The Legend of Zelda

About this game

On February 21, 1986, the Famicom Disk System went on sale in Japan, and with it The Legend of Zelda, made by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. You play Link. You cross the land of Hyrule and go down into nine underground labyrinths to gather the eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom and rescue Princess Zelda from Ganon.

In a 2026 interview with the Japanese game magazine Famitsu, Miyamoto recalled what he had wanted at the time: a game you could keep on playing, rather than one you ran straight through to the goal. That called for a hero who grows stronger as you play, and that called for more space to save your progress. So, he says, Nintendo took on the challenge and made the Disk System.

In a 2016 interview for Nintendo, he also remembered people who played role-playing games on home computers. They "were bragging about how strong their swordsmen had become, and were calling each other at night to exchange information," he says. "When I noticed that, I thought it was an interesting scene."

The Story Behind

Miyamoto says the team began The Legend of Zelda before Super Mario Bros.: "The Legend of Zelda was for the Family Computer Disk System, so we decided to finish up Super Mario Bros. first." Super Mario Bros. reached Japanese stores on September 13, 1985. Takashi Tezuka says: "We have documentation showing how we worked simultaneously on the two games."

Disk System games came on disks that could be rewritten. At game shops, a Famicom Disk Writer kiosk could write a new game onto a Disk Card for 500 yen. Miyamoto says some players got their games this way, written over an old game on the same disk, "and we felt they would want some sort of proof that they purchased the game." So the Disk System version came with a booklet, which also served as the instructions.

In North America the game came out on August 22, 1987, on a gold NES cartridge that kept saved games with a battery inside. In Japan, Nintendo released it again on a standard Famicom cartridge on February 19, 1994, as Zelda no Densetsu 1.

Tricks & Tales

For quite a while during development, the opening of The Legend of Zelda played Ravel's Boléro. Koji Kondo, who wrote the game's music, says the team learned it was still under copyright "immediately before finishing The Legend of Zelda." He says: "So I pulled an all-nighter to compose the opening song."

The written request for the game's sound that went to Kondo carries a stamp with Takashi Tezuka's name and the date September 27. Tezuka says: "For cave music, it just says 'short BGM'." (BGM means background music.)

When a Moblin in a cave hands Link some Rupees, the game's money, it says, "It's a secret to everybody." Miyamoto wrote the original Japanese line. He says: "I fancied myself a copywriter when I wrote that. (laughs)"

He also says: "That phrase has several meanings. It's a secret to be kept from friends and family that you can get Rupees there." And since a Moblin is an enemy, Miyamoto says, this one is betraying his own side by handing over the Rupees, so it is a secret from them, too.

On the Japanese package, the logo carries the subtitle THE HYRULE FANTASY. Tezuka says the team meant The Hyrule Fantasy to be the name of a whole series.