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 play through all the main titles. Some for the first time, some for the second or third. And if I get going, I may tackle some or all of the secondary titles (Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer is one of my favorite quirky Zelda side titles...). 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.

A Link to the Past (SNES) 1991 -

Ocarina of Time (N64) 1998 -

Majora's Mask (N64) 2000 -

Windwaker (GameCube) 2002 -

Twilight Princess (Wii) 2006 -

Skyward Sword (WiiU) 2011 -

Breath of the Wild (Switch) 2017 -

Tears of the Kingdom (Switch) 2023 -