regardless of the population of the planet and the size of the market (even when it was very, very small in 1986) but that it is just as popular as it ever was.  This makes no sense.

Well, it must have been a pretty popular game, I'd say.  Mario used to be pretty popular.

This number that you just made up is probably a gross exaggeration. I don't see what's so impossible about the game... it's pretty easy to find where to go with a little exploration. Actually getting there is another matter, but I never had much trouble figuring the game out with a little experimentation. Although the second quest has a few things that are pretty random (it was a while before I figured out the "running through walls" thing introduced then, although it does give you somewhat of a clue by leading you towards the first wall that uses this).

This game was released long before the Internet was widespread, plus many games of the day were designed in a similar manner where you had to figure everything out for yourself. Players back then were more used to this kind of game and so they were more tolerant of such things and determined to push through and finish. I also don't think that Zelda is nearly as bad as games like Castlevania II or even Metroid.

The quote says Miyamoto said if it wasn't the best Zelda, not if it didn't sell well. A game can be great and not sell well (or be bad and sell well).

Um, Mario STILL is popular. Your earlier post even contradicts yourself. I would also like to point out that for awhile SMB3 was also bundled with the NES and includes those sales numbers.

My TV analogy was because you claimed that Zelda sales should be higher just because there are more gamers. There are more people watching TV now, but the average TV show gets less ratings (and specials like the Super Bowl always get higher ratings, I am talking about normal shows). For example, the top rated TV show of 1980 was Dallas, which got a 34.5 rating (even the 18th ranked show got a 20.7 rating). For 2010-11, it was American Idol with a 24 rating. Considering that the US population increased from 221 million to 308 million, your logic says that ratings should be higher. More gamers does not mean that a series will continue to grow and grow. That does NOT mean a series is declining in popularity.

Aonuma played A Link to the Past, and that's a more important game to have experienced than the original.  It's the game the original might have been if not for technical limitations.  It's the quintessential Zelda.

Yet NSMB and NSMBWii have outsold SMB3.  So where's mah Mario cereal?

Yes.  Thus there's been no Zelda or Metroid movie, in spite of the fact that there have been very prominent Hollywood-type folks who have wanted to go that direction.

Whar's mah Wii Fit Cereal (Part of a balanced board breakfast) and cartoon?

There's licensed Zelda merchandise out there.  Clothing, trading cards, hell, Amazon has the English translations of some of the Zelda manga up... Don't recall that being available back in the NES days.

Whar's mah Wii Sports cereal? Bits of toasted oat cereal pieces with marshmallows in the shape of tennis rackets, baseball bats, bowling balls, golf clubs, and boxing mitts. The back of the box has facial features that you can cut out and use to make a Mii.

...and what licensed Wii Fit things have there been?  Not saying they don't exist... I just can't think of anything that's been officially licensed by Nintendo...

Well, I think there has been some Wii Fit shirts and pants, but I don't know if they are exclusive to Nintendo World store or not.

This is a good thread to admit to the public that I have also never completed Zelda 1.
More than that, I've never played it for more than 10 minute sessions!
Zelda 2 - same deal except for less than 2 minutes.


I am rectifying this thanks to the Ambassador games though! I WILL finish Zelda 1 by years end, guaranteed*










*not a guarantee

I've started doing the same thing with the Ambassador games, though I started with Zelda II. After 19 hours and 86 lives I finished Zelda II. I didn't even bother to use the suspend feature; whenever I turned the game off I started from castle. And since Zelda II is a much more linear adventure, I'd recommend starting with it. I rarely used any guides while playing it, as most of what you need to know can be learned from the towns people.

It was a great experience that I'd recommend to any Zelda fans. I'd even go so far to say that Zelda II is now my favorite in the series.

Started with Zelda 1.
I'm using a guide to find the dungeons, but hopefully I'll be able to figure those out without help.
I'm assuming they are structured similarly to the latter games!

Zelda 2 is just too weird for me, combat just feels wrong, like you "have" to get hit to be successful.
But you never know, I might get round to it eventually, I would like to have completed every game in the series.

19 hours for Zelda II? Seems like a while. Did you get stuck at any points, or have trouble and retried a few times?

I'm glad you liked it, but I never thought I'd hear anyone say Zelda II is their favorite.  I could say it's my favorite NES Zelda, I suppose.  :)

You're doing something wrong.  There are some hard to avoid things, but you don't have to get hit by anything.  I don't know what exactly you're doing wrong.  In two minutes, you couldn't have faced anything tougher than the weakest moblins.  I suppose since they're one of two kinds of bipedal enemy in the game with no AI -- they just keep running forward -- and they have long spears, trying to fight them could be confusing.  The combat system should make sense once you start fighting monsters smart enough to back away from you, so you have to close in while using your shield to protect yourself.  Most other monsters you just have to stab before they bump into you.

how many people beat it without a guide but watched someone else play it? I only knew what to do in mario 1 because my bro and dad played it.

And you know what, NSMB sold more. So the potential was clearly there and an inferior game like NSMB manages to grab it. Why didn't the Galaxy games beat SMB3 then?

I never really got stuck, but I did grind and die a lot.

@TJ
Your analogy makes no sense.  Game sales of equal popularity, in different times, should scale with market and population growth PERIOD.

@ mop and unclebob
http://gonintendo.com/?p=58260
LOL. eat it, nerds.

You can't just come in here and (1) Link GoNintendo (2) in a way that doesn't really apply to the argument at hand and (3) personally insult two non-obnoxious forum users. In the future, use a more civil tone, and use evidence that is actually applicable in the context from a real web site.

Zelda 1 is not quite as obtuse as it appears.  The game came with a map that detailed the locations of the first several dungeons and had big question marks in places to look and such.  The assumption was that you would look at this map.  Remember that during the NES era they didn't have the cartridge space to detail everything in the game itself.  But games get seperated from manuals so when you judge the game entirely on what is on the cartridge itself you have no clue where to go or what to do.

The game still has some frustrating bullshit like Link's shitty sword range.  Zelda 1 is brutally unfair in the same way Metroid is.  By the SNES game they realized that treating the player as the enemy is not good design.  LttP and Super Metroid aren't just more fair in that they aren't as obtuse in design but that they give the player enough control of the character (and health) to survive against enemies.  Those games don't have a unfair advantage over the player and that is why they are beloved.

I find it interesting that there as so many people that claim that as kids they were willing to hunt and peck everywhere to figure out where to go in Zelda 1.  You guys had considerably more patience as a kid then I ever did.  You can talk about kids having more free time than adults but for me it would not have mattered.  I would have gotten bored.  I never choose tedium as entertainment.

What?  A Wii Fit promotional tie-in with an existing cereal?
That's your big "Wii Fit Cereal"?

To that, I raise you: http://www.gamertell.com/technologytell/article/eat-kelloggs-cereal-earn-1000-dsi-points-win-a-nintendo-ds-or-dsi/

This promo featured several different boxes that included Link, DK, Kirby and a few other various Nintendo characters.

If your's counts as a Wii Fit cereal, then these count as Mario and Zelda cereals.

I know it was a boredom thing with mean and that the carrots really weren't that for apart for say burning all the trees.

Same here. Growing up in a small village, without enough money to afford more than one or two games a year, sometimes burning trees or bombing walls randomly in Zelda was as exciting as anything else. And it really doesn't take *that* long to uncover stuff - especially if you limit your search to the most likely areas. Certainly not worse than grinding in any RPG of the day.


That said, I was happy to find that Link to the Past showed you where to bomb walls. Much less frustration and wasted time that way. Shame the pattern wasn't just a bit more subtle or varied for some of the "secret" places to bomb though - it really does border on being too obvious.

I was taking the piss out of a dumb argument continued by two forum users, that while maybe non-obnoxious to you, were being obnoxious.  I didn't get lax on my civility until the conversation went to shit ("where's mah cereal") despite the fact that their claims were, at best, baseless and based on enthusiastic ignorance.  I really don't know what you read to see it any other way.

Yeah, it pretty much went to **** right about that time...

FTFY.