Very nice review. I appreciate the review because I've never played more than 15 minutes of the game. Now I know what to expect if I eventually decide to play it.

Zelda II only needs a walkthrough at one point, and then only if you haven't accidentally discovered that you can cut down forests with the hammer. Zelda I is a different beast though. Playing at the time of release was a blessing because you could compare notes with other players and thus have a sort of communal walkthrough, but that's obviously not available anymore...

Also, the game would have been better with a ton of dialogue and cutscreens. I never really "got" why I had to kill Gannon. The man didn't exactly burn down my starting village or anything...

Ehhhhhhh. No, sorry. Original Zelda has aged terribly. The curse of rupees starts here at square one.

Beat the game without using a guide, by the way. Didn't find the lack of 'handholding' a problem. It's other things that feel sloppy, like how overpowered sword beams are in the overworld.

I'm all for acknowledging how ground-breaking a game was at the time of its release, but if it has not aged well it simply is not as good as it once was. I would not recommend this game to anyone who isn't already a huge Zelda fan or a retro gaming aficionado.

Review also contains too much misguided Aonuma and "puzzle" bashing, 2biased4me would not read again.

I still think this is one of the best Zelda games ever made, and one of the best 8-bit games to this day. I remember forcing my big brother to play ot for me since it was so hard ^^ great review, although, you really shouldn't have compared to how it holds up today, but rather how it holds up to other games from that era or other Zelda games

Some random comments;

The comment about Zelda "being about puzzles" wasn't a total lie though. Even in this first game there's plenty of puzzling and you mention it. I don't feel it's all that relevant that they only consist of 'destroying all enemies' or 'pushing a block', because I doubt they would have been able to create puzzles that are much more elaborate than that with the game mechanics on NES hardware. The draining of the pool is a puzzle, as well as finding several dungeons. The Lost Woods is a puzzle. I do agree with the basis of the point though, back then the focus was more combat versus puzzles while in the latest games the balance has shifted.

I do agree about A Link Between Worlds. It's why I didn't like the 'renting-system'. The way the original, A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time (to a lesser extent because your freedom is limited) treated open world and non-linearity was much better.

Lastly, this is a perfect example of a game that must be played in it's original form, on an NES, with you having the original cartridge, booklet and the printed map that came with it. I suppose you'd only need the booklet and the map, but if you have those I'd expect you also have the cartridge. Anyway, with my original NES copy, I could figure out all the exploring and beat the game without ever needing to resort to a walkthrough. There's enough hints and help between that map and the booklet to beat the game. Adventure of Link didn't come with a map, but that game is much easier to figure out and I never needed a walkthrough to beat that game either (though it's of course much harder still because of the relentless combat).

Some more comments:

- The game was originally meant to be played with the help of the printed map and the manual / hints booklet. They played the role tutorials play today, but they were way more exciting since, rather than telling you how to do things, they would throw hints or basic tactics and you would have to use them in every possible way and place to get rewarded. It is because it that today players find it difficult; they play emulated or digital copies that just put you in the middle of the world without any clue about what to do. And even with that, if you start exploring the overworld you will start learning and figuring out things by yourself.

- It is still about puzzles. In fact, a lot of them. But they're managed in a different way here: in future Zeldas they would base the puzzle mechanics in items, but in the first Zelda the puzzle "thing" was about exploring rooms to see if there was a block to push, a wall to bomb or a hidden key, along with the overal challenge of getting oriented in a big maze and figuring out how to reach rooms that were in the map but apparently didn't have any connection with the rooms around you. It was more about exploring, figuring things and getting oriented than using an item to solve a puzzle. So... they're still there, but in a different way.

- Combat played a more important (and challenging) role. As you mention, being only able to stab also requiered being much more accurate, since the "slash" of future Zelda games would cover a bigger area, making things easier. Furthermore, every enemy had a distinctive behavior that made them (specially in more advanced labyrinths) a puzzle themselves. For example, Octoroks and Molblins would move slowly and stop to throw rocks or spears at you, Peahats would fly around really fast, Leevers would merge from the sands directly into you and go under the sand again, Darknuts would never stop moving, couldn't get damaged in his front part due to their shields and were inmune to the bumerang and other items, Wizzrobes would apear and dissapear or teleport around the rooms throwing magic waves at you, the big worm-like lanmolas would move extremely fast around the labyrinths rooms... Somehow they were all special, challenging and harder than the enemies in other titles of the series (except for Zelda II), adding deep and challenge to the game.

In my opinion, when played as it was meant to be played (with your own map and booklet), it deserves a 9.5 (Not perfect since graphics, even if they were varied, detailed, colorful and full of personality, specially in the case of the enemies, could have been a little better). The "limited" mechanics (like the one direction stab) were positive since forced you to plan your strategies and develop your hability controlling Link, adding challenge and deep to the gameplay.

So... Yeah, that's it. For me, a 9.5 over 10 =)