 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||||
The Legend of Zelda series is a series of adventure video games created by Nintendo and industry leader Shigeru Miyamoto beginning in 1986. It is considered one of the most influential video game franchises ever.
The Legend of Zelda games (often shortened to just "Zelda") feature as their central character and protagonist a young Hylian named Link. Link is frequently called upon to rescue Princess Zelda, for whom the games are named. The main villain of the series is known as Ganon. Story-wise the earlier games did not deviate much from the standard "save the princess" theme, but later installments have diversified their themes somewhat.
However, at the core of all Zeldas is not the plot, as the stories of the individual games do not always match up, but a successful mixture of complex puzzles, strategic action gameplay and exploration. This formula has remained fairly constant throughout the series, with further refinements and additions featuring in each new game, and it has made the Zelda franchise one of Nintendo's most important assets, along with their Mario Bros., Metroid, and the "Pokémon" series.
The following is a list of the main installments of the series, with the original year of release and the platforms they appeared on. Note that the two Oracles games were released simultaneously.
Beyond the commonly recognised games, there have been three Zelda games made for Philips' CD-i multimedia system under a special license agreement. These were made without any involvement from Nintendo and they deviated significantly from the other games in style and gameplay. Like the system they were created for, these were never very popular and can today be considered obscure and not canonical. They were:
The chronology of the fictional Zelda universe is debated among fans. The publication dates of the games are of little help; when considered in that order, the story jumps about and has seeming inconsistencies. However, as the series' name implies, this lack of continuity is understood and accepted by players and developers alike as a facet or inherent quality of the story's "legend" nature.
No order has been dogmatically specified by the games' publisher until Shigeru Miyamoto said a word about it, which is stated In the past, many fans suggested the following chronological order:
Note that this order does not account entirely for the ending of The Wind Waker. For the most part, Zelda games tend to fall into pairs: The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II; Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask; the two Oracles games; and arguably A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening. The Wind Waker, though not yet paired, has direct references to Ocarina of Time, and shares some visual elements with The Four Swords Adventures. The pairing of games reflects a continuity of graphics, characters, and items. In the list above, five essentially distinct styles can be discerned and are grouped together.
The first Zelda appears relatively crude and simple by today's standards, but it was a very advanced game for its day. Innovations included the ability to use dozens of different items, a vast world full of secrets to explore, and the ability to save progress via battery backup. The game also featured a "second quest" where, once completing the game, players could replay the game using the same map but with all the items and dungeons re-arranged. Its formulaic story put the player in the shoes of a boy hero in the land of Hyrule set out to rescue the Princess Zelda, by first collecting the 8 fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom. Beside its technical innovations, the gameplay, which consisted mainly of finding items and using them to solve puzzles, battle monsters in real-time, and interact with the environment, was a successful formula, and was widely copied, including by later Zelda games. The game was wildly popular in Japan and America, and many consider it one of the most important videogames ever made. A modified version known as BS Zelda was released for the Super Famicom's satellite-based expansion in the early 1990s in Japan.
The second, also known as Zelda II, was a departure from the concept of the first game as it exchanged the top-down view for a side-scrolling one and introduced RPG elements not found in other installments of the series. While frequently deplored for its difficulty and lack of adherence to series staples, Zelda II has its adherents despite its comparative unpopularity. It is considered to be the worst game in the series, (if only for its drastic gameplay format changes), even by the most enthusiastic of fans.
The third, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (initially known as Super Zelda), returned to the top-down view and added the concept of an alternate dimension, the Dark World, to explore. It was re-released for the Game Boy Advance on Dec. 9 2002 in North America, combined with the multiplayer addition Four Swords.
The fourth game was the first Zelda to appear exclusively on Nintendo's Game Boy handheld, and additionally was the first not to take place in Hyrule. It was re-released for the Game Boy Color in 1998 as Link's Awakening DX with some additional features.
After a relatively long hiatus, the series made the transition to 3D with Ocarina of Time, the fifth game in the series. Ocarina of Time, initially known as Zelda 64, retained the core gameplay of the previous games and was very successful both commercially and critically. The popular Japanese magazine 2002 when it was offered as a pre-order incentive with The Wind Waker and featured a previously unreleased expansion known as Ura Zelda, containing remixed versions of the game's dungeons.
The sixth title, Majora's Mask, used the same game engine as the previous Nintendo 64 game, but added a novel time-based concept which led to somewhat mixed reactions from series' fans. While keeping the same graphical style of the landmark Ocarina of Time, it was also somewhat of a departure, particularly in atmostphere - the game was much darker and had a sense of impending doom, due to the moon being poised to fall upon the land of Termina (an alternate dimension of Hyrule).
The next two games were released simultaneously for the Game Boy Color platform, and, by exchanging codes, could be combined to form a single story. They were not developed by Nintendo, but rather by Capcom under the supervision of Miyamoto.
The next Zelda was initially believed to be a development of the more realistically styled N64 games, but Nintendo surprised many when it was revealed that the GameCube game, The Wind Waker, would be cel-shaded - a more cartoon-like style of graphic design first seen in Sega's Jet Set Radio. Initial fears that this would affect the quality of gameplay that many fans had grown accustomed to were eased when the game was released to be critically acclaimed in Japan in 2002 and elsewhere in 2003. It featured a concept based around the wind and sailing.
Next in the Zelda series of games was The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, for the Nintendo Gamecube. It was another huge departure from the previous Zelda games in terms of gameplay, since it focused around multiplayer gameplay. For the multiplayer features of the game, each player was required to use a Game Boy Advance system linked to the Nintendo Gamecube via a GBA to GCN cable. Although it focused on multiplayer, a single player feature was included, where a Game Boy Advance system was optional.
On May 11 2004 at Nintendo's pre-E3 press conference, they revealed the latest game in the series for the GameCube, currently titled The Legend of Zelda. This game was expected to use the cel-shading graphical style from The Wind Waker. However, the new game has a more realistic look, similar to the Spaceworld 2000 technology demo. Not much has been released about the title thus far, though it appears to be quite similar in gameplay design and atmosphere to Ocarina of Time.
The new Nintendo portable console, Nintendo DS, unveiled at 2004's E3, is expected to be home to a new take on the Zelda series. Although no information other than its existence has been released, a new game in the Four Swords series has been confirmed for the Nintendo DS. Additionally, Nintendo unveiled a new game for the Game Boy Advance, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. This game will be based around an infestation of giant creatures called "ChuChus" and Link must don different caps to advance in the game.
The Legend of Zelda was made into a cartoon series as a "show within a show" in the live action Super Mario Bros. Super Show, in which a Zelda cartoon were aired each Friday in the place of the usual Mario cartoon. The series followed the first Zelda game. The Zelda Cartoon and 13 episodes were featured within Super Show's entire 65-episode run. Here, Link and Zelda battled Gannon on a daily basis while keeping Hyrule safe.
In addition to their own animated series, Link and Zelda were also drawn into a few episodes of Captain N: The Game Master where they helped Captain N and his friends fight the evil Mother Brain.
|
||||
| View Live Article | This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License | |
||
