5. Beat all of the (main) Zelda Games

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a special place in my heart for the Legend of Zelda games. I'm not sure what it is, but when you play a video game that really pulls you in, a little part of you lives there and you can always go back and find a place that you were happy or excited or safe. I started playing Legend of Zelda on GameCube with my little brother, and Windwaker was the first game we played. We would sit for hours with him watching me play (sorry about that, dude!) and I fell in love with the quirky storytelling and characters that I would later come to discover were an integral part of the world of Zelda.

If you have never played, a VERY important part of the Legend of Zelda series is that Zelda, is not the character you are playing as in the game. Princess Zelda of Hyrule, wields a powerful magical force (one of three parts of the triforce) and, at least in the earlier games, was often getting attacked, put into magical sleeps, getting frozen in crystals, or otherwise incapacitated. Strangely enough, rarely kidnapped? Later in the series Zelda has more agency, but she is always a revered figure that Link, the young man who is the main playable character, is trying to help.

The very first Legend of Zelda game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment Center (NES) in 1986, so Zelda and I are both having a milestone birthday this year. And that leads me to this year's challenge. There have been about 24 titles in the Legend of Zelda video game series, however only ten of them are what we would call are "main" titles. The other 14 are secondary titles that explore more of a particular game world, characters, or add another dimension to a main title storyline. And this year, I'm going to finish all the main titles that I have never finished. And since Nintendo is re-releasing Ocarina of Time for the 40th anniversary, I will be playing two versions of that! So, without further ado, The List:

The Legend of Zelda (NES) 1986 - The first Legend of Zelda (LoZ) game, and an absolute groundbreaking title on its own, this game had a large world map, multilevel dungeons, secret entrances and caves, and introduced many of the items, locations, and characters that would become a part of the LoZ canon. I had started it many times, but it being a traditional video game it requires a lot of grinding for rupees (the currency in Hyrule) and wandering around getting lost and killed while you try to figure out what is going on. I don't necessarily enjoy games on the hardest difficulty, so I had no issue with giving it a good try, but not being shy about resorting to game guides when I got stuck this time. It still requires you to master the game play in fighting enemies and you still have to grind for items and rupees, but with a guide you aren't just floundering around aimlessly for no reason when you are legitimately stuck. The game was peak nostalgia, the controls are relatively easy, but mastering them was a serious challenge. Loved getting to complete it this time around though.

Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES) 1987 - I had never even attempted to play this game because I had heard that it was hands down the worst Zelda game made. And when you love something a lot, you want to think it's completely perfect. Not flawed because the developers 39 years ago attempted to shove a lot of new game mechanics into a weirdly fused top down and side scrolling mess. But yes, I hate this game. Combat zones are weird and arbitrary, you die a lot (thank goodness the Nintendo Online version lets you create multiple save points), and since the game introduced Experience Points (XP) as a way of leveling up your character, you aren't necessarily grinding for rupees, you're grinding for XP. So you die a lot from that as well.

I hate this game so much. I’m sticking a pin in it before I throw my Switch out a window.

A Link to the Past (SNES) 1991 - I love this so much. It’s lovely. The game play feels so familiar, the combat is manageable, and it has all the classic Zelda themes. Love. This game took so much longer that I thought it would! It has great game play, a very developed world and story line, and I even enjoyed grinding for pieces of heart and rupees to level up. Didn’t enjoy a dungeon feature where they wouldn’t mention you needed a specific item to defeat the dungeon so I would have climb out, find the item, and then climb back in. Thank goodness for modern save points!

So satisfying…you make that wish, Link!

Ocarina of Time (N64) 1998 - Alright, I missed out on OoT because I was a girl and my step-brother (at the time) had the N64, and at best we could play Donkey Kong 64 (which was also an amazing game), but he wasn’t into Zelda so I never saw it, and when I did get into Zelda, it was a few years later. So we are going to enjoy this as intended, with the old school controller and everything!

I don’t even know how to describe this controller or how you hold it. It’s basically choose your own adventure. There’s a lot going on.

My first impression going from Link to the Past to OoT is that it looks like it came from another planet. We’ve gone from a top down colorful world to a 3D(ish) game with color depth and a (very) dark intro.

Majora's Mask (N64) 2000 -

Windwaker (GameCube) 2002 - This was my very first Zelda game and it has a very special place in my heart. Even though I have played and beaten it a few times, everything about it makes my heart happy because I remember playing with my little brother and us having so much fun exploring this new world together. Sorry for hogging the GameCube, Cade. You're the best.

Twilight Princess (Wii) 2006 - Twilight Princess came out while I was in college, and we were all obsessed. It's dark, sensual, and it was the first game to really embrace the motion controls of the Wii in a significant way. It has a more adult-feeling relationship between Link and Zelda, and there's even a touch of horror. Even though the game isn't open world, it's not obvious the way the areas are arranged.

Skyward Sword (WiiU) 2011 -

Breath of the Wild (Switch) 2017 - I stood outside of Best Buy on the day the Switch was released so that I could get my console and the new Zelda game. Breath of the Wild is a game unlike anything I had played before. It felt like stepping inside a world and disappearing for hours on end. And all of my favorite characters were there, and Zelda was a strong independent woman, and Link was able to fight back to reverse a catastrophe. I still love this game because it brought Legend of Zelda into a new era of gaming

Tears of the Kingdom (Switch) 2023 - If Breath of the Wild was the way into the new era, Tears of the Kingdom was like a love letter to the entire series. I had loved BotW so much and wanted so badly to go back into that world and keep exploring the story, and because TotK let me do that I was very emotional about it. I took an entire day off of work on release day and just played. Rediscovering this world I had loved in BotW and the little easter eggs the developers had left just made me so happy it was like being a kid again and falling in love.

Ocarina of Time (2026)