How The First Zelda Was Made | Documentary

[@ThatGuyGlen]

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[@Jan12700]

Trash

[@thegothaunt]

Congrats on the sponsor! Just wanted to chime into anyone reading: if you're on the fence, go for it! I sleep in my Raycons every night and I adore them.

[@tk337h]

raycon deez nuts loam

[@Veryglupo]

@@thegothaunt that’s pretty much their only use though 💀

[@soundspark]

@@thegothaunt I heard some horror stories about them almost catching fire. Do uploaders use bots to upvote this spam?

[@hamzafasih]

It's nice to think about how the map was originally designed on grid paper and translated into the game, only for kids to play the game and translate the map back onto grid paper ☺

[@Vulpas]

That's pretty cool

[@TankorSmash]

I'd imagine grid paper was literally the only choice back then

[@MikeRavia-xp5ig]

No we had stone tablets and a chizle.

[@JayCruz49er]

@@MikeRavia-xp5ig fo shizle

[@litjellyfish]

Well even some of the graphics was usually done on grid paper up to a bit into the 80s I mean grid paper and well paper in general is still used a lot when designing games. Sometimes Lego bricks is also a great and quick way to prototype layouts

[@Luipaard005]

Wow, time travel and then seeing the water physically drain from the lake? Miyamoto was the lead on Ocarina of Time, it looks like the N64 finally gave him the technology to use those concepts!

[@Arock_tws]

Looks like BotW and TotK finally brought the technology based triforce idea back to the series, too

[@scikoolaid]

Link to the Past had several scenes of transitions that you watched water drain down, rock changing, ground shaking/rising, weather changing. And "time travel" is pretty similar to light world and dark world being slightly effected by each other being a "mirror" of each other. Ocarina of time is more like a re-creation of Link to the Past.

[@bigtone7824]

Dude was really ahead of his time in game development

[@mmmmmmmmmmm10]

Link to the past had the concept of two worlds / time travel. He just sidelined that idea for lttp.

[@blues03]

@@Arock_tws Don't forget that ToTK is literally what Skyward Sword was meant to be (with the Sky Islands and truly falling into the surface/Depths). Even the glider is just a fully functiong sailcloth.

[@OL25LP]

I find it insane, that Zelda AND Mario were produced at the same time

[@ThatGuyGlen]

Yup and that the same designers were working on both! Can't imagine what their schedule must have been like. Props to Miyamoto and Tezuka.

[@Radien]

I find it especially insane that so many of the ideas that were shelved for one game were used in the other. You can see some of the similarities here and there, especially later on in SMB3 and Link's Awakening, but for the most part they seem very different.

[@co2_os]

​@ThatGuyGlen gigachad miyazaki was working on dark souls 3 and bloodborne at the same time too.

[@Mattywan1226]

@@co2_os that’s actually kind of insane to hear as well

[@Echidneys]

It's called multitasking. Not that insane. Do you get your mind blown when you turn on the faucet and water comes out?

[@yessopie]

When Miyamoto made Zelda, he wanted to recreate the experience of exploring caves as a kid. When today's developers make games, they want to recreate the experience of playing Zelda as a kid.

[@stormhought]

I wish I had real caves to play when I was kid. totk new caves finally satisfies that part of me.

[@Radien]

​@@stormhoughtTotK satisfies your childhood need to explore under the earth and find a terrifying hellscape?...

[@alexgarcia3610]

nobody cares anymore. miyamoto is overated af

[@TheRyujinLP]

@@Radien Yes o_o

[@nahometesfay1112]

​@@RadienThe children yearn for the mines XD

[@Tralfazz74]

Nice to see that basically every idea conceived during LoZ's development eventually made it's way into a sequel or fan-inspired game

[@badladyami]

BotW basically felt like everything Nintendo originally wanted to do in 1986 was finally achievable with better hardware.

[@safebox36]

​@@badladyamiI mean yeah, they explicitely said they developed BotW with the idea that it was a "remake" of the original game and then some

[@purelaziness7095]

Something that wasn't mentioned here - Koij Kondo was in a cover band in highschool that played, among other things, a lot of Deep Purple [something he's admitted to being a big fan of]. If you listen to the track "April" there's a part strikingly reminiscent of the zelda theme. He's never directly said they were related but it's pretty obviously an inspiration!

[@SMJSmoK]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/r4eblpKIoNWchKM You mean the part starting at 2:10? If you say it like this then yeah, there are similarities, but I probably wouldn't even notice if you didn't tell me, as the style is very different (this is pretty experimental, Zelda theme is grand and adventurous). But if he was a fan and played the song in a band, it would make sense. It can happen even subconsciously. I play covers of songs on guitar too and some of the songs really get under your skin after you play them enough of times, so their patterns become a part of your musical thinking. And when you're then asked to write a killer theme in a day, your mind goes for the readily available thing and this can happen even without realizing.

[@RiC_David]

@@SMJSmoK I'm not that user, but they would have been talking about the part at 2:00 which is unequivocally near note for note identical to the bridging section of the dungeon theme of the original Legend of Zelda. It's odd that you asked which part they meant, as this one hits you like a bus to the face - there's no doubting it. As someone with an uncommonly vivid musical memory (it's hard to put into words), I do always find it frustrating when musical similarities are pointed out and people respond by identifying differences, especially ones of flavour rather than musical theory (not that I have a classical understanding of music, it's more an inner visualisation and sort of emotional language). This particular section happens to be played on an organ, the same sound and style that the NES chipset was emulating, but people will frequently say it for matching pieces where the style or feel or instrumentation differs, and my point is always that it's irrelevant. Imagine two people who look strikingly similar. You could always say that one's eyebrows angle slightly sharper than the others, and one has a faint mole while the other doesn't, but the claim was never that they're indistinguishable, it's that they share a resemblance-or in the case of music, a motif/chord progression/melody/etc. To see what I mean, try Queen's 'Don't Lose Your Head' and the Underwater/Dam music from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 on the NES. People more famously note the similarity of the title track to 'Sheer Heart Attack', and rightly so (despite it not being note for note), but the Dam music is more interesting to me because it's the *feel* and the sort of essence of 'Don't Lose Your Head' that's been recreated. It's one of these things where if somebody else can't hear it, okay, but they're not getting what we're picking up - it's not that what we're picking up isn't there or that 'there are only so many notes'. Incidentally, other Queen/Nintendo comparisons include the four chord prelude at the end of 'Procession' or intro to 'Father to Son' (they flow into one another). Few people will be get this one, but if you sang/played the intro to Legend of Zelda's title screen over the top, it's the very same chord progression (different key). There's also a bit in 'The Seven Seas of Rye' after they sing "I challenge the mighty Titans and their troubadours" that's very similar to the famous main Zelda theme melody. This isn't to say that all of these are evidence of one artist being inspired by another, but more often than not I strongly suspect it's the case - likely subconsciously. Those last two examples could easily just be coincidence from playing around with scales and chords, but 'April' is undoubtedly the inspiration for LoZ's labyrinth theme as it's a nearly 1:1 recreation.

[@nintendude794]

Interesting how similar the 2:00 part is. But the 2:10 part is more a matter of the widely used Andalusian cadence/progression than any direct/specific similarity.

[@heinrichagrippa5681]

@@SMJSmoK I've heard a lot of things in hard and prog rock from that era that remind me of '80s and '90s era video games motifs. I usually chalked it up to being a combination of my mind jumping to notice any incidental similarities due to those old NES themes being burned into my brain at a very young age, and the influence of the neo-classical laden styles of those '60s/'70s bands on the NES-era composers who would have grown up listening to them. I've heard that particular moment in April you're referring to dozens of times and admittedly always thought of the Zelda dungeon theme, though at the same time I assumed it was largely coincidental, as this kind of fully-diminished chord played in a series of inversions has been pretty common since Bach. In fact, Jon Lord in particular liked to lift things from Baroque compositions so often that might actually even _be_ from something by Bach originally. Though I have to admit that particular sequence and rhythm along with the tone of the organ matches the NES track so precisely that it's hard not to think Koij Kondo may have been channeling this subconsciously. It's funny how hard it is to not end up doing that though. Back when I used to compose more frequently, I'd very often find that underneath my "original" ideas, I had embedded clear copies of things I knew without realizing it. For instance, I once wrote a piece for flute, clarinet, oboe, French horn and cello structured around a "lament bass" progression, only to later realize I had written an elaborate instrumental rearrangement over-top the framework of Hotel California.

[@GerardMenvussa]

I'm not sure listening to a 2014 remaster makes much sense. But, there are some similarities. Some notes in common and some similar rhythms, but the change both in style and in orchestration is massive. To the point where I too would have missed it if not told where to look.

[@Radien]

I've heard most of this before but this was an excellent compilation of some of the most interesting facts about the first Legend of Zelda game. Hearing it all together right after Tears of the Kingdom's release, it's a great reminder that many of the team's unused ideas for The Legend of Zelda ended up being saved and used *decades* later, especially time travel in Ocarina of Time and high technology in Breath of the Wild - even more so in Tears of the Kingdom.

[@THEKHAYYYAM]

Crazy how koji kondo wrote the main theme in 1 day

[@TheGalaxyWings]

the title theme, not the overworld theme

[@mmmmmmmmmmm10]

​@@TheGalaxyWingsat 12:10 he says overworld theme, is the video incorrect or did you misheard?

[@TheGalaxyWings]

@@mmmmmmmmmmm10 neither, the new title theme kondo made was an arrangement of the preexisting overworld theme

[@Maroxad]

Cool, but not unique to Zelda, Dragon Quest had a similar situation.

[@Procedurallydegeneratedjohn]

Believe it or not most hits are written in minutes.

[@wariodude128]

It's pretty funny that the dungeons were accidentally only half programmed in, leading to the space left over being turned into the second quest. One has to wonder what the game dungeons would have looked like if the programmer hadn't made that mistake.

[@michaelsmulkowski746]

They would probably be twice as big!

[@adamb89]

It was actually pretty ingenious because the second quest enhanced the overworld too. The dungeons weren't where you remembered them, so not only do you have to re-explore the dungeons, you have to re-explore the entire overworld too. The second quest essentially increases the exploration 150%, instead of just 50%.

[@jeremygibson4531]

I would imagine it’d just be a game with 16 dungeons, or they’d be twice as big

[@KairuHakubi]

I feel like we must not be understanding that properly, if he "accidentally only programmed half of them in" then the simple fix would be "program in the others that the designer had on paper and you forgot to program in" and then we'd have 18 dungeons. I think what the actual quote is supposed to be is like, the designer thought he had X number of game tiles/screens to devote to 9 dungeons, so he divided them up accordingly, and after they were all done, discovered that was only half of the allotment, leading them to decide "make 9 more dungeons but put them on a separate file" which makes sense, Mario did something similar and it was common at the time that after a game you just start over with a new game. And since the new dungeons are all letter-shaped instead of object-shaped, it makes sense they were all created as a separate group it reminds me of the story of pokemon gold and silver, where the dude stayed up all night eking more space out of a gameboy cartridge and then found he'd _doubled it._ so he went ahead and ported in the entire original map from red and green.

[@ultra_crap]

​@@KairuHakubiThe dude you're mentioning that programmed for a long time straight (I think it was a whole weekend) to optimise space for pokemon Gold/Silver is none other than the late Satoru Iwata, the former president of Nintendo. IIRC, he wasn't even a part of the team developing it. Game Freak was desperate because they were quickly running out of space on the cartridge and time before the deadline. Iwata was so good at programming that the extra space allowed the entirety of the Kanto region to be included in the game.

[@MikeRavia-xp5ig]

I feel like tears of the kingdom has matched or surpassed his original vision of being on an adventure.

[@Neelo5000]

They gave Pol's Voice a different weakness in the NES version. They die in one hit to arrows, and are the only enemy in the game that don't 'consume' the arrows upon being struck, meaning you can potentially kill several in a single shot.

[@LinkEX]

Interesting how this means both Oracle games have connections to the original Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons draws on its original dungeon design and bosses for the exploration. Oracle of Ages delivers on the time travel idea as a game element for the puzzles.

[@Mari_Izu]

Miyamoto made the Oracles team remake the first Zelda as a way to make them understand Zelda.

[@01What10]

Timeline wise, Oracle of Seasons and Ages take place before the original Legend of Zelda, and Adventure of Link. According to The Goddess Collection of official books.

[@arandomperson12345]

Damn, imagine being handed TLOZ by Miyamoto and accidentally not implementing half of his creation. I wonder how that happened...

[@SMJSmoK]

Then going back to him with the tail between your legs and "Boss, look I'm afraid we really screwed up." and Miyamoto being like "Nah, it's fine, we'll make another quest instead." lol "I wonder how that happened" Lots of stress before deadlines I guess, focus slips and accidents happen. These teams were relatively small (basically a size of an indie team by modern standards) so it's possible that nobody checked his work until it was too late. And they were working on two games at once...

[@LiquidSevens]

nah, tezuka made the map but still LMAO i would be so embarrassed... making only half of the game......

[@GerardMenvussa]

Copying stuff from paper quickly becomes a challenge when there is a lot of data.

[@herbderbler1585]

I am forever thankful designers like this moved away from chasing high scores and into story based games. Never in all my years playing video games have I cared about driving some pointless number up. Even in the Atari days I was looking for a plot. Such things were thin on the ground then, and those Atari games that did have them were just not good. NES was when the art of video game storytelling really kicked off in a big way and it's thanks to these pioneers.

[@pantheman2842]

Same, I only care about scores when they help me advance the plot (i.e. reveal a true final boss).

[@catsaregovernmentspies]

Scores were stupid, as were timers.

[@herbderbler1585]

@@catsaregovernmentspies Ugh, yes absolutely. I despise pointless time limits.

[@wphanoo]

true, but now we're too much on the story side, with games taking hundreds of hours to finish and makes me sleepy

[@herbderbler1585]

@@wphanoo still plenty of quicker and more straightforward games out there, as well as skill games with near zero plot. The market caters to virtually everyone now.

[@remka2000]

Thanks for this throwback to simpler times 😊 ! After all these years, this is still my favorite Zelda, and one of my favorite game ever. I spent hours (days?) with my neighbor drawing maps on graph paper…

[@ThatGuyGlen]

My pleasure!

[@thekxckup3854]

Really in my opinion it’s the worst one of them all

[@remka2000]

@@thekxckup3854 sure its your opinion.

[@zekromfan1]

You can turn off the help icons at the bottom of the screen in NSO’s NES Emulator, all you have to do is go to the settings in the main menu and un-check the “Show controls in game” option at the bottom of the screen. Just mentioning it since the Zelda 1 footage had it at the bottom of it. And a lot of people don’t know that you can turn it off, you can do the same thing in all of the NSO emulators.

[@manleeman5212]

Finally i understand why themanual said loud noises would hurt that one enemy. Thank you so freakin much

[@rhodrage]

I love how they had the Time Travel idea from the start

[@NewMateo]

Its wild to think that Nintendo wouldnt be where it is today if Miyamoto had a bad childhood lol.

[@TyperMarlinGames]

They would have made an NES version of The Binding Of Isaac.

[@Loren_Law]

Im not much a fan of the zelda franchize but I really love The frist one. to me it is the most elegant design of the entire series. the other games are too complicated and drawn out for me to stick with the whole way through. The decision to explain as little as possible to the player is something I truly cherish in an adventure game.

[@mimavox-swe]

The main difference for me is that Zelda games became increasingly "handholdy" as time went by. I really like that concept of the first game, that you don't have a clue about anything.

[@fbomb7184]

Imagine only using half the dungeon maps and your boss being like, “No problem, we can just make a second quest 😊.” That can’t be how that went down 🤔.

[@joshualedbetter879]

Despite the massive success of the first Zelda game, Nintendo didn't actually plan on making a sequel. Instead, they wanted to make more games similar to Zelda's style, but with enough difference so it wasn't just a retextured Zelda. At the last minute, however, the game was changed to be the direct sequel to Legend of Zelda. This is why Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link is such an outlier when compared to the rest of the series.

[@さたあか-w4h]

disk system was a quick disk, not a floppy disk. The shape is similar, but the method is completely different. It is the same as the difference between a DVD and a Blu-ray disc.

[@VerityFraser]

Dude had one day to compose original music, and he ended up creating something that's so iconic it's one of the most famous pieces in the medium, good show.

[@TheRyujinLP]

{Koij Kondo}: I'm gonna pull what the kids call a "pro-composer" move.... Like, what dark magic did the heads of Nintendo use in the 80's to summon so much talent into one company? Like Nintendo in the 80's, excuse us while we just casually invent the platforming and the adventure RPG genre and do it so good they're still some of the best games ever made. Nintendo in the late 90's, excuse us while we casually create modern 3D gaming from scratch and releases Mario 64 and OoT. Nintendo today, excuse us while we casually perfect the open world game, on portable hardware that's 6 years old at this point. Nintendo, chill.

[@_sparrowhawk]

I don't think that's what happened at all. He scrapped using Bolero's music on the title screen and rehashed the in game Zelda theme and used it in the title screen. This myth has been spread way too many times online.

[@Sly88Frye]

15:06 What a trip to memory lane. I didn't even know until after his death that Robin Williams was a massive Zelda fan. I mean I'm used to seeing him in whatever movies I see him in from before his death although my wife still gets very affected whenever seeing him because his passing was just so sad. This time around though I don't know why but it really just brought back that sad feeling seeing him again

[@TheFos88]

Same! I somewhat recently found out his daughter is even named Zelda. Miss that man.

[@fredrik241]

Interestingly if you watch the gaming documentary 'Get lamp' about the earlist computer text advuntures they were also inspired by creators' cave spelunking. The first of which came out 1975, Colossal Cave Adventure.

[@esotericmissionary]

Wow, a cyberpunk Zelda game sounds like a fever dream.

[@avereynakama9854]

I wonder if this is why "futuristic" elements always seem to sneak into the series? Steam boats, telephones, a motocycle, cell phones/tablets, trains- I personally love it. I'm glad that they keep ideas like this around.

[@flamingbanana5831]

@@avereynakama9854 teh zonai devices and constructs asw as guardians from botw

[@mystrenula3911]

​​@@flamingbanana5831even before then, Majora's Mask had speedboats, and schematics for a bomb powered rocket ship in the bomb shop, plus Spirit Tracks obviously had trains, and even in Skyward Sword there were robots

[@adeedaas8966]

NES was not the first Nintendo home console. The sound quality increase was mostly due to the additional sound hardware in the disk system

[@katherineberger6329]

Quick technical correction, the DiskCards were not a Nintendo invention, they were a licensed version of Mitsumi's 75mm (2.8 inch) disk format, QuickDisk.

[@robotwo]

0:37 I'm a bit confused as to how a floppy disk would offer better sound quality than a cartridge when cartridges can contain any additional audio hardware you want. I'm guessing you're actually referring to the additional sound hardware Nintendo put into the Famicom Disk System itself? Amazing video altogether, great retelling of the story and absolutely loving the editing.

[@relmdrifter]

Wow the first Zelda was almost "Link Maker", right on. And the original premise to travel through time (why he's named Link) and still gets to in future games cool vid, thanks

[@ThatGuyGlen]

My pleasure, glad you liked it!

[@JiAiJ0]

Jesus. Nobuo Uematsu composed Prelude in 10 minutes and Koji Kondo produced the Overworld theme over the course of a single day? Crazy how their ingenuity created two of the most iconic themes in gaming.

[@Asterra2]

The anecdote about Miyamoto's adventures is of course famously repeated. But we're talking about a game with a top down exploration, moving screen to screen, swords, dragons, bats, clever secrets, keys that open doors, dungeons whose facade frequently covers the top of the screen and are entered from the center, and even _a bridge you can carry around to get past obstacles._ It's so uncanny that you could practically interchange the game with Adventure on the 2600, ca. 1981.

[@mimavox-swe]

Zelda does it 1000 times better, though.

[@Asterra2]

@@mimavox-sweOne would hope so, sheesh. In those days, the days of console _infancy,_ consoles advanced so quickly that it only took two years for the latest arrival to outperform the older unit the way it today takes an entire generation. (Think the VCS, 1977, vs. Intellivision, 1979). The six year difference between the VCS-the console that _made_ home gaming a bona fide thing-and the NES was far more than a single generation of improvement, not leastwise because the NES itself was years ahead of its contemporaries.

[@TrickyTracki]

12:03 it's actually been 48 years between Ravel's death and the release of the first Zelda in Japan.

[@dingus_maximus]

Wasn’t expecting to learn as much as I did from this video. Good stuff!

[@ThatGuyGlen]

Thank you!

[@adamb89]

The funny thing is there were originally only two Triforces. Zelda broke her Triforce of Wisdom into 8 fragments to prevent Ganon from acquiring them, which strangely enough are then guarded in dungeons by Ganon's own monsters. Because that makes sense. There being a third Triforce of Courage didn't come about until the The Adventure of Link. It wasn't until after there were three Triforces that the iconic "Mitsu Uroko" started getting used, possibly starting with the end of the game when link uses the three Triforces together to awaken Zelda. They float up from Link in an almost Mitsu Uroko pattern. But in Link to the Past the title screen had the three Triforces floating in before locking together in what has now become the series' trademark icon. And it's interesting that Bolero was originally the title crawl, because even when I was a little kid I liked listening to that over and over. (I was too young to realize it, but I'm a huge fan of both classic instrumentals and power metal guitar virtuosos.) When I first played Zelda in 86 the title crawl hooked me. I literally watched it several times in a row just listening to the music and now, decades later, it all makes sense. It reminded me of Bolero.

[@Sly88Frye]

I have to say this was actually very fascinating to know about. I'm very glad this video showed up in my recommendations. Honestly I already knew about that issue with the music in the first game and how the composer had to come up with what would end up becoming the iconic Zelda theme and just one day, but I didn't realize that they literally had only one month left on that guy's copyright. I also didn't know that originally there was going to be some time travel including technology from the future or present day or something. Perhaps that time travel concept that they scrapped partly inspired them for Ocarina of Time more than a decade later.

[@lavenderpants8695]

All of this info about the original game is so relevant today with TOTK. They truly never forgot their roots when designing these new games. Link being the "link" between the future and past and the usage of "future tech" is still what the game is doing. And people thought that was a new idea.

[@TheFos88]

I've even seen some criticizing the fact that tech is even more abundant in Tears than it was in BotW, saying they don't like it and doesn't feel like Zelda. I mean, opinions are fine, but I just find it to be a petty gripe especially considering the franchise history.

[@Luxembourgish]

It is a new implementation. Cut ideas that were never implemented are not what Zelda defined itself as, in the final medieval product. Cars and planes are out of place in the world these devs described as "medieval" 9:40 and "Lord of the Rings" inspired 2:42.

[@TheFos88]

@@Luxembourgish Nah.

[@Luxembourgish]

@@TheFos88 Why did we never see cars and planes in this medieval fantasy series before? Why was the Zelda series created as "medieval" 9:40 and "Lord of the Rings" inspired 2:42 according to developers?

[@TheFos88]

@@Luxembourgish who really fucking cares? Tech fits fine and the imaginative creativity found is fun. Mountains out of molehills.

[@sempersolus5511]

It's nice to see the Miyamoto of back then--a visionary who was limited mainly by the technologies of the 1980's--rather than the Miyamoto of today: a stubborn old man who is limited mainly by the values of the 1980's.

[@jackson5116]

0:37 not really, their capacity allowed them to store more data, so the Disk System with its extra sound channel could be used. There was nothing preventing the same sound from coming from a cartridge, it was that chip inside the Disk System that made the better sound.

[@SaintNicholasOfficial]

These videos always make my day

[@ThatGuyGlen]

Makes me happy to hear that :D

[@maniac086]

Great retrospective with a very engaging presentation! This is the kind of video even a non-gamer could watch and I think really garner an appreciation for the ideas and work put into creating the original Zelda. Nicely done!

[@ThatGuyGlen]

Thank you very much for the kind words, glad you enjoyed it!

[@puckthefolise2842]

Cool video, as always, amazed by small facts and all what the developers were inspired by. Good job !

[@ThatGuyGlen]

Much appreciated!

[@ThatGuyGlen]

What game would you like to see me cover next? Leave a suggestion in the comments below! Also, if you enjoyed the video, please consider subscribing to stay up to date on future “How Games Were Made” episodes. Leaving a like and sharing the video also helps out! Support me on Patreon and get exclusive content like Q&A sessions, ad-free content, access to my Discord server and more: www.patreon.com/ThatGuyGlen

[@happyphiri4237]

Could you do a video on Blasphemous next?

[@RaquelCF150]

I'd love to see a Cult of The Lamb one!

[@geothepoly]

Pizza Tower

[@plaguedude6419]

Not indie games, but maybe Persona or Danganronpa?

[@riccardodepieri4582]

Please one on The Case of the Golden Idol, it's such an amazing game

[@anonony9081]

I'd love to see what the game felt like if it had kept the bolero music in. Also amazing that kondo managed to write that song in one day

[@TheBadElf]

He just ripped off Deep Purple's - April

[@Mari_Izu]

He didn't wrote in one day, he rearranged the overworld theme to fit the title theme. And the Dumb Elf don't know what "ripping off" means.

[@_sparrowhawk]

That's not what happened.

[@t-machine3427]

Amazing video, as always! Quick, really easy to follow (for multiple reasons, including soothing voice), and the research done for the video is great.

[@ThatGuyGlen]

Thank you very much for the kind words!

[@thelaughingstormbornagain1297]

Did Miyamoto grow up wealthy? The line about him modeling the dungeons after his childhood home that he frequently got lost in made me wonder if he did. My childhood was the opposite. Nowhere to go, nothing to do and stuck in an incredibly small home. No getting lost.

[@franwex]

I think it was middle class, but his city was more rural during his childhood. Or lived outside the city.

[@ADreamingTraveler]

He based Zelda on the forests he would explore around his home. It wasn't actually inside his home

[@VOAN]

Where I live back then there's actually a ton of buildings, forest, caves, and rivers to explore. There's no such thing as nowhere to go, my guess is that your folks are too secured with you to let you go explored anything yet. As a kid, I often get lost in the nearby woods and rivers where I fished and camp.

[@thelaughingstormbornagain1297]

@Voan Siam Yeah, so I lived in a trailer park next to a busy highway next to a toxic river you can't swin or fish in with a railroad track that was often used by trains back then. So no, it wasn't my parents it was the environment.

[@Endercurse]

You should look up traditional Japanese homes, it makes a lot more sense in that context

[@MaxBrix]

I was on the playground. A bunch of kids were gathered in a tight mob. It was odd because everyone was quiet. As I pushed my way to the front I heard someone say, as though it was a magical device, "It saves your game". Then I got a glimpse of the shining gold cartridge. We all knew that at that exact moment we were entering a new era and it was totally awesome.

[@futuramayeah]

that footage at 15 min in looks good, i would want to play that game, why don't they make another zelda game that looks like the first one

[@shadyshinichi2JZ]

I have been playing Zelda since I was 4 years old in 1989 on the NES. Just finished Tears of the Kingdom, love this franchise. Just wise we heard the original theme song more.

[@fbomb7184]

I remember that stupid hint about Pol’s Voice. We tried the recorder and bombs; nope. We did eventually stumble on their weakness - arrows to the ear hole = instant death.

[@SpringoStar]

"Tim and Eric Meme inserted here" -> Mind blown! THANK YOU! As someone who grew up (Born 1980) playing this game for years and still plays well into my 40's, you made my inner child smile in such joy. :)

[@PaletaJoe2]

Inwas expecting a short explanation for some aesthetic choices in the game, and instead got the best brief history of the origins of the franchise I’ve seen so far. Very concise, and informative. Good job.

[@bruth6138]

This was a really well done video. I bought this when it was brand new and was a huge part of my childhood. Its nice to fill in the gaps with information that explains much of what they did in developing Zelda.

[@Sly88Frye]

12:01 Well I'm sure glad they didn't delay another month just to use that song because honestly it's way more iconic and original that we got the Zelda theme that we've had since the composer made it in a day and they released it.

[@Nathanatos22]

14:10 This unlocked a very old memory. Yes, I definitely remember trying to use the flute and failing, haha.

[@elio7610]

I never knew that The Legend of Zelda was created back in 2017 by Nintendo co-founders Ray J and Ray Lee.

[@blistlelo1700]

I had always though Link was supposed to be a short man or just look short due to bird's eye perspective seen from above or cramped into his small pixel sprite on the screen due to graphical limitations rather than him being a young boy.

[@noodletribunal9793]

10:41 they were so spot on. as a kid, i would always try to burn the big trees too. even after i knew i couldnt, i would still throw the fire over them and pretend. cool that we can finally do this now in the 2 newest games lol

[@thegothaunt]

Another excellent story! Thank you, Glen!

[@ThatGuyGlen]

My pleasure gothaunt, glad you liked it!

[@sauhamm3821]

mario (and duck hunt) and zelda helped make me a gamer. talk about fond memories. 46 year old me remembers getting the NES for my 10th birthday (1987)

[@litjellyfish]

Just a fun comments. In 84 most systems used floppy discs not those hard shell cases ones :)

[@mahna_mahna]

You're thinking of the US, where we are generally behind on technology (especially back then). The 3.5 inch floppy came out in 1983 in Japan. In Japan, new technology gets adopted pretty quickly. Side note: the original Macintosh came with only a 3.5 inch floppy drive, in 1984.

[@Iootman]

8:33 - Link being left or right handed has nothing to do with the pixel art. The proof of that is he's BOTH left and right handed in the original game. There's only a sprite for one direction and it's flipped when facing the other way - If he faces to the right he's left handed, if he faces to the left he's right handed - The handedness of link has nothing to do with his sprite.

[@StarlasAiko]

Zelda is the best argument in favour of Copyright Laws extending beyond the death of the artist. The epic tune we now know and love is a much better fit than Bolero.

[@futuramayeah]

at 1116, when you said that they had extra room and he created a second quest, maybe instead they could have just expanded the map, that would be cool, but today we would just know it as the map, but it might still have been cool to see more of the world beyond what we see on the current map

[@Mari_Izu]

That would be the worst decision, the map getting bigger with the same number of dungeons would not offer much.

[@William-the-Guy]

having a secret quest unlock after you beat the game felt very cool as a kid.

[@angeldude101]

While the overall sci-fi aesthetic was scrapped, it's interesting seeing how time travel, normally seen as a sci-fi trope, has remained a consistent staple of the series in spite of the setting becoming more medieval fantasy. Almost every core console Zelda game since Ocarina of Time has incorporated time travel or time manipulation in one way or another. I wonder what it would be like to see a full sci-fi setting nowadays for a Zelda game.

[@BerryTheBnnuy]

0:12 the Famicom was not known as the NES outside of Japan. It was known as the Famicom outside of Japan. The NES is actually a different system that's only mostly compatible. Capcom for example made games with a mapper chip called the "VRC6" and that chip is incompatible with the NES but it is compatible with the Famicom. So the hardware is actually different, it's actually a different system. The NES is basically a cut down version of the Famicom, but is still a different system.

[@VOAN]

It's the same hardware but with different revisions. If you use a converter, you could even play Famicom games on NES or NES games on Famicom. Capcom's mapper chip use a different language, that's why it's not compatible with NES.

[@RufusGrayward]

i still remember holding the gold cart for the first time, the way the nes packaging smelled, was a gamer for life after that.

[@WhosThatFlying]

That was very very interesting, especially about music and a Dragon Ball writer! Great video as always!

[@ThatGuyGlen]

Thank you very much, glad to hear you enjoyed it!

[@anaveragealex5138]

That is insane, I just played this game in it's entirety for the 1st time last week.

[@raytttc9636]

That was a very interesting video about the history of the Game. I like to think that the legend of Zelda will have a proper movie/TV series adaptation, since the Super Mario Brothers movie was successful. One can only hope. Plus, I liked the nod to the Late Robin Williams and his Daughter, Zelda. He was a huge fan of the series (you can tell by his daughter's name). 15:05

[@TheSacredCowtipper88]

Lol a guy invented the soundtrack to my early childhood in a day, wow. From like 8-10 I played that nes game every day after school for like 30 min(parents use to actually limit children back then)

[@_sparrowhawk]

Nope.

[@LoneWolf-km7rg]

I think you'll find Link is named after the character Charles Bronson played alongside Toshiro Mifune in the 1971 film Red Sun. Bronson was massive in Japan and the film ran for over 8 months in Tokyo.

[@thekxckup3854]

No he isn’t

[@LoneWolf-km7rg]

Watch the movie and you should realize he is. No way Nintendo would admit he's named after a bandit who sleeps with whores.

[@ChuckSploder]

Always love these documentaries :)

[@melody3741]

Honestly BOTW/totk is one of the most faithful renditions yet at least in spirit

[@richardhambel648]

I disagree. They feel like they missed the mark more than some older Zelda games.

[@dyztroyax4628]

PLEASE do Crosscode next, that game deserves coverage!

[@MarxistClownism]

“ Miyamoto wanted to make the story simplistic and easy to understand” well that pretty much went out the window with the convoluted LOZ timelines.

[@fbomb7184]

I was 10 when I played TLOZ and it was magical. I didn’t own a NES at the time, my buddy who live half a mile away did, and I was so hooked on Zelda, I sneak out of my house at night to go play. The last game to have that kind of effect on me was BOTW, naturally.

[@corncobjohnsonreal]

I'm not going to watch the video but I assume it's because shigeru miyamoto use that stuff when he was a kid to explore

[@highfiveanimations]

I think you should make videos on World of Goo and Five Nights at Freddy’s, as those two games had massive impacts on the world on indie games.

[@dsgamedev9434]

Fantastic video as usual, very insightful!

[@ThatGuyGlen]

Much appreciated!

[@DarioDAversa]

Kids today won't understand this, but back in the 80s when playing something like Super Mario Bros. was groundbreaking in its own, almost everyone who tried The Legend of Zelda for the first time was lost navigating the game. You didn't know where to go, or what to do, and sure it made for some fun schoolyard talk, but unlike today, very few kids had the game. It was very difficult to go forward, and it took forever to finish this adventure. Sure it's easy to finish in a day today, but back then, this game was as long as Tears of The Kingdom is today. Great times. I'll never forget how blown away I was by this game.

[@XtraDanger]

Raycon should pay you double! Idk if it's your voice but your sales pitch is spot awesome!

[@michaelsalmon3450]

thank u ray j for sponsoring this video. LEGEND

[@l_burn]

I was born in '87 but I remember being 4-5 years old and playing LoZ with my dad, both of us sitting on the floor in our tiny apartment living room. LoZ, Metroid, SMB 1 and 3 and A Boy and His Blob. Now I'm 35 with 3 kids of my own. My youngest is a Mario freak, he wears Cappy and his Mario Halloween costume daily. The middle son and I have been playing BotW (and now TotK) since day 1 and we're both obsessed. The 16 year old acts like he's too cool for all that until he sees one of us playing on the TV, then he's got a million questions about BotW mechanics.

[@heckensteiner4713]

Dragonview had first person overworld adventuring on the SNES and it was AWESOME! At least, it worked much better than the original Drakken series on the NES so it was smart to not go first person on Zelda. Really cool that they had the idea of time travel this early on. Another smart move to save it for later.

[@Arnsteel634]

He succeeded in immersion. This game means so much for me when I want to go to a fantastic place

[@_JEANIUS]

The highlight of my day! Thanks Glen!😊💛

[@ThatGuyGlen]

My pleasure, Jean!

[@cjeelde]

That Mitsu made me think of the japanese company Mitsubishi and their logo that's so similar to the triforce. Mitsu is "3". I still love Zelda 1!

[@miketacos9034]

“Uh oh, the music is copyrighted! Quick! Write a masterpiece in one day!”

[@rtothec1234]

Ilovehow Ray J went from banging Kim Kardashian, the first high profile guy in fact to do so, to being a headphone technology magnate.

[@Dnobagav49]

Totally forgot about that Nintendo commercial with "Mork" and his daughter Zelda... thank you for that.

[@Ethan-vq7of]

This is a great video

[@ThatGuyGlen]

Thank you, glad you liked it!

[@nikomint4894]

Magic is just technology we dont understand. A person 1000 years ago would think a smartphone is magic

[@jessefinnegan1719]

I wish there was more games like the original Zelda. Not even the later games have exactly captured the magic of finding a dungeon with only a few clues and experimentation that the first had. I get that most gamers these day's wouldn't accept such a game, but I love it. It's one of the reasons I loved the original Dark Souls, because in that game I had to figure things out my self and that discovery made me a better player and opened new areas. Instead of just having it dished out by tutorials.

[@wyldelf2685]

hey That Guy Glen , i am a major fan of the early ZELDA games , thank you for this video 🙏 its very well laid out and extremely informative , kudos also for rare video clips in your video Link dancing and welding fully silver MasterSword , plus a little bit of awesome Robin Williams and his daughter ZELDA , , apparently doing commercial for a Zelda game on 3DS i think , , thank you and keep rocking ,😸👍👍

[@TheBadElf]

It's funny that I see a lot of people moaning that they can't play as Zelda when to Nintendo she was just an afterthought

[@Luxembourgish]

Thanks for bringing back the medieval title

[@lavenderpants8695]

I love how they made the game to get people to talk and share ideas and that's still what's happening today. Instead it's through KZbin videos rather than playground talk!

[@Mari_Izu]

A lot of people still communicates, when BotW was released, I played at the same time as my brother and we were always sharing info xD