Thank god, they give a chance to the game. Maybe, wothout the Zelda franchise, i wouldn't be a gamer nowdays.

I would, i loved the NES and the SNES for a lot of games counting Zelda, but i'd probably have hated the N64, don't get me wrong, Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Goldeneye, Super Smash Bros., , etc. are terrific games, but it was Zelda: Ocarina of Time that gave the feeling that "The N64 is a really great console", it was the game that defined the N64...

The most popular game at the time was Mario and it was completely linear. I can understand their concern.

Well, it was linear by todays standards.  But by the standards of gaming in 1984, it was a revolution of freedom of character movement and play control.  In an age when the avg characters were stuck in between walls munching on blocks or jumping stifly over oil spills and climbing ladders, Mario was like jumping from 2D gaming to 3D (for its time).

I mean, its kind of hard to explian, but for a number of years and even after Mario came out, many game developers thought the 'game' was a give and take system of letting the player have some fun, and then trying to take that fun away from them for a time and make them feel stressed or 'trapped' or scared.  Like with Pac-Man, the fun comes with eating the blocks, but you are constantly chased by ghosts.  Mario is a game where YOU get to choose when to stomp on the enemies and YOU get to choose when to go forward.  And that's what made it revolutionary.

Heh lets face it, if you call the game soccer, by default being a star was never an option ;)

PS: Second time i landed just below Kenryoku_Maxis's post, between his sig and my avatar of Momohime, we are totally doing good Muramasa promo in these here forums, okok he does more than me ... :/

Makes sense. Battery packs for saving would have been expensive (I think). And It was a HUGE change of pace for Nintendo.

this destroyed my hopes for nintendo.
zelda it's last game i like.

I thank them for this choice. And the Mario world is still enriched because of it.

... because they almost turned down a game then turned it into one of their biggest franchises?

Oh I do too!  Hell, I can guarantee you that had Nintendo given us the Japanese SMB2, and then released SMB2 USA  the way it was originally (obviously with a more Western-appropriate name), it would have still been a big hit because it was just so much fun to play.  I know my friends and I would definitely have gotten a copy of it!