The Legend of Zelda (1986 Video Game)

The Legend of Zelda is a 1986 action-adventure video game developed and published by Nintendo and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. Set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, the plot centers on an elf-like boy named Link, who aims to collect the eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom in order to rescue Princess Zelda from the antagonist, Ganon. During the course of the game, the player controls Link from a top-down perspective and navigates throughout the overworld and dungeons, collecting weapons, defeating enemies and uncovering secrets along the way. The first game of The Legend of Zelda series, it was originally released in Japan as a launch game for the Family Computer Disk System peripheral in February 1986. More than a year later, North America and Europe received releases on the Nintendo Entertainment System in cartridge format, being the first home console game to include an internal battery for saving data. This version was later released in Japan in 1994 under the title The Hyrule Fantasy: The Legend of Zelda 1. The game was ported to the GameCube and Game Boy Advance, and is available via the Virtual Console on the Wii, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. It was also one of 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition system, and is available on the Nintendo Switch through the NES Switch Online service. The Legend of Zelda was a critical and commercial success for Nintendo. The game sold over 6.5 million copies, launched a major franchise, and has been regularly featured in lists of the greatest video games of all time. A sequel, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, was first released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System less than a year after its predecessor, and numerous additional successors and spinoffs have been released in the decades since its debut.