Alternative Character Interpretation: The Moblins that secretly pay Link large sums of rupees are given no explanation in the official lore, leaving their motives up to fan interpretation. Are they Token Heroic Orcs that are rebelling against Ganon? Are they Cowardly Mooks that are paying Link to convince him not kill them?note This seems to be supported by The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, wherein a cave-hiding Hinox is terrified of Link, pays him to leave him alive, and then asks to keep the bribery a secret since he has a reputation to keep. Do they just want to be left alone in their caves and are bribing Link to keep them a secret? Or maybe Link walked in on themdoing something embarrassing?
Anti-Climax Boss: The original Ganon is either Unwinnable by Design or this. He may be invisible, but Link just needs to hit him four times to make him vulnerable to the Silver Arrow, while Ganon, despite being able to easily land a hit on the hero, needs to hit a fully-equipped Link dozens of times to whittle down his health (with the Red Ring, his fireballs do only a half heart of damage). He's more frustrating for people doing a Self-Imposed Challenge, where he actually stands a chance of winning the damage race and his random pattern makes it difficult to avoid getting hurt.
Gohma is located at the end of the Level 6, a grueling dungeon filled to the brim with Wizzrobes, Like Likes and a rematch with Gleeok. You'd think Gohma would be just as difficult, but it goes down in just one arrow to the eye.
Aquamentus in Level 7 is an example of Villain Forgot to Level Grind. It's just as strong as it was in Level 1, but Link at this point is so much stronger that Aquamentus doesn't stand a chance.
Level 7 mostly features Goriyas, enemies from the first two levels who aren't much harder to kill than Moblins. In addition, the boss is Aquamentus, the same boss from Level 1, with absolutely no changes. Considering this level is much easier than Level 6, this is a given to the point that people skip Level 6 and go straight to level 7 beforehand.
Second Quest Level 3 is the shortest dungeon in the game (either quest), has no enemies tougher than blue Goriyas (optional), and comes at a point where your equipment can be roughly on par with what you could have at the same point in the first quest. Most players would simply get the Recorder in Level 2 (albeit being careful due to Gibdos doing mass damage in that dungeon in such an early stage) just to complete this level first. The only difficult part is getting the optional blue boomerang but that's it.
Second Quest Level 8. The enemy pattern is the same as in Level 7 of the First Quest and the boss is just three Dodongo enemies with four ball-spitting statues in the room (note that another room in the dungeon has exactly the same layout). While a bit harder than a single Aquamentus, it's certainly less of a challenge than the Gleeok of the previous level. That being said, the challenge of Level 8-2 is the incredibly convoluted layout, full of passageways that only take you to the beginning of the level, one way doors that force you to go places you don't want to, and a couple other rooms full of Dodongos that causes you to use up your bombs before reaching the boss. Most players would go after this dungeon after completing the first 3 dungeons and sneak-get the ladder at Level 6 to make everything else in the game much easier.
Blue Wizzrobes. They do major contact damage, they're durable (one point less durable than the Blue Darknuts), their motion pattern is impossible to predict, and you can't stand in front of them because they continuously fire spells if you do. And unlike other enemies, they can walk into doorways and hurt you if you stand in the door and try to snipe - you can avoid them by getting far enough back, but if you get too far back you risk leaving the room and that resets all the damage you did. On top of this, they completely No-Sell most of your conventional weapons you'd use to fight other enemies from a distance, like the Boomerang, Arrows, Magic Rod and fire (be it from the Magic Rod or Candle) — they're mercifully vulnerable to Bombs, but you only get 16 of those. The only strategy even halfway effective against them is to stand directly behind them, but that leaves you open to the Red Wizzrobes (see below) and Like Likes that often accompany them.
Red Wizzrobes are normally easy enough to deal with, but they can become quite dangerous in their own right when combined with Blue Wizzrobes. Trying to keep your distance from the blue ones tend to result in wandering into a red one right as they either teleport into your path or fire a spell. The advantages the weaker variety has is the ability to teleport a greater distance, and their spells; the latter are twice as strong as those from the blue ones at four hearts of damage if you don't have the blue/red ring
Blue Darknuts. They can't be attacked from the front, they're twice as fast and durable as Red Darknuts, and they do major damage (in fact, they are tied for the hardest hitting enemy in the game with Blue Wizzrobes' spells and Ganon). They change direction without any warning, including reversing direction. You can be running up behind one only to have it quickly wheel around and bump right into you. They can only be damaged by the sword, sword beam, and bombs, and since the sword beam only works at full health and bombs are a limited resource, you'll find yourself forced to rely on getting in close with your sword, putting you at major risk of getting crushed by their might. You're required to clear out two entire rooms swarming with Blue Darknuts just to get the Whistle in the first quest, and they'll all respawn if you die and have to try again, it gets worse on the second quest Level 7 as you are forced to kill 3 rooms of them to reach that dungeon's boss.
Like Likes, for one reason: they eat your Magical Shield. Being forced to deal with the games' stronger projectiles and non-boss fireballs isn't fun at all. The devs seemed to know how much it'd make players rage, as Like Likes frequently show up with Wizzrobes; and if you lose your shield...
Before you get the bow and arrow, Pols Voice. Unpredictable movement pattern, exceptionally durable, immune to bombs and the boomerang, and they do major damage (especially in the early portion of the second quest). In the Famicom version, they can be instantly killed with the microphone on the controller making them a lot easier to deal with, but US players tragically can't access it due to it being Japanese exclusive.
Red Bubbles in the second quest. Rather than a temporary inability to use your sword, you have to touch a Blue Bubble or drink a potion. They also tend to get you killed by enemies that are primarily vulnerable to your sword.
Until you have at least the White Sword (and hopefully also the Blue Ring), Gibdos are a major pain. They require eight hits to kill and take off a solid chunk of your life. This really only applies to the Second Quest, where they are encountered much earlier than the first one.
Lynels in the overworld are also extremely painful to deal with. Without your Magical Shield, their Sword Beams can't be blocked, and they deal very high damage. Going around a blue Lynel is, in fact, required to get the White Sword.
Level 5-1 is the first major difficulty spike. With little forewarning it throws Gibdos, Blue Darknuts, and Pols Voices at you. You'll need the Whistle to beat Digdogger at the end of the level, but 5-1 is the first level featuring a hidden passage, and the Whistle is in that section; two entire rooms full of Blue Darknuts must be cleared in order to progress through this area. If players ignore this path, they are quite likely to encounter Digdogger when they have no way to fight him. This is your first indicator that the Magical Sword is going to be needed moving forward.
Level 6-1 is the first level that throws Wizzrobes at you. Fighting a room full of Wizzrobes is a miserable experience even with the Magical Sword and Blue Ring, as there's simply no way to fight the things safely - even camping in the doorways doesn't work because the Blue Wizzrobes can walk into them and the Red Wizzrobes will occasionally appear in them. Mix in Like Likes which can eat the Magical Shield, and if they do you might as well commit suicide and Retry.
Level 2-2. Aside from being the first dungeon to introduce the Walk-Through Walls, it also throws Gibdos, Red Darknuts and a freaking Gleeok at you while you've likely still only got the Wooden Sword. It's a wake-up call that this second quest will not be pulling any punches.
Level 5-2 and 6-2 combine to form this.
They're both Wizzrobe dungeons. There is NO WAY to obtain the Magical Sword without going into one of them, and those horrible Blue Wizzrobes take 5 hits from the White Sword. 5-2 is actually longer and tougher than 6-2, but the boss of 6-2 is a Gohma and the Bow is the hidden item of 5-2.
5-2 also has one of the worst rooms in the entire game - a "spiral to a staircase" room with 5 Blue Wizzrobes. The layout makes dodging the Wizzrobes spells all but impossible, and you have to kill all 5 to open the room's door. You'll likely use both your potions clearing this one room. And yes, you have to clear this room to get to the Bow.
The only saving grace is that the Stepladder isn't very deep into level 6-2, and it's possible to go in just far enough to grab it, then leave and use it to get that last heart container you'll need for the Magical Sword.
Level 9-2 has one last trick to throw at you - an abundance of Red Bubbles and an extreme scarcity of Blue Bubbles. Link will spend a lot of time in this dungeon unable to use his sword, desperately dodging Wizzrobes and hoping he doesn't run out of bombs.
Ensemble Dark Horse: The Old Man. He's only appeared in a few games (and even then he's typically not really in there for long), but damn if he's not the most recognized character from the series. It helps that his lines are incredibly memorable and downright weird at times.
First Installment Wins: While the series provided a constant flux of Even Better Sequels, the original remains iconic between its soundtrack, pixel art, and quotes (including the very first, "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this."), along with how innovative the gameplay was for its time.
Fridge Logic: The randomizer lampshades a few instances: "We ask not what creature the bait comes from", "Did Gorons go extinct or something?", "Why are Pols Voice immune to bombs?"
Goddamned Bats: Keese and Gels, for being quick little buggers who don't drop any goodies when vanquished; tempered somewhat by the fact that your boomerang can kill them. Peahats, on the other hand, are completely invulnerable until they slow down and stop flying, and they have a tendency to go a long time between stops.
Goddamned Boss: Dodongos, particularly when they appear in groups of three. Unlike the other bosses, they don't provide an active threat to the player, as they move slowly and cannot fire projectiles. The real threat they provide is draining the player's bomb supply, as they can only be killed using bombs. Either players have to be exact in laying down bombs where they will eat them, or take a risk and blasting their sides so that they can replenish some of their bomb supply. Run out of bombs while taking out the Dodongos? Too bad, better leave to get more bombs and try again.
Good Bad Bugs: In both the NES original and the GBA edition, immediately exiting and reentering the Level 1 dungeon will somehow unlock the first door, netting you a spare key. The reason behind this bug is knownnote the game keeps track of the last door you went through and makes sure the other side is unlocked, but it doesn't keep track of whether said door is an exit; since the exit is to the south, it assumes when you reenter that you went through the south door of the above room, so it unlocks the north door, but it's unclear if it was intentionally left in or not, as it was "fixed" for the GameCube version. This can also be used in the randomizer in many levels, and in some cases (though not all) the same bug will also result in bombable walls being bombed when you come back, without needing to use a bomb yourself. (If there are two bombable walls, this technique will probably result in one being bombed and the other not. It's not clear what the cause was.) This probably would've occurred in the original game, too, but there are no bombable walls in opening rooms in the original game.
Memetic Molester: Starbomb have a song called "It's Dangerous to Go Alone" where the old man who spawned the meme is a pervert who keeps disguising his penis as items in order to get Link to touch it.
"It's dangerous to go alone! Take this." ExplanationSaid by the old man who gives you your first sword. In addition to it being a part of video game pop culture in general, there are some images of someone handing out something that are captioned with the line. The most common meme of this—one of The Oldest Ones in the Book—offers a meowing kitten.
"Dodongo dislikes smoke." ExplanationSaid by the old man in a dungeon. He's trying to tell you to feed Dodongo a bomb or to blind it with the bomb's smoke.
"Grumble, grumble..." ExplanationA monster says this, not getting across that you're supposed to give him food. Many English-speaking fans assume that it's supposed to be a growling stomach, but that's not what the Japanese text shows.
"It's a secret to everybody."ExplanationSaid by the moblins hiding in caves who give you money. Why do they give you money? Who knows? Maybe they're rebelling against Ganon and trying to help you on your quest. Maybe they're actually bribing you to keep a secret. In any case, this phrase tends to get referenced at least Once per Episode in later games in the series.
"Let's play money making game." ExplanationA NPC introduces a Betting Mini-Game whose odds happen to be more than a little unfavorable to the player.
Once Original, Now Common: Though the game's open-ended nature remains revolutionary, it's still in many ways a product of its time. Elements such as the clunky combat, poor overworld map, nonexistent story, and Trial-and-Error Gameplay can provide a bit of a barrier, especially for those who started with later 2D Zeldas. Part of this seems to be due to the translation, however; Japanese players still report that the game is different, but that's primarily due to the difficulty of the combat. Many hints wound up being translated awkwardly, if at all. (To be fair to the translators, Japanese text is a lot more dense in information; they had to convey similar information in English with the same amount of space. It's perhaps no surprise that they weren't always successful.)
Bombing walls for secrets. Sometimes, you can find Rupee stashes, the "Money-Making Game", or other benevolent secrets. But the first time you get "Pay me for the door repair" can have you distrusting bomb-uncovered rooms afterwards.
You will grow very distrustful of old men in the Second Quest, thanks to the five scariest words in the game: LEAVE YOUR LIFE OR MONEY. Finding black rooms (or rooms without a floor texture) in dungeons becomes nerve-wracking since it could contain an old man that will trap you and demand that you either fork over 50 rupees or a Heart Container. In other words, if you can't pay 50 rupees, you'll lose a heart container for the rest of the game.
Polished Port: The American NES release uses Nintendo's MMC1 mapper chip to fit the entire game onto a single cartridge, as opposed to two sides of a Famicom Disk System diskette. Because of this, the American version eliminates the load times and disk swapping of the original Famicom Disk System release (at the slight expense of losing the Disk System's extra sound channel). This conversion, along with rampant piracy of disks, was one of the factors that spelled the doom of the Famicom Disk System, as Nintendo realized they did not need to make use of a separate peripheral to make larger, more technically demanding games for the Famicom/NES. Nintendo would release the cartridge version in Japan in 1994.
A number of players have worked out how to get through the entire game without a sword, save for the final boss fight, for which a sword is unavoidably required. Dorkly parodied this in this video, wherein Link uses his shield to finish Ganon off too (no, you can't do this in the actual game).
Another challenge is to beat the game without collecting any ring to lower damage taken, and without resetting (No Up+A). In fact, it's completely possible to beat both quests with just the basic sword, no defense-boosting ring, and three hearts.
Randomizers (wherein the locations of items and secrets are randomized) were made popular in part by this game, due to them being consistently played and streamed on Twitch. This is despite them often devolving into hoping you have enough bombs to check every location where a wall can break. Said randomizers also offer options to facilitate enforced swordless runs by placing the basic sword just before you fight Ganon and removing the White and Magic Swords entirely.
Red Wizzrobes's shots. While touching it will do 1 full heart of damage, their shots do 4 FULL HEARTS OF DAMAGE. The only enemy that can do that amount of damage is...
...Ganon. While Ganon's shots only do 1 full heart of damage, touching him, even at his invisible state, does 4 full hearts of damage. Those doing a minimalist run will find it almost impossible to do because of Ganon's random movements while invisible. This becomes even worse because of Ganon's shots themselves, which can come from everywhere and are almost guaranteed to land a hit at least once. Try to dodge them and you might bump into him instead.
That One Boss: Gleeok the multiheaded dragon is far and away the game's hardest boss: it requires you to hit the heads exclusively, using the sword. The heads are fairly small and move constantly, and once a head comes off, it starts flying around as an invincible enemy. You also have three fights with Gleeok in the game, and each time, it gains an additional head, meaning you can have multiple invincible fire-blasting threats flying around the room, and you can't block their shots. The mini-boss fight with it in level 6 is considerably harder than the fight with the dungeon's actual boss.
Level 5 Second Quest. It may seem like it acts like its first quest counterpart (Level 4) with no Wizzrobes, but my oh my do they add in Wizzrobes. Oh, and you'll need the Bow to even use arrows required to defeat the required Gohmas in Levels 6 and 7, so you do have to complete one room that contains 5 Blue Wizzrobes in narrow walkways with a chance of getting accidentally hit and knocked back to the stairway. If you decide to do the dungeons in order, you won't be able to get the Magical Sword by the time you reach that level due to being a few heart containers short.
Level 6 in both quests, which feature Wizzrobes. The first quest introduces them.
The first quest in particular has a room which introduces Blue Wizzrobes, appearing alongside Like-Likes, Red Wizzrobes, and Bubbles. The game requires you to clear this room in order to progress. This is the bane of everyone doing a Self-Imposed Challenge.
While some players claim that the second quest version of level 6 is easier than than the first quest, keep in mind that doing the levels in order means you are 1 heart shorter than usual due to the ladder being present here. The ladder would normally make levels much easier to accomplish, but you would have to bypass at least 3 rooms that contain Wizzrobes to get it.
Level 8 in the first quest and level 7 in the second quest (inverting the entries for Breather Dungeon above) are full of Blue Darknuts, who are some of the hardest enemies in the game. Level 7 in the second quest actually requires you to kill no less than three rooms full of them to progress to the end and is considered to be by far the hardest level in the entire game to the point that many players have outright given up on beating the second quest simply because of them.
Level 9, both quests. The first quest is considered the largest to navigate, large enough to be half of the overworld. It is very easy to get lost in this level (even with the map). It also doesn't help that Wizzrobes and Patras exists to make things a lot harder. The second quest version is just as large as the first quest.
Vindicated by History: While this game has almost never been considered outright bad, for a very long time it was overshadowed by later games such as A Link to the Past and/or Ocarina of Time for refining the experience by introducing story elements, telling the player where they need to go, and adding clearer yet more complex item mechanics beyond "randomly bomb/burn things for secrets." The original game was seen as archaic, unpolished, and overly cryptic in comparison. Come The Seventh Generation, with the explosion in popularity of open-world games, the first Zelda has now been acclaimed by many for being an early exemplary example of the Wide-Open Sandbox and for letting players discover things on their own, to the point that a surprising amount of people desired for the series to "return to its roots" by revisiting the framework of the original game. At E3 2014, Eiji Aonuma delivered on this desire, stating that the then-untitled The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will be taking inspiration from this game in crafting its open world setting.
Manga
Complete Monster: Ganon, ruler of the Demon Tribe, is one of the earliest and most monstrous depictions of the Demon King in the franchise. A borderline Eldritch Abomination who seeks to consume all life, Ganon tries to reduce Hyrule to Hell on Earth by allowing his man-eating demons to run rampant on the land and slaughter everything in sight. Ganon personally killed the mother of Zelda and the father of Link in this adaptation, a fact he's only too happy to mock them about.
In the Yuu Mishouzaki adaptation of The Legend of Zelda, Link faces a duo of Goriyas known as the Goriya Brothers. Oracle of Seasons, released almost 12 years after the original publication of this manga, features a Goriya duo, also bearing the title of the Goriya Bros., who are fought as the game's first miniboss.
Mishouzaki's manga makes Zelda into a Badass AdorableTomboy who disguises herself in a masculine manner at one point, and ends up getting kidnapped by Ganon. This sounds a lot like Princess Zelda in Ocarina of Time. Additionally, Zelda and Link are half-siblings; it's a popular myth that Zelda and Link, specifically both the Hero of Time and the SNES Link, are siblings.
The second volume, the adaptation of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, has it as Zelda I, the current one's ancestor, is the first one to have fought Ganon, with a design showing her with braided bangs, much like the reincarnated Hylia from Skyward Sword, who didn't so much face Ganon, than fought his previous incarnation, Demise.
In the second volume, Dark Link or rather Ganon, takes the White Sword from Link's grandfather and corrupts it into the Dark Sword, in a manner similar to how Ghirahim's sword form is a dark version of the Master Sword.
Nightmare Fuel: Oh lord, where to begin with the Yuu Mishouzaki adaptation?
For starters, the enemies from the game, referred to as demons in the manga, look especially hellish and monstrous and are gigantic, easily towering over the human characters and some even being larger than towns. Ganon himself is especially frightening, too, with his shadowy, absolutely massive appearance.
When Zelda and Link set out to the graveyard that the demons are appearing in, one emerges from one of the gravestones and sinks a clawed tendrils into the horse they were riding, and the poor thing turns black and presumably dies from the injury.
In the final pages of the second volume, Link finds out that the grassland he was on in the Great Temple was in fact Ganon's body. Ganon greets him with his core regenerating his body followed by a startling Eye Awaken from his true Kaiju form.
