Can you believe that the Legend of Zelda video game series is now 31 years old?! The first game was released by Nintendo on February 21st 1986 in Japan with the US and European releases coming in August and November of the following year. The 2017 blockbuster “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild!” which has already been acclaimed as one of the greatest video games of all time, is now the 19th release in the series. With a TV show, comic books, symphonic concerts and a Legend of Zelda edition of Monopoly also under his belt, Zelda continues to grow from strength to strength. Here are 31 facts, figures and tidbits in homage to the Hylian epic series:
1. Record Holder The Legend of Zelda is the longest running action adventure game series having run for 31 years and 3 months (at the time of writing). The success of “Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, guarantees that the series will live on for generations to come. 2. Guinness World Record Holder The fifth title in the series, “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” once held the Guinness World Record for being the highest rated video game ever. It was also one of the fastest selling games of all time selling 2.5 million copies and earning 150 million USD in its first month of sale. With Breath of the Wild now ranked No.1 at 97.3% and seeing like proverbial hotcakes, expect those bench marks to be surpassed. 3. Over 1 Million Copies The first “Legend of Zelda” game was the first “stand alone” Nintendo game to sell 1 million copies. About 6.5 million units were sold when all was said and done! 4. Left handed or Right handed? Since the first Legend of Zelda game was released the main character Link has been left-handed. This is a nod to the game’s creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, favoring his left hand. The shape of the Nintendo Wii platform’s controller design required players to use their right hands when playing the “Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess”, “Skyward Sword,” and “Breath of the Wild” but in the rest of the games Link is left handed. 5. Brother to Mario Shigeru Miyamoto is the creator of both the Super Mario and the Legend of Zelda video game titles. Both games were developed concurrently with a number of elements shared between them such as the piranha plants from the Mario franchise appearing in the Legend of Zelda franchise as the “manhandla.”
6. Inspiration from Neverland Many a player has noted the similarity between the outfits worn by both Link and the Disney animated version of Peter Pan, and the fact that both Link and Peter have fairies accompanying them on their adventures and no parental supervision whatsoever. It’s not a coincidence. Shigeru Miyamoto is a disney fan and turned to Peter Pan for inspiration when the first Legend of Zelda game was being designed. 7. Lost in Translation (and programming) The controls of the Japanese version of the original Legend of Zelda game included a microphone that allowed players to use noise and voice commands to advance through the game and to defeat the rabbit-like “Pols Voice” and other enemies. American and European versions of the game did not include this feature but no one told the game manual’s translators that. The confusion led non-Japanese players to believe that they needed to use the whistle on the pols voices instead of the arrows that programmers had made the pols voice vulnerable to in non-Japanese games. 8. The Great Gatsby Connection Princess Zelda is named after Zelda Fitzgerald the wife of Great Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Shigeru Miyamoto chose the name because of how cool he felt it sounded. 9. The Hollywood Connection The late actor Robin Williams was such a big Legend of Zelda fan that he named his daughter after the title Princess. He also offered to voice the title’s villain, Ganondorf, and he and his daughter starred in a commercial for the Nintendo 3DS remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. 10. DungeonCraft Zelda Edition The Legend of Zelda started off as a game where players would design their own dungeon mazes and challenge each other to explore and solve them. The idea was scrapped when developers realized that exploring existing dungeons was far more fun than building them.
11. Not the Original Title Because the game’s title character is Link and not Princess Zelda the name “The Legend of Zelda” rings strange. The original Japanese version was called “The Hyrule Fantasy,” which makes more sense, the games take place in Hyrule after all, but “Hyrule Fantasy” does not ring of mystery and appeal the way that “Legend of Zelda” does. 12. The Samurai Connection The Tri Force, the three triangle symbol and artifact present in every Legend of Zelda game, is modeled off the family crest of the powerful 13th and 14th century Hojo samurai clan. The crest is known as the “Mitsu-uroku” meaning “3 dragon scales.”
13. A Link to the Future Though time travel wasn’t introduced to the Legend of Zelda universe until the "Ocarina of Time," time travel has always been on the minds of the game’s creators. The Tri Force was originally intended to be composed of microchips and the game set in both the past and the future with the main character being a “link” between them, hence the character’s name, "Link." 14. An Unsupervised Childhood Most parents probably wouldn’t allow their child to go gallivanting around the countryside fighting rock spitting octorocs and venomous skulltula spiders, but if Shigeru Miyamoto’s parents hadn’t been as “lax” in their supervision of their son the Legend of Zelda games might not exist. Shigeru Miyamoto grew up in the town of Sonobe (present day Nantan City) in Kyoto Prefecture. He didn’t have many toys and his family didn’t own a TV so he spent much of his childhood exploring the mountains and forests surrounding his home. Miyamoto has often cited his discovery of a cave and his getting up the courage to explore it as the inspiration behind the Legend of Zelda games. 15. The Unintended Swastika Controversy The level 3 dungeon in the first Legend of Zelda game is shaped like a “manji,” a sacred and auspicious Buddhist symbol but one that bears an unfortunate resemblance to the Nazi swastika. 16. Religious Symbols The manji wasn’t the only troublesome religious symbol in the Legend of Zelda games. “The Book of Magic” in the first game was actually the “Holy Bible” in the Japan. The church cross on Link's shield did, however, make it past the censors. 17. Copyrighted Music The Legend of Zelda was originally going to be released with Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” as its main theme but on the eve of the game’s release developers learned that the copyrights for Bolero had not yet expired. This forced Nintendo’s composer Koji Kondo to come up with a replacement and fast. He wrote the Legend of Zelda’s now iconic main theme in just one day and the rest is history. 18. Male Lead, Female Voice Link has been voiced by three female voice talents: Fujiko Takimori provided the most iconic voice of young Link in “The Ocarina of Time,” “Majora’s Mask,” “Super Smash Bros. Melee,” “Four Swords,” “The Minish Cap,” and the GameBoy Advance remake of “A Link to the Past. Link’s other two voice actresses are Mitsuki Saiga (“A Link Between Worlds” and “Tri Force Heroes”) and Sachi Matsumoto (Toon Link in “Hyrule Warriors,” “Hyrule Warriors Legends,” “Four Swords Adventures,” “Super Smash Bros.,” and “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” for 3DS and WiiU).
19. “Well excuuuuse me, Princess!” A 13-episode “The Legend of Zelda” TV show, based on the first and second Legend of Zelda games aired in the United States between September 8th and December 1st of 1989. The show featured Link and Princess Zelda defending Hyrule from the plots schemes of the evil wizard Ganon. The show is one of only 6 Legend of Zelda productions in which Link speaks. A running joke throughout the show had Link trying to convince Princess Zelda that he deserved a kiss for his heroics. He met her rejection with the sarcastic remark above.
20. “Dear Players, Use your brains! Sincerely, Shigeru Miyamoto” Test versions of the first Legend of Zelda game had players start off with a sword in their inventory, but many players complained that the game was too complex, confusing and that they kept getting lost. Rather than make the game easier Shigeru Miyamoto took away the sword and made players earn it, and other weapons, by solving the maze of the first dungeon. This forced players to get creative and think more about the game play. It also fostered a community around the game with players consulting one another for advice and trading their discoveries.
21. Left Over Memory? Time for a Second Quest! A big surprise in the first game was unlocking a whole second quest once a player had beaten the game (or by naming their character “ZELDA”). As the programming of the game neared completion the developers realized that they had only used about half of the memory on the game cartridge. Rather than redoing the whole game they created a second, more difficult quest featuring different dungeons, multiple boss battles per dungeon and more. 22. Shaped Like Their Name The layout of the dungeons in the first quest of the original Legend of Zelda resemble the thing or animal they’re named after: The Eagle, The Moon, The Manji, The Snake, The Lizard, The Dragon, The Demon, The Lion and Death Mountain. 23. “ZELDA” The shapes of 5 of the dungeons in the second quest of the first game were deliberately designed to spell out “ZELDA.” 24. Amazonian Mask The design of the tile mask in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask” is based off of the masks designed by the Marajoara, an indigenous people from Brazil’s Marano Island, at the mouth of the Amazon. The Marajoara inhabited the island from about 800AD-1200AD.
25. A Cameo by the Game Designer The happy mask salesman in “The Ocarina of Time” and “Majora’s Mask” is based on the game's creator and designer Shigeru Miyamoto’s looks and mannerisms. 26. The First Game Cartridge with Game Save Function With the size and complexity of the first Legend of Zelda game there was little chance players could complete the game in one sitting. This wasn’t a problem for the disc-based Japanese version of the game which wrote a players progress straight onto the disc, but American and European Nintendo Entertainment Systems used game cartridges that didn’t have the writeable memory space of a disc. To get around this Nintendo’s engineers put a small battery pack in the game to allow progress to be saved. Can you imagine playing such a complex game, when it first came out, with no save game function? 27. A Lucky Fan’s Secret Room In the early 1990s “Nintendo Power” magazine held a contest the winner of which would get their name inserted into a one of Nintendo’s games. The lucky winner was a man named Chris Houlihan and his “secret room” appeared in the second title of the Legend of Zelda franchise, “A Link to the Past.” The room contains 45 blue rupees. 28. Inverted Timeline The first “Legend of Zelda” game happens later, chronologically, than most other games in the Legend of Zelda universe. 29. A First Person Game? “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” was almost developed as a first person game but programmers scrapped the idea feeling that loyal fans and players would hate not being able to see Link. 30. “We don’t think it will be successful in America.” - Infamous doubts from Nintendo Despite the overwhelmingly positive reception in Japan, Nintendo President Minoru Arakawa didn’t feel that “The Legend of Zelda” would be very popular in America owing to its length, complexity and its reliance on players’ being willing to read. 31. Posthumous In “Breath of the Wild” there is a tribute to former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who died during the game's development.
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