One of the game characters with the most devoted fanbases is Link, the young hero of the Legend of Zelda games, the first of which appeared way back in 1987 on the NES. Link is a young elf-like boy with pointy ears dressed in green, who gets more powerful as the game progresses and he collects new swords, shields and other objects. The Zelda of the games title is of course the Princess Zelda, who more often than not has to be rescued by Link as part of his quest.

The first game, simply called The Legend of Zelda, appeared on the NES in 1987 and was an above view flick screen adventure game. Link had to traverse various dungeons to recover the shards of the ancient Triforce of Wisdom in order to defeat the evil sorceror (are there any other kind?) Ganon. This was followed by The Adventure of Link a year later, which was a side on platform adventure game.


The series really shot to fame with the SNES game A Link to the Past. This game was huge, and introduced the novel idea of dark and light worlds which could be swapped between, and were slightly different versions of the same landscape. For example, you might come to a cliff in the light world with a broken bridge, which when you swap to the dark world was intact allowing you to pass. Once you had crossed in the dark world you could then switch back to the light world and be on the other side!

Link’s Awakening came next on the Gameboy, but the next big step for the series was Ocarina of Time on the N64. This game was as perfect a move from the old above view 2D games to a full 3D world as you could wish for. Jumping occured automatically when you reached the edge of a platform, so it was usually pretty obvious if a jump could be made, and the now often copied idea of pressing a button to lock on to the enemy you want to attack was born here too. A special edition version called Ocarina of Time - Master Quest was also released in Japan (the rest of the world would need to wait a bit for this one, with the release of Wind Waker), and then there was the proper sequel Majora’s Mask. In this game Link had a single day to save the world. That one day ran in a particular sequence of events, and Link had to repeatedly find out when something happened, then go back in time to make sure he was in the right place at the right time.

There was a lot of controversy over the direction Nintendo took with Link’s next big adventure on the Gamecube, The Wind Waker. The fairly realistic look of Ocarina of Time was dropped in favour of a more cartoony cel shaded engine. Many people were upset by this new look, and further upset by the constant sailing between islands, but for those willing to stick through this it was still a fun game with lots to do, and the game could be completed without doing most of the more tedious collecting tasks (e.g. treasure hunting was not important once you had found the pieces of the Triforce).

The Gameboy in its various forms has seen several more adventures for Link including the Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages games (two similar games with some unique content in both, a bit like the different version of Pokemon), and The Minish Cap, where link has a strangely alive piece of head gear. There was also the Four Swords Adventures, which allowed the Gameboy Advance to be linked to the Gamecube to allow four player simultaneous gaming.

Everyone is now waiting for Twilight Princess, the next iteration for Gamecube which was due for Christmas but has been sadly delayed. This marks a return to a much more realistic looking graphical style, which will please those who were turned off by the Wind Waker.

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