On this day in history, August 22nd, 1987, The Legend of Zelda for the NES was released. A game of this magnitude, for it's time, was unheard of and got everyone set to go on an adventure in a game that would be the measuring stick for all action/rpg/adventure games to come.

Although it came out in August of '87, I didn't physically see or play it until they had a Nintendo display at the Yakima Mall where they had several TVs set up, all hooked up to a box that had a selection of 20 games to choose from, as well as an attendant to help you pick games to play and hopefully sell you a NES with some games right there. Instead of helping people, for the most part he was playing The Legend of Zelda himself. Before he had a map, he would actually go from screen to screen and draw in his own map. That image stuck with me to day on how large this universe is. A universe so large that he literally had to draw a map to remember where to go or where he's been.

This was also during a time when a new video game may literally take me a year to beat. Can you imagine that? I have friends who have completely played through Skyrim several times over, but in the 80s, games were meant to take you a while. Today people will buy a $50 game, beat it that night, then have it collect dust as they go out and purchase another $50 and do the same. I'm positive this is on purpose to get you to spend more money.

The clues on where to go next or what to do next were so cryptic that I couldn't gone through it by myself. I need a lot of help from Nintendo Power and a few friends who have also played through it before me. This game took me about a year to beat. Of all the video games I've ever played, this original Legend of Zelda for the NES is my favorite game of all time, and always will be. Happy Birthday! In honor, I'll play you tonight.

I did clock myself playing this game from start to finish once, no game genie, no computer emulation, no codes or anything and I was able to get from start to finish in about 4 hours. They have speed runs of people beating this title in much less time including this guy who does it in 37 minutes:

 

And, although it's cheating, it's still fun to watch this 'Swordless' speed run using a glitch.

 

and to speed things up, here's another one gone through in about five minutes

Did you ever beat the Legend of Zelda?

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