Introduction
The Legend of Zelda is a fantasy action adventure video game created by Japanese game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. It contains elements of adventure and RPG. The Legend of Zelda is considered as the most prominent games of Nintendo, it has integrated world view, vivid characters and plot twists. With the development of nearly 30 years, it has become a work that no game player can ignore. There are a lot of discussions going around about its play, design and story.
Inspiration
The Legend of Zelda is one of my favorite video games. When I played it for the first time, I was attracted by beautiful scenery of Hyrule. Then its open world and real-world physics experience gives me real immersion. I can climb mountain, cut firewood, cook food… even buy house, all these experiences fascinate me. After understanding the history of The Legend of Zelda, I realized that it is a rare game series which continuously evolves while keeps high level. Therefore, when thinking of the topic of timeline, I think The history of Legend of Zelda is a topic worth exploring. From its history we can also see the development of video games in the past 30 years.
Materials & Methods
Time JS was used to visualize the findings about The Legend of Zelda. It provides a Google sheet template which helps users to generate timeline. Users need to drop related information into appropriate columns in order to make the timeline available. As a flexible tool for creating timeline, Time JS is free to use and does not require registration.
Meanwhile, the official site of The Legend of Zelda and pictures from different sources of Google are used as main sources of information. The official site provides many information about its history and some classic characters setting in game.
Results
Key points of the history from the past 34 years are described in timeline. There are 15 game versions which left their footprints in game history.
1986：The Legend of Zelda
1987: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
1991: Super Famicom
1993: Link’s Awakening
1998: Ocarina of Time
2000: Majora’s Mask
2001: Oracle of Seasons/Oracle of Ages
2002: A Link to the Past &Four Swords
2002: The Wind Waker
2004: Four Swords Adventures
2004: The Minish Cap
2006: Twilight Princess
2007: Phantom Hourglass
2009: Spirit Tracks
2011: Skyward Sword
2013: A Link Between Two Worlds
2016: Breath of the Wild
Throughout its history, The Legend of Zelda is not only a video game. In addition to cartoon and comic works, a large number of peripheral products also attracted many non-game players. More than one hundred world tour concerts were held. For such a work of great significance to the whole video game industry, we have reason to believe that it will shine more brightly in the future.
Reflection & Further direction
The exploration of The Legend of Zelda history made me see the development of game technology, and with the progress of technology is the continuous innovation of gameplay. The Legend of Zelda is an ARPG game, but unlike traditional RPG game, it has no experience or ranking rules as typical RPG games. Its growth is reflected in players themselves. With the deepening of adventure, players become more and more familiar with usage of tools, means to counter enemies, methods of cooking and so on. It placed experience in player’s heart, which creates high immersion that ordinary game cannot reach.
As a designer, experience and accumulation of game is essential. Therefore, for further direction, I plan to explore more on RPG game history, especially on the evolvement of RPG game interface. Finally, I have a suggestion about timeline tool. Time JS uses google sheet for its data entry source, which makes it impossible to use in some region of world. I hope Time JS could develop its own data entry function on webpage, so users can choose to input data directly or use google sheet. This function can not only promote the efficiency of use, but also expand the scope of users.
Sources
Google Spreadsheet: https://www.google.com/sheets/about/
Timeline JS, https://timeline.knightlab.com/#preview-embed
Legend of Zelda Official Site https://www.zelda.com/about/
30 years of Zelda: a timeline of the legend so far https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/21/11063982/zelda-30th-anniversary-nintendo-history-link-smash-bros