The Legend of Zelda (video game)

The Legend of Zelda (Japanese: ゼルダの伝説 Hepburn: Zeruda no Densetsu^?), subtitled The Hyrule Fantasy in its original Japanese release, is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Nintendo and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka.^[7] Set in the fantasy land of Hyrule, the plot centers on a boy named Link, the playable protagonist, who aims to collect the eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom in order to rescue Princess Zelda from the antagonist, Ganon.^[8] During the course of the game, the player sees Link from a top-down perspective and must navigate him through the overworld and several dungeons, defeating enemies and finding secrets along the way.^[9][10]
The inaugural game of the The Legend of Zelda series, it was originally released in Japan as a launch title for the Family Computer Disk System peripheral in 1986.^[11] More than a year later, North America and Europe received releases on the Nintendo Entertainment System in cartridge format, making the game the first home console title to include an internal battery for saving data.^[12] This version was released in Japan in 1994 under the title The Legend of Zelda 1 (ゼルダの伝説１ Zeruda no Densetsu Wan^?).^[6] The game was ported to the GameCube^[13] and Game Boy Advance,^[6] and is available in emulated form via the Virtual Console on the Wii, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.^[14]
The Legend of Zelda was a bestseller for Nintendo, selling over 6.5 million copies. It is often featured in lists of games considered the greatest or most influential and is regarded as a spiritual forerunner of the role-playing video game genre. A solitary sequel, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, was first released in Japan less than a year after its predecessor's debut. The game spawned several prequels and a number of spin-offs, establishing a series that has become one of Nintendo's most popular.