3 Times The Legend Of Zelda Franchise Completely Reinvented Itself
The Legend of Zelda is one of those franchises that seem to be deeply beloved by almost anybody who had the pleasure to try it out. After all, these excellent video games have been accumulating a sizeable fan base since 1986, thanks to their interesting storylines, lovable characters, wonderful sense of adventure, outstanding level design and exciting boss fights.
However, sometimes making high-quality games is not enough to keep a franchise afloat for almost four decades, and Nintendo is obviously aware of this. That’s exactly why the skilled developers and artists working at this company had to keep coming up with creative new ideas that could effectively reinvent The Legend of Zelda franchise over and over. They not only succeeded in that regard, but they also ended up innovating in ways that affected the entire video game franchise as a result. Needless to say, the history of The Legend of Zelda series is quite fascinating, and this rundown will detail how Nintendo drastically made it evolve over the last four decades.
The Original Legend Of Zelda Redefined The Adventure Genre On Home Consoles
The action-adventure genre existed way before the release of the original The Legend of Zelda, but it was a lot different back then. During the 70s and early 80s, gaming was mostly done in arcades, in which players had to insert coins in order to keep playing as long as possible. Because of this limitation, most popular games from this era (like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, or Donkey Kong) were very short, but very fun, experiences that didn’t even try to tell a real story.
This standard didn’t change until the rise in popularity of home consoles during the 80s. For example, the Atari 2600 had some of the first single-player platformer games, like Pitfall!, and the first single-player dungeon crawler adventure games, like Adventure (Yes, that was its real title), but the technical limitations of these devices didn’t allow their developers to tell real stories or to create recognizable characters with actual designs, seeing as most of them looked like a bunch of random pixels. This finally changed with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System and the game that redefined the action-adventure genre, Super Mario Bros.
While now it’s considered more of a 2D platformer rather than an action-adventure game, when the original Super Mario Bros came out on NES it revolutionized the genre because it told an actual (albeit simplistic) story with easily recognizable characters, numerous levels, bosses, and even secret levels. This not only paved the way for what an actual adventure on home consoles could and should be like, but it also inspired Nintendo to keep making similar experiences. Shortly after the release of Super Mario Bros, its director, the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto, was working on a brand-new game for a potential disk drive system for the Famicom. Inspired by all the time he spent playing and exploring the countryside of Japan when he was growing up, he wanted this new project to convey a sense of “adventure” similar to the Indiana Jones movies that were coming out around that same time. The team tried to achieve this by making something more non-linear, where the player could choose where to go, which would be quite different from the linearity present in Super Mario Bros.
This obviously led to the creation of the original The Legend of Zelda, which came out for the aforementioned Famicom Disk System on February 21, 1986, and on the American NES (as a regular cartridge game) on August 22, 1987. Its premise felt like a more ambitious version of what Miyamoto and his team had previously done for Super Mario Bros: a young hero named Link had to rescue Princess Zelda from the clutches of an evil monster named Ganon and recover the Triforce of Power in the process. However, instead of being a 2D sidescroller, The Legend of Zelda had a top-down perspective and a bigger focus on combat, exploration and item management. This game resonated really well with audiences worldwide, which led to the original The Legend of Zelda to become a huge critical and commercial success.
Gamers and developers were fascinated by this game’s dungeon-based structure, the vibrant world it took place in (named Hyrule), its engaging gameplay, its fast-paced combat and its simple but effective characters that were based off of classic medieval fantasy tropes. As a result of its influence many 2D action-adventure games released during the 80s and 90s were obviously inspired by The Legend of Zelda, to the point that a subgenre known as the “Zelda-like” was born during that time. Some prominent examples include: Illusion of Gaia, Alundra, Crusader Of Centy, Beyond Oasis, Golden Axe Warrior, etc. Even RPGs like Crystalis or the Mana series were heavily inspired by The Legend of Zelda.
The Adventure Of Link Was An Experiment Gone Wrong
Despite the obvious impact and popularity of the first Zelda game, it took a while for Nintendo itself to actually establish a formula that it would follow for many years to come, because the second game in the series was completely different from the first, to the point that it basically belonged to an entirely different genre. Miyamoto really wanted to develop a 2D sidescroller, and this project even began its life as a separate IP, only to later become a Zelda spin-off until the team decided to make it an official sequel that took place several years after the original adventure.
The final result was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which was more of a 2D role-playing game instead of a dungeon-based semi-open world action-adventure title like its predecessor. Not only did this strange sequel have a different perspective and even a level-up system, but it was also surprisingly challenging (and even quite unfair and ruthless at times) to the point that it's often considered one of the hardest NES games ever, whereas its predecessor was way more simple and accessible in comparison.
Zelda II received positive reviews and sold fairly well but this attempt to reinvent the series after just one entry completely soured its reputation and left fans unsatisfied. After all, players who had previously enjoyed the first installment and wanted to experience more of it were shocked to find out its sequel was completely different in terms of gameplay, design and difficulty. Because of this massive change in style, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is one of the most polarizing games in the entire series, not to mention that many seasoned Zelda fans still consider it one of the worst ones as well.
Miyamoto’s attempt to reinvent the Zelda series was admittedly quite interesting but, at the end of the day, this didn’t work because it was just the second game. A formula can’t be reinvented and innovated if it wasn’t properly established in the first place, which made this strange sequel feel all the more experimental and explains why there hasn’t been any other RPG-like game in the series ever since. The Zelda franchise finally earned back its reputation in 1991, when Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the Super Nintendo, which not only played similarly to the first game but also expanded on its ideas in many fun and unique ways, while also looking, sounding and feeling way better (thanks to the technical capabilities of the 16bit SNES).
Shortly after that, Nintendo released Link’s Awakening in 1993, which took this perfect action-adventure formula and applied it to an ambitious Game Boy title, thus making it the series’ first foray into the world of handheld gaming and. to no one’s surprise, it quickly became one of the best-received and best-selling Game Boy games of all time.
Ocarina Of Time Laid The Foundation For Future 3D Action-Adventure Games
Around the time Nintendo was finally able to enjoy the newfound success and popularity of its Legend of Zelda series, a major obstacle appeared in its way: the sudden rise of 3D gaming. Fortunately for the company, it was able to quickly revolutionize the industry with the release of the Nintendo 64 and its flagship title, Super Mario 64, which allowed its main character to move in every direction with the console’s analog stick. But, of course, Nintendo knew that it was very important that the Zelda series made the jump to 3D as smoothly as Mario just did.
History was repeated once again because, similarly to how The Legend of Zelda was originally developed as a Famicom Disk System game, the first 3D entry in the series was originally conceived as a launch title for the Nintendo 64DD, a disk drive peripheral for the console. However, due to issues regarding the performance of the game on a disk drive, its development was transferred to a regular N64 cartridge. This ended up being a great decision, because the 64DD came out in Japan in 1999 and it was such a commercial failure that it was never released in other countries.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the first 3D entry in the series, it came out on November 1998 in both Japan and North America, and it became an instant hit. Curiously enough, one of the many reasons this game was so beloved and celebrated at the time was its semi-open world full of hidden items and side quests, but, according to Shigeru Miyamoto, it was originally going to take place almost entirely within Ganon's Castle, which would have worked as HUB world that allowed Link to go to other dungeons, very similarly to how Princess Peach's Castle worked in Super Mario 64. While this structure was a natural evolution for the more lineal Mario series, it would have been a major step back for the Zelda series, so it’s a very good thing that they ultimately scrapped this idea.
Ocarina of Time tells an epic and ambitious time-travelling story with a terrifying villain named Ganondorf, features a collection of fun dungeons with complex puzzles and challenging bosses, has a beautiful soundtrack and takes place in a vibrant open world full of NPCs, enemies, side quests and items. Because of all this (and more) not only is it considered one of the best video games ever made, but The Legend of Zelda is often cited as an example of how a video game franchise should make the jump from 2D to 3D. Miyamoto claimed that the team took their time crafting this new 3D version of Hyrule, and they carefully analyzed which mechanics that worked in 2D wouldn’t work in 3D, and vice versa.
Needless to say, Ocarina of Time redefined what a 3D action-adventure was supposed to be and its massive success led to many sequels that utilized the same formula (although they all had their own unique mechanics and features that helped them stand out) like Majora’s Mask, The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. On top of that, Ocarina of Time was a major source of inspiration for many other game studios, which led to the release of multiple 3D Zelda-likes throughout the 2000s, like Okami, Beyond Good & Evil, Darksiders, Star Fox Adventures, and more.
But the most important innovation that Ocarina of Time brought to the table was its Z-targeting system, which allowed the player to quickly target a specific enemy and follow their movements with the press of a button. Thanks to this one mechanic, the game’s 3D combat felt way more natural and effective, not to mention that it became a mainstay of the franchise and was included in every subsequent 3D Zelda game released after it. Additionally, many other 3D action games with sword fighting featured targeting systems that were clearly inspired by Ocarina of Time’s Z-targeting, like Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry or Dark Souls. Curiously enough, co-directors Toru Osawa and Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that they came up with the idea after watching a live ninja show at Toei Kyoto Studio Park.
Breath Of The Wild Introduced A New Formula For The Open World Genre
For more than 19 years, the Legend of Zelda series became synonymous with the action-adventure genre, both in 2D and 3D, and Nintendo saw great critical and commercial success with every new game in the series it released (with a few minor exceptions). However, by the mid-2010s, gamers were growing tired of the same old formula and were dying to know what Nintendo was going to do with the Zelda series on its brand-new HD console, the Nintendo Wii U. A new game was announced on E3 2014 and it looked absolutely beautiful. Needless to say, fans were very hyped, but, unfortunately for them, it wouldn’t come out until three years later, with little-to-no updates in between.
Even though development of this game started around 2011, right after the team completed Skyward Sword, it wouldn’t come out until 2017, which prompted Nintendo to port it to its next console, the Nintendo Switch, as a launch title (although it also came out for Wii U, just as they had originally promised back in 2014). The final result was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which was a huge commercial and critical success, meaning that all the time, effort and resources Nintendo spent on it were completely worth it at the end.
Back in 2013, Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for the Nintendo 3DS, and, while the company has never confirmed it, this game clearly served as a prototype of what would eventually make Breath of the Wild so revolutionary. In A Link Between Worlds, players are able to choose in which order they complete the different dungeons, something that was completely unprecedented for the series and it made the experience feel all the more fresh and full of freedom. Of course, Breath of the Wild seemingly took what made this game so effective and implemented it on a whole new level.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild takes place in an enormous new version of Hyrule (the biggest one in any Zelda game at that point) which not only is filled to the brim with interesting locations, memorable characters, powerful enemies, important items and more, but players can also choose what they will do next in whatever order they want: they can clear the game’s four main dungeons in any order, go out of their way to complete side quests or optional dungeons known as shrines and hunt monsters in order to obtain specific loot or items. Even some puzzles and combat segments can be solved in a variety of different ways with the only limit being the player’s own imagination. It’s even possible (albeit extremely hard) to go directly to Hyrule Castle and defeat the final boss in less than 20 minutes.
The open-ended design philosophy of Breath of the Wild was extremely innovative for its time, as not many games (not even those in the open-world genre) gave the player so much freedom of choice. This was the perfect reinvention the Zelda franchise needed to keep itself afloat while maintaining its tradition of changing the entire gaming industry every few years.
From that point onwards, most open-world experiences tried to be more open-ended, just like Breath of the Wild, and it inspired many popular games like Sonic Frontiers, Genshin Impact, Immortals Fenyx Rising, and Elden Ring. Lastly, Nintendo released a sequel in 2023, titled The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which expanded on the ideas of its predecessor, featured an even bigger map, and gave the player even more freedom of choice, thanks to its carefully-crafted physics engine and new mechanics like the Ultrahand.
It’s incredible to think that The Legend of Zelda series made an enormous impact on the industry on three different occasions, which is something that can’t be said about many other popular video game IPs. And even though some of Nintendo’s attempts at reinventing the franchise (like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link) were huge misfires, it’s a good thing that the company kept trying to switch up the formula as much as possible, or otherwise we would have never gotten legendary video games like Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. Of course, some fans are quite tired of the open-ended formula of the last two mainline entries, and with the Nintendo Switch 2 release, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo is already coming up with new ideas that will reinvent the franchise and revolutionize the industry even further.
Julián is an Argentinian journalist, writer, and researcher with a love for retro gaming, anime, and manga. Julián is always eager to share interesting stories about the fascinating video game industry.
