1. It Wasn’t Originally Called The Legend of Zelda
Does The Legend of Zelda: The Hyrule Fantasy just roll off of your tongue? That was the name in Japan for the first game, but the shorter Legend of Zelda took hold instead.
2. Link Almost Had a Sword From the Start
As every Zelda fan knows, our hero meets an old man who supplies a cheap wooden sword, but that bit of the story was not included until late in the game’s development. Originally, our protagonist began his quest equipped with a weapon.
3. The Triforce Was Almost From the Future
Traveling back and forth in time became a staple of the series by the third game, which usually involves Link being a kid, and then a young warrior. Early ideas included a futuristic timeline where the Triforce pieces were made of microchips.
4. There’s a Secret Second Quest in the Original Game
Dust off your old NES, boot up the game and enter Zelda as your name. You’ll find a secret quest with new challenges and dungeons. #ThingsYouWishYouKnewDecadesAgo
5. The First Zelda Game Is One of the Last, Chronologically Speaking
That’s not all! The first two games take place in an alternate universe where Link failed to defeat Ganon in The Ocarina of Time, which was released later. Follow? Of course you do.
6. The Ocarina of Time Almost Had a First Person View
That idea did float around for a while. But ultimately, the idea of a first-person game was scrapped because Nintendo feared gamers would hate not seeing Link. They were dead-on about that one.
7. The Japanese Version of The Legend of Zelda Came with Stickers!
So unfair!
8. Link Is Based on Peter Pan, Kinda
Link wears a green tunic, hangs out with fairies and has pointy ears. Game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has said in interviews that his team turned to Disney characters for inspiration.
9. Zelda is… Zelda Fitzgerald?!
The wife of Great Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald was named Zelda, and she indeed inspired Nintendo’s most famous princess.
10. Robin Williams Named His Daughter After Princess Zelda
The late actor even expressed interest in voicing the villainous Ganondorf if a film was ever made.
11. Characters in the Ocarina of Time Were Inspired by Twin Peaks
A fan of David Lynch’s ’90s television series, Miyamoto wanted Link to encounter a host of unusual, memorable citizens in the land of Hyrule. That explains the trip to Lon Lon Ranch and that weird masked guy.
12. The Original Prototype NES Cartridge is Worth More Than the Contents of a Treasure Chest
The shiny gold plastic NES cartridge was special at time of release, but a more mundane yellow prototype cartridge recently sold on eBay for a cool $150,000.
13. We Almost Had ZeldaCraft: Dungeon Building
Originally, the game was set to launch on floppy disks, so players could use the memory storage to create and share the dungeons they created. Once Nintendo decided on cartridges for the officially named Nintendo Entertainment System, that idea was ditched.
14. The Third Dungeon Map Is Not a Swastika
Each dungeon map means different things, and the third is an Eastern representation of good fortune, called manji in Japanese. Do not confuse it with the Nazi swastika, which reverses the points.
15. Link is (Usually) Left-Handed
It depends on the game, but most of the time he’s a lefty. That gives him at least one thing in common with The Simpsons’s Ned Flanders.
16. Yoshi Appears in Majora’s Mask (Sorta)
The happy mask dude, for reasons unexplained, has a mask of Yoshi in his wallet in the second Zelda game for the Nintendo 64.
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