stanford.eduWho needs Mario?Who needs Mario?Who needs Mario?Who needs Mario?In a weird way, it'salmost unfortunatethat ShigeruMiyamoto, oftencredited as the geniusin the field of gamedesign, is the designerof The Legend ofZelda. As talented ashe is, his other gamesoften over-shadowZelda and its sequels.Zelda games have setsales records onmultiple differentconsole systems, yet itis for his other works,particularly those setin the Mario Bros. universe, that he is best known. Despite thefact that many game critics consider one of more recent Zeldaofferings, Zelda: Ocarina of Time to be the best game evercreated, even more consider it merely the second best--secondto Mario 64 of course.How can the legend that is The Legend of Zelda compete withthe juggernaut that is the mustachioed Italian plumber? Why is itthat David Sheff gives his book Game Over the secondary titleThe Maturing of Mario and not The Maturing of Link? Why hasNintendo become so synonymous with Mario Bros., but notnearly to the same degree with The Legend of Zelda?Yes, Zelda is nonetheless still verypopular, and has of late becomeeven more so, but it still has notreached the cultural icon status ofMario.Who needs Mario?http://www.stanford.edu/~renedieu/zelda/ (1 of 2) [2/23/2001 4:26:26 PM]I argue that Zelda's comparatively lower popularity in the videogame culture stems directly from its perpetually revolutionizinggaming in the areas of game-play, technology, and story. Thefact of the matter is that Zelda is cutting edge; it is avant-gardeand therefore not as readily accepted into the mainstream.People can always expect certain things from Mario, namely thatthere will be a short, red-and-blue-clothed, plumber who will berunning and jumping a lot (with the notable exception of SuperMario Bros. 2, which had radically different game-play). WithZelda it is much more wide-open; sure there will be a guy in agreen suit, probably holding a sword, but after that, who knows?I think that this aspect is most apparent in the first game of theseries, the original The Legend of Zelda, and therefore that is thegame on which I will be focusing my discussion.Who needs Mario?http://www.stanford.edu/~renedieu/zelda/ (2 of 2) [2/23/2001 4:26:26 PM]In a delightful turn of self referential humor,Miyamoto added sub-levels to the labyrinths in Zelda:Link's Awakening that mimicked the platform play ofMario Bros. It even included goombas!If one looks at the majority ofgames created for the NintendoEntertainment System bothbefore and after 1988, the yearof the release of The Legend of Zelda, one sees a humongoustrend in the style of game-play, particularly in the games fromNintendo itself, namely that the vast majority of the games werein the platform genre. Most of the games now described as"classics" fall under this category (e.g. Kid Icarus, Metroid, and,of course, Super Mario Bros.). In this era of video game history,people expected a certain sort of game-play from a consolegame. This is analogous to the present day, when everyoneexpects games to be 3D. The NES was well-designed to handlethis sort of game-play, having a controller that only supportedfour-way movement and had only two buttons (four if you countthe start and select buttons) that were used during the game,thus requiring a very simple control scheme. Platform gameswere well suited to this sort of restriction, for they did not havethe depth to warrant more sophisticated control. These gameshardly even deserve to be called 2D, for all they offer the playeris a fairly linear path from the start of the level to the end; thoseareas already "explored" by the player are lost for the remainderof the game.The Legend of Zelda changed this. In a game that could beloosely be called an RPG, yet really contains none of thecharacter stats-building generally associated with that genre, andmoreover shared more in terms of actual game-play action withits platform peers, the game world finally saw a so-called"adventure game," where the player actually felt like he wasadventuring somewhere. The Zelda universe was fully 2D with itstop-down perspective on the game action-the player hadcomplete freedom to roam over an extensive map, often havingto return to the same areas more than once. At last, a gameWho needs Mario?http://www.stanford.edu/~renedieu/zelda/innovation.html (1 of 4) [2/23/2001 4:26:29 PM]Damn!world was coherent,not just a collection ofseparate levels throwntogether to make agame. Actions takenlate in the game wouldhave directconsequence onlocations passedthrough earlier in thegame. For example,an item such as theladder would makeareas, such as thelocation of a heartcontainer, whichbefore had beenvisible but notaccessible, finallyreachable. This is thesecret of Zelda: not asingle part of thegame is unimportant;absolutely everythingserves a purpose. Anindication of this is thefollowing line from theZelda manual, "Legendhas it that there arecaves in every possibleplace above ground.Link is bound to findthem as long as hehas enough power."The Zelda player isencouraged to explore every nook and cranny, and is rewardedby a richer game experience, if he does so.This is the secret of Zelda: not asingle part of the game isunimportant; absolutely everythingserves a purpose.Such rewards are most often manifested in the game ascollectable items that enhance the player's abilities in variousways. Whereas games such as Super Mario Bros. had a few suchpower-ups (e.g. Starman and the Fire Flower), these items weremerely sugar-coating and not necessary to play the game. Othergames feature items that are used once and then thrown away.Conversely, nearly every item in Zelda is required to be used tocomplete the game and many of those items are usedrepeatedly. This adds a level of complexity not seen in itscontemporary games. For example, whereas Mario had a veryshallow view of in-game economics (get 100 coins to earn a life),Who needs Mario?http://www.stanford.edu/~renedieu/zelda/innovation.html (2 of 4) [2/23/2001 4:26:29 PM]Money, money, money!Gaming EconomicsZelda had a completemonetary system inthe form of "Rupees"that could be collectedupon vanquishingenemies, won duringgambling games, orreceived as gifts.These Rupees couldthen be exchanged forgoods in variousstores, or in somesituations, even beextorted from theplayer.To handle this level ofcomplexity and stilluse the same simplesetup as all the othergames made for theNES, Zelda containedseveral interfacefeatures not seen in itspeers. One example
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