Silver and Gold

I read a story on a gaming web site today that informed me today was the 25th (silver) anniversary of the release of the original The Legend of Zelda. (Its original Japanese release, anyway; it wasn't brought to the States until a bit later.)

Holy crap, did I love this game. I played constantly. I bombed every last rock in Hyrule looking for possible hidden entrances. I got a subscription to the "Nintendo Fun Club Magazine" (back when it was free, before it became Nintendo Power) because it was publishing guides on how to find all the game's secrets.

And then, after you beat it -- a second quest?! A chance to enjoy it all over again, with everything all scrambled up in a different way? How great an idea was that!

Even the little details about the game were cool: the fact that it came in a gold cartridge and a gold box, the fact that you could finally save your console game without having to copy down 32 random characters of gibberish onto a piece of scratch paper.

Yes, there have been plenty of Zelda games since to stoke the fires of my memory, but I'm convinced that even without the sequels (some of which were just as worthy, or even better than the original!), I'd still be able to hum the different musical themes from the game: the melodies for "exploring Hyrule," the "dungeon crawl," the "fairy at the lake," and of course, the indelible four-note "you just picked up something cool" anthem that's as synonymous with winning to me as those Price Is Right horns are with losing.

Happy 25th anniversary to Zelda, Link, and even Ganon.