Zelda (G&W)

The Legend of Zelda on a tiny LCD screen that you carry in your pocket? The Zelda version from the Nintendo Game & Watch line is one of the most ambitious pieces of the entire series, because it attempted to squeeze an action-adventure experience into hardware originally intended for simple reflex games. And it is one of the few Game & Watch titles where it is about more than just chasing a score.

Instead of an endless arcade, the player here progresses through a series of battles and dungeons, moves through floors, beats enemies, and gathers what is needed to advance further, all within the possibilities of an LCD display with permanently printed segments. The game thus offers a hint of structure and progression that Game & Watch otherwise usually lacked, and it links action with simple exploration.

Zelda falls into the later phase of the Game & Watch line, pocket games that Nintendo produced from 1980 based on the concept of the engineer Gunpei Yokoi. This particular game was one of the technically most demanding units and used a multicolor LCD display in order to manage to show more game elements at once. It thereby bet on a more complex experience than was usual for the series.

Culturally, this title is interesting twice over. On the one hand, it belongs to the broad pantheon of the Zelda brand, one of Nintendo's most significant game series of all, and on the other hand, it shows how far Game & Watch reached technically toward the end of their era. While most of the series was built on a single mechanic, here Nintendo attempted a miniature adventure.

Today Zelda on the Game & Watch is a fascinating artifact, an example of how developers pushed economical hardware beyond its limits in order to tell at least a hint of a story. For collectors and fans of the brand, it is one of the most interesting and most sought-after pieces of the entire line.

Why play: For an unusually ambitious LCD adventure that squeezed a piece of the world of Zelda into a pocket format and pushed Game & Watch to the edge of their possibilities.