History EarlyInstallmentWeirdness / TheLegendOfZeldaI

* There are a lot of crosses throughout Hyrule, and one of the important upgrades Link can find is explicitly a Bible. This is because Christianity was supposed to be Hyrule's religion; [[CrystalDragonJesus the mythology of the Golden Goddesses]] came later as a result of EarthDrift.

* The Triforce has only two pieces in the game: the Triforce of Wisdom, which Link is searching for throughout the game, and the Triforce of Power, which is stated in the backstory to be possessed by Ganon. The third piece, the Triforce of Courage, does not appear until the second game, ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink''. This also means that the iconic three-triangle Triforce symbol is also missing (except for the Japanese cover of ''Zelda II'' and [[AllThereInTheManual being the mark on Link's hand in that game's manual]]), and would not become codified until ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]]''.

* Magic as a game element simply didn't exist in the first game. It wouldn't be until ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' where Link could use magical abilities.

* A few dungeons in this game contain ''two'' special items. Level 1 has both the Boomerang and the Bow; Level 8 has the Magic Book and the Magic Key; and Level 9 has the Silver Arrows and the Red Ring. Later games stick strictly to a one-item-per-dungeon rule, with rare exceptions like the Spirit Temple in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]''[[note]]which has the Silver Gauntlets and Mirror Shield[[/note]], Stone Tower Temple in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]''[[note]]which has the Light Arrows and Giant's Mask[[/note]], and Forsaken Fotress in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker The Wind Waker]]''[[note]]Link's own sword in the first visit, and Skull Hammer in the second[[/note]].

* The multiple swords only serve as upgrades for Link and have no bearing on the plot. It wasn't until ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThepast'' where the Master Sword came to be and doubled as a PlotDevice while stronger swords were (usually) made into optional items.

* A few dungeons in this game contain ''two'' special items, an anomaly that would never be seen again in the series. Level 1 has both the Boomerang and the Bow; Level 8 has the Magic Book and the Magic Key; and Level 9 has the Silver Arrows and the Red Ring. Later games stick strictly to a one-item-per-dungeon rule, with rare exceptions (Example: The Spirit Temple in VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime)

* A few dungeons in this game contain ''two'' special items, an anomaly that would never be seen again in the series. Level 1 has both the Boomerang and the Bow; Level 8 has the Magic Book and the Magic Key; and Level 9 has the Silver Arrows and the Red Ring. Later games stick strictly to a one-item-per-dungeon rule, with rare exceptions.

* Heart Containers do not fully restore Link's health upon collecting them. ''ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' would make Heart Containers fully restore Link's energy, but ''TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' would skip this feature again. By ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', Heart Containers and Piece of Hearts restoring all life would become a standard feature.

* Upgrading your bomb capacity could only be done by old men hidden in dungeons. This was changed in future games where capacity upgrades would be done in the overworld or a town.

* Link only stabs straight forward with his sword instead of slashing with it.

* Even the overall game design was very different to later games, with the original being basically an open world sand box. While the dungeons were numbered and some items such as the raft being required to reach certain places, overall the player us very free to explore the entire world from the start and will very likely stumble across and even complete dungeons outside of the numerical order. Later games, even Zelda II, were a lot more linear in nature with only some minor choice in dungeon completion order. It wouldn't be until Breath of The Wild, thirty years later, that the series would return to this style of game design. Though considering how successful Breath of the Wild turned out to be, this might just be the new face of the franchise.

* There are no NPC-filled towns, and [=NPCs=] are rather rare. Ironically enough, this was rectified in [[VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink the next game]], which is generally considered to be the OddballInTheSeries.

* The Triforce has only two pieces in the game: the Triforce of Wisdom, which Link is searching for throughout the game, and the Triforce of Power, which is stated in the backstory to be possessed by Ganon. The third piece, the Triforce of Courage, does not appear until the second game, ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink''. This also means that the iconic three-triangle Triforce symbol is also missing (except for the Japanese cover of ''Zelda II'' and [[AllThereInTheManual being the mark on Link's hand in ''Zelda II'''s manual]]), and would not become codified until ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]]''.

* The Triforce has only two pieces in the game: the Triforce of Wisdom, which Link is searching for throughout the game, and the Triforce of Power, which is stated in the backstory to be possessed by Ganon. The third piece, the Triforce of Courage, does not appear until the second game, ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink''. This also means that the iconic three-triangle Triforce symbol is also missing (except for a [[AllThereInTheManual being the mark on Link's hand in the Zelda II manual]]), and would not become codified until ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]]''.

* Full [[HeartContainer Container Hearts]] are found throughout the game (as well as after defeating bosses), so Link doesn't have to assemble each with Pieces of Heart.

* While Fairies are around to heal you, there's no bottles to hold them in like the later games did, so you really had to be careful with taking damage. ''Link's Awakening'' and the Oracle duo also lack bottles but their fairies still heal more than 3 hearts. Fairies in this game are more akin to later games' Great Fairies, healing you completely but never leaving their fountains.

* There are no treasure chests, so any item found inside of a dungeon either just appears out of thin air when all enemies are defeated, or it's just lying around in the open.
* Keys were interchangeable, meaning you could use any key on any door in any dungeon, making it possible to run out of keys. Luckily, you could also buy keys from a shop if you happened to run out, though the concept of buying keys would stay in the first game. Zelda II continues this trend, but you can bypass locked doors with the Fairy spell. Starting with the third game, all keys can only be used in the dungeons they're found within.
* The dungeons were named after the shapes of their maps: Dungeon 1 was "Eagle," Dungeon 2 was "Moon," and so on.

* Finding Heart Containers outside of dungeons. While a few games later in the series reused the idea, most of the games in general do not.

* A dungeon's major treasure would always be in an underground room. Later games would have them inside chests and unique rooms.

* A few dungeons in this game contain ''two'' special items, an anomaly that would never be seen again in the series. Level 1 has both the Boomerang and the Bow, Level 8 the Magic Book and the Magic Key, and Level 9 the Silver Arrows and the Red Ring. Later games stick strictly to a one-item-per-dungeon rule, with rare exceptions.

* This game and the sequel has the Magical Key, an item that basically acted like infinite keys so you could open every door. The item was never brought back in later installments.
* Dungeons are simply numbered "Levels" (Level 1, Level 2, etc.). All subsequent games use more flavorful dungeon names.

* While most dungeons were out in plain sight, some were completely hidden and required a specific item or action to access them and you had little to no hints on where said hidden dungeons are. While later games would continue to use hidden dungeons, the game would usually go out of its way to tell you how to get there and/or how to access them. The dungeon entrances themselves were simple staircases or doorways. Later games would make dungeon entrances much more unique.

* While most dungeons were out in plain sight, some were completely hidden and required a specific item or action to access them and you had little to no hints on where said hidden dungeons are. While later games would continue to use hidden dungeons, the game would usually go out of its way to tell you how to get there and/or how to access them.

* Full [[HeartContainer Container Hearts]] are found throughout the game, so Link doesn't have to assemble each with Pieces of Heart.

* The lowest Rupee units are not green (since Rupees shared their palettes with the enemy characters), but flash between yellow and blue (though they're identified as "yellow" only). Also, the manual called them "rubies," while the in-game intro referred to them as "rupies" (one being a "rupy".)

As the very first installment in the ''Zelda'' franchise, of course there will be plenty of differences compared to future games.

* There are a lot of crosses throughout Hyrule, and one of the important upgrades Link can find is explicitly a Bible. This is because Christianity was supposed to be Hyrule's religion; [[CrystalDragonJesus the mythology of the Golden Goddesses]] came later as a result of Nintendo of America's JesusTaboo.

* The Triforce has only two pieces in the game: the Triforce of Wisdom, which Link is searching for throughout the game, and the Triforce of Power, which is stated in the backstory to be possessed by Ganon. The third piece, the Triforce of Courage, does not appear until the second game, ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink''. This also means that the iconic three-triangle Triforce symbol is also missing (except for a [[AllThereInTheManual being Link's birthmark in the backstory]]), and would not become codified until ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]]''.