The Legend of Zelda: mystery of reading / writing
I find it difficult to go back and play on the first 8-bit consoles, like the Atari 2600 or Colecovision. It is not that their primitive graphics and sound fail to catch my eye, but rather, they are so dedicated to replicating the arcade experience. This is not entirely bad, but it was a transitory way to play, since you would fit your room, play until you lose and move on hoping your high score would mean something. To make matters worse, the first home consoles generally reproduced the experience very poorly. I’m sure it was good to be able to play Burgertime at home in 1983, but the Atari 2600 version looks and works like a stranded garbage barge.
The idea of having the arcade experience at home continued to be a carrot swinging in the face of developers throughout the 90s. In fact, Genesis liked to publicize his Altered beast, while the Super Nintendo waved at you with its version of Final fight. But in the meantime, the real console experience started to take shape, and while games like Super Mario Bros. started us towards that goal, it would be The legend of Zelda, with its ability to save your progress, which would really mark the beginning of the transition.
Kind of. Like most things in the history of video games, it is a little more complicated than simply saying “Praise this game!”
Part of the reason we’ve been stuck on arcade gates on consoles for so long is that developers needed to be aware of public resistance. You were stuck in a game until it was over, making only small experiments practical. Even the longest games with clearly defined purposes, such as Super Mario Bros. (released a few months before The legend of Zelda in Japan), could be completed in one session.
That would change with The Legend of Zelda’s 1986 launch on the Famicom Disk System, one of the add-on’s launch titles. The Famicom Disk System was an attachment to the Japanese equivalent of the Nintendo Entertainment System, which allowed games to run on floppy disks; read / recordable media. The ability to save was one of the selling points of the attachment and was used in games like Metroid, Kid Icarus, and Castlevania.
Of course, this has been possible on home computers since its inception. They were already using read / write media like floppy disks and cassettes, and it was already possible to save in games like Ultima and Zork almost half a decade before The legend of Zelda. In a way, the Famicom Disk System was only allowing this advantage in home consoles.
The Famicom Disk System was never released outside of Japan, but Nintendo was still eager to have The legend of Zelda in western hands. The problem they found was that it is impossible to save data on the ROM chips that were central to the cartridges. Nintendo’s solution was to install a small battery inside the cartridge that kept the saved data alive in RAM.
Again, Zelda he was not the first to do this. Some games on Epoch Super Cassette Vision allowed you to save your high score and levels created in RAM, but were powered by AA batteries that you inserted in yourself. It was the same idea, but not necessarily the same execution. Also, I would not be surprised if this is the first time that you have heard of Epoch Super Cassette Vision.
Meanwhile, the CR2032 in my Zelda the cartridge still works today and I didn’t have to weld a new one. I suppose its useful life of 15 years is just a suggestion.
There were ways to get around the need for a battery to allow it to continue from a certain point. In North America, both Metroid and Kid Icarus replaced his rescue system with ridiculously long passwords. Likewise, Castlevania omitted the rescue in its English version. The number of games that had a backup battery on the NES was quite small, but the number of games that were more based on progression than high score continued to grow.
What Zelda presented was an adventure with a final goal, instead of being just challenge after challenge. It was much less based on levels than something like Super Mario Bros., tasking you with discovering the next dungeon for yourself in a gigantic (at the time) superworld. Dive into the dungeons, grab your gear and save the princess. On a good day, it can take about 6 to 8 hours to complete and it’s easy to get stuck and want to quit the game.
Most notably, however, it omitted a scoring system, which was still practically sacrilegious at the time. It would take a long time to eliminate the need for one out of the minds of developers and publishers, with it hanging like a vestige of appeal in the years to come. It was a necessary sacrifice, however, as we moved from models of endless cyclic games to games with definite goals.
It may be safe to assume that even without Zelda’s influence, video games would have changed to a progression-based model eventually, especially when it was already flourishing in the home computer world. Yet, The Legend of Zelda’s The influence and popularity prepared the public and pushed developers towards this model, and its effects were felt almost immediately.
But the industry usually takes baby steps. Even games with an end goal would be somewhat cyclical, as both Super Mario Bros. and The legend of Zelda would start over on a more difficult difficulty after completing them. However, with the influence of the growing RPG genre – a genre entirely created for homes and not suitable for arcades – we would eventually find freedom to pursue high scores endlessly and learn to shoot for the gentle pat on the head of the roll of credits.
I don’t miss the days of chasing high scores. Although I sometimes like to try to overcome my best efforts in Space invaders and Mrs. Pac-Man, personal growth because of that is boring for me. Fortunately, I prefer the reward of being kissed by the princess after my friends and defeating the unknown evil. I’m that simple.
In fact, it was a lot more fun to sit and watch my dad finish Ganon in his lair inside the Rock of the Spectacle than it would have been to see him, I don’t know, drive down an endless road cutting through traffic. Spy Hunter. It helps to capture your imagination and give you something to invest in emotionally, knowing that whether the hero reaches the end or not – and there is an end – depends on you. I’m not sure if I would have survived video games if I were relentlessly chasing bigger numbers.
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