Our Legends of Zelda: Celebrating Hyrule’s 40th Anniversary with Our Favorite Zelda Memories

Anyway, for the next several months, my Game Boy came with me everywhere, but especially to school. On the bus, I played Zelda. In between classes, I played Zelda. On the playground, I played Zelda. Strangely enough, having video games to play at school between the actual school parts of school helped me focus on my classes more. Instead of day dreaming about when I’d get to play video games next, I’d walk into class feeling fresh after taking down another Zelda dungeon, and then I’d do everything the teacher needed me to do until I could play video games again. My grades started improving and my parents stopped getting as many disappointed phone calls from my teachers. This also coincided with me not eating chocolate chip cookies for lunch anymore, which also definitely helped.

So thank you to Link’s Awakening for being my first portable Zelda game, one of my favorite games ever made, and a game that rescued my academic career and also almost made me fail out of school. Thank you to Otis Spunkmeyer and Geoffrey Giraffe who went on to get married to each other, maybe. Apologies to my teachers and my parents and to the other Brian Altano here who is now in huge trouble with my dad. And happy birthday to The Legend of Zelda, a franchise that I’ll always be there for on day one, to purchase a brand new game with actual money that is no longer earned by eating chocolate chip cookies for lunch.

The Zelda Timeline – By Logan Plant

Spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

Hyrule’s history has been passed down countless times from one generation to the next. In that same tradition, I didn’t discover my love for Zelda on my own: I inherited it. Just like every child with pointy ears who gets wrapped up in the never-ending battle for Hyrule, this story begins before my time. My dad played The Legend of Zelda at a friend’s house when he and my mom were in college, which led to them eventually saving to buy an NES of their own, just so they could bomb every last wall in that original 8-bit Hyrule.

Fast-forward roughly a decade to when I entered the picture, born the same year as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s launch on N64. My mom tells me I’d sit on her lap and watch my dad explore a new Hyrule, this time in 3D. Like our favorite childhood bedtime stories, I have no recollection of witnessing Link’s journey to stop Ganondorf. I’ve just always known it. This universe of talking trees and evil pigs and boys without fairies carved a home in my mind during my earliest days and hasn’t budged since.

Which is why it should come as no surprise that my first vivid memory comes from Hyrule, too. I’m four now, and my older sister and I are watching my dad fight the final boss of The Wind Waker. The very first thing I remember is Toon Link leaping into the air and plunging the Master Sword straight into Ganondorf’s skull. I was shocked: it was far and away the most violent, gruesome thing I’d ever seen. I recall walking into the living room to tell my mom what had happened, but then everything goes fuzzy again and all I’m left with is the everlasting image of Ganondorf turning to stone.

No matter where I’ve gone, I’ve taken my love for Zelda with me. Breath of the Wild came out when I was in college, and I spent launch night marathoning it on the enormous, blurry TV in the dormitory lounge as my floormates passed by and watched for a bit on their way out to the evening’s events. Once the hall was empty, and the motion-activated overhead lights went dark, there was nothing left but me and the peaceful glow of the Great Plateau. I was confused when my friends returned just a few moments later. “You’re back already?” I asked, only to learn that four hours had glided by in what felt like minutes. That was the first of dozens of long nights with Breath of the Wild, and later, Tears of the Kingdom, which still managed to hijack my sleep schedule years after the days of going to college parties were long gone. Time changes all things, but Zelda has never seemed to mind.

Zelda tells us a tale about an endless cycle of good rising up to ward off evil, and as we eagerly await its next chapter, I can’t help but wonder where I’ll be when a new 3D entry finally arrives. Maybe I’ll have a child of my own by then, and they’ll watch me take my first steps into whatever wild world Nintendo offers us next. Maybe their first memory will be something creepy or strange in a Zelda game years from now. I like to think they’ll play a new Zelda while off at college, homesick for their childhood but equally giddy to be experiencing a brand new take on Hyrule for themselves. And hopefully, they’ll always call their parents and siblings to talk about Zelda, just like I do to this day. That’s a cycle I wouldn’t mind repeating for generations to come.

Logan Plant is the host of Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN’s Database Manager & Playlist Editor. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he is patiently awaiting the day Nintendo announces a brand new F-Zero. You can find new episodes of NVC every Friday on the IGN Games YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.