Legend of zelda game The Legend of Zelda family of games is a one of the most famous and internationally recognizable role-playing series in the world, rivaled perhaps only by the Final Fantasy saga.  There had been plenty of attempts at role-playing games prior to the first Legend of Zelda game, but they all fell short of realizing the magic of the genre.  For me, and fore many millions of others, the original Legend of Zelda game was the first role-playing game I got completely immersed in and addicted to. Prior to the Legend of Zelda game that was released for the Nintendo in the mid 80’s, attempts at role-playing games had been either half-hearted, or well written but severely limited by a poor graphical interface and memory constraints.  In fact, though I had played ‘role-playing’ games beforehand, I didn’t even realize it was its own genre until after I played Zelda.  For me, the first Legend of Zelda game but the genre on the map.  I can’t quite place what was so special about the original Legend of Zelda game that made it such a hit.  Looking at it now, I can see that someone playing it for the first time would think it was awful.  A very generic plot, limited character interaction, and poor graphics.  Of course, at the time the graphics were state of the art, character interaction hadn’t even been thought of yet, and the plot was probably the most detailed and complex of its kind.  To boot, the game plays out in what was then an absolutely enormous world, involving puzzles, many different kinds of monsters, and a wide variety of weapons and equipment to buy or discover.  These are all elements that were a breakthrough at the time, and are now standard with newer role-playing games. There have been a whole series of sequels following in the footsteps of the first Legend of Zelda game.  I’ve played a handful of them, and while they’re all at least entertaining, I have yet to find one that blows me away like the first one did.  The name recognition alone for any Legend of Zelda game is probably enough to put its sales into the black, so I get the feeling makers of the newer Zelda’s don’t feel a lot of pressure to make breakthrough games anymore.  Having said that, I still get excited when a new Legend of Zelda game comes out.  While they may not be as original as the first, Zelda games have a nostalgic appeal to anyone that owned an old Nintendo.