Now I know I am probably the last person to be sharing strange Legend Of Zelda facts, but during my research into the series, I came across some very interesting facts that maybe Legend Of Zelda fans didn’t know before.
1. The Game Wasn’t Called “Legend Of Zelda” In Japan
Some fans might argue that the title, The Legend Of Zelda, might not make a whole lot of sense considering that Zelda’s appearance in the series is pretty limited. Well, there’s a reason for that. The original title in Japan was actually The Hyrule Fantasy: Legend Of Zelda. The Hyrule Fantasy, at least from what I understand about The Legend Of Zelda, makes more sense because in many of the games, you are exploring the world of Hyrule. Hyrule should be the center of the Zelda title, not Zelda.
2. The Legend Of Zelda Uses Elements Of The Super Mario Bros.
The first Legend Of Zelda game actually was being developed at the same time as Super Mario Bros., and because of that there is a little bit of crossover between the two. For example, the man-eating plant enemy in Super Mario Bros. was also sort of used in The Legend Of Zelda, only it was named as the manhandla. You can see the obvious similarities in the design between the manhandla and the plant in Super Mario Bros.
3. The Second Quest Was Created By Accident
If you’ve beat The Legend OF Zelda before, then you know that beating the game unlocks the another whole second quest. Actually, this second quest wasn’t initially a part of The Legend Of Zelda. It was actually added in after the fact because the development of the Zelda game itself didn’t use up as much data as the developers wanted. So what to do? They decided to make a whole other quest which added to the length of the game and filling up more of the cartridge capacity.
4. Link And Zelda Are Based On Famous Characters
Some of you might have guessed that Link was based on Disney’s Peter Pan. I mean just looking at him, with his leafy green outfit and elf-like ears and little green hat, it’s pretty obvious. But did you know that Zelda was also based off of someone famous? Zelda was based off of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda Fitzgerald. If you aren’t familiar with the author, he penned the famous The Great Gatsby.
5. The Dungeons Are All Named After Their Shapes
The dungeons in The Legend Of Zelda all have their very unique shapes. There is the Eagle, Moon, Manji, Snake, Lizard, Dragon, Demon, Lion and Death Mountain. But have you ever looked up the maps of the dungeons and noticed their shapes? The moon looks very much like an 8-bit moon, the eagle like an eagle and so on. If you want to see all of the maps and their shapes, you can see them in the wiki.
