Looking Back at the Inspiration Behind Legend of Zelda

Where Super Mario Bros contained all the immediate, infectious energy of the era’s coin-ops – a mad dash from left to right, a skilful player could conquer the game within minutes – The Legend Of Zelda would project a very different pace and atmosphere. Zelda would unfold more like a fantasy novel than a 10-minute thrill-ride, with an open world to explore and a definite, if simple, character arc for its protagonist. Like a compressed dice-and-paper role-playing game, it would contain monsters, dungeons, missions to complete, characters to converse with, and ultimately, an evil villain to be defeated and a damsel to rescue.

It was the game’s ideas, rather than its technical achievements, however, that made Zelda such an enduring classic. For these, Miyamoto drew heavily on his childhood memories of the Kyoto countryside. He wanted to reproduce in videogame form the same sense of awe and excitement he felt when he explored the forests and caves as a youth– to introduce the pleasure of discovering things, or the anxiety of becoming lost in a maze.

With hindsight, it seemed natural enough that The Legend Of Zelda would be a success; surely, its sheer individuality alone would be enough to gain attention. Bosses at Nintendo, however, were not convinced. During pre-release testing, players became lost among the maze-like dungeons, and grumbled about how confusing it all was. Miyamoto bravely responded by making the game slightly more difficult; he removed the sword from Link’s inventory at the start, and gave players the additional task of locating it. The result, he hoped, would be a game that forced players to communicate with one another in order to solve its mysteries.

In a 2003 interview with Superplay Magazine, Miyamoto spoke about the mood among Nintendo’s management at the time. “I remember that we were very nervous, because The Legend Of Zelda was our first game that forced the players to think about what they should do next,” he said. “We were afraid that gamers would become bored and stressed by the new concept.”