A long time ago, in mystical times within an ancient and peaceful land known as Hyrule, there told of a legend. A legend who feared that if the Powers of the Triforce fell into the wrong hands, the fate of the land depended on her choices. This is the Legend of Zelda. When a Gerudo man fully dressed in black decided to challenge her powers and steal an ingredient of the triforce, Hyrule was forced into dark times. But among four persons the triforce remained.

Within Ganondorf and the Gerudo man laid the elements of power. Princess Zelda maintained the elements of wisdom. And finally, a boy named Link, whom all the people’s hopes were held upon and was regarded as the Hero of Time, possessed the elements of courage.

The quest started off simple, never knowing that of which would lie ahead in its role playing adventure.

An eight-bit system displaying some of the greatest graphics in its time stepped into the RPG world of mystique. In 1986, when gamers first laid eyes on “The Legend of Zelda” and this boy named Link, the world soon realized that people didn’t play the game because it had nice graphics — they played it because it held reverent magic within a storyteller’s mind. It became a masterpiece of mythical legend.

During the making of the first Legend of Zelda game, director Shigeru Miyamoto had no plans of making another. But when the game became an instant hit throughout the world, he knew there was to be a sequel.

Contrary to most modern games, “Zelda” contained a rather well developed plot. Seeing as how the producers only had an eight-bit Picture Processing Unit (like some advanced calculators) running with a two-Mhz clock speed (an IronMan/Timex Sports watch) and two Kb of video memory (hardly a one-page Microsoft Word document — which is more like 20Kb), it only made sense to get gamers hooked on a story rather than relying on its graphics.

The following year, in 1987, Miyamoto quickly began work on the sequel, after his first release became a hit. But after gaining much respect for his first release, “Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link” didn’t make as much of an impact as its predecessor.

Five years later, in ’92, “A Link to the Past” made its debut on the Super Nintendo and became the long-awaited masterpiece everyone was waiting for. Being such a hit, the game was re-released in ’02 for the Game Boy Advance.

In ’98, the story line to “A Link to the Past” was replicated on the Nintendo 64 using parallels between the two console games under the name “Ocarina of Time.” The similarities between “Link to the Past” and “Ocarina of Time” were such that you had to find three pendants, get the Master sword, then travel into another world and battle your way through seven more stages and defeat Ganon. Yet the N64 version included much more side quests, which subsequently added more of the “Zelda” flavor that everybody loved.

Nintendo released “Majora’s Mask” in 2000, in which Miyamoto decided stick with popularity and retain the same graphic and character play as he used in “Ocarina of Time.” Plus, it saved him and the “Zelda” creators an extravagant amount of time. Although some might compare “Majora’s Mask” to “The Adventures of Link” (“Zelda 2”), due to being the second released game for its particular platform, the game still became a hit because it included far more side quests, a crucial ingredient to all the games in the “Zelda” series.

The funny thing about “Zelda” is that if you’ve beat the game once without finishing all the quests, you’ll find yourself right back in front of the TV.

Defeating Ganon (The Final Boss — for most platforms) is not what “Zelda” is all about. You will never be completely satisfied until you’ve finished ALL of the side quests.

Now finally, recently released on March 24, “The Wind Waker” made its debut on the Nintendo Gamecube. Although critics began to undermine its quality early in the making due to the graphic style used, Miyamoto and his co-worker said, “We actually think that as you play this game and look at the world around you, it’s going to seem very realistic despite the graphic style.”

He later reinforced his comment in further saying that “by using the term ‘realistic,’ I mean the qualities of the world itself. I don’t mean to deny the value of more photorealistic graphics, but the more realistic graphics get, the more unrealistic things such as bumping into a wall or getting hurt might seem. If not expressed properly, it seems out of place.”

Thus as the prodigy has continued in “The Wind Waker,” the history will be preserved in the minds of the gamers who have lost themselves in each “Zelda” saga and will continue to play for generations to come.

The Hero of Time will keep on keeping on in new adventures and always be known as more than just a game. He will forever be remembered as “The Legend of Zelda.”

Download “The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker” preview clips below:

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The Legend of Zelda

Images:

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Trailers & Commercials

Gamecube Official Trailer Windows Media (1:30) 4.6M

GC Japanese Commercial 1 Windows Media (:34) 2.7M

GC Japanese Commercial 2 Windows Media (:32) 2.5M

GC USA Commercial QuickTime (:59) 2.8M

First Zelda Commercial Ever! Windows Media (:39) 1.0M

GC Japanese Movie Demo QuickTime (1:02) 8.1M

Original GC Demo Windows Media (:11) 3.3M

A great clip that’s high quality QuickTime (:48) 6.2M

Game Footage

Island Shot QuickTime (:37) 5.6M

Link has a big Sword QuickTime (:31) 4.6M

Link fights a Boss QuickTime (:33) 4.6M

Link gets helps from the Medallion QuickTime (:32) 4.8M

Link gets launched from a cannon QuickTime (:59) 8.8M

Link meets his sister Arril QuickTime (:39) 5.4M

Something gone wrong QuickTime (:??) 6.6M

A nice village tour QuickTime (:??) 4.5M

Walking through the town QuickTime (:??) 4.9M

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