While Final Fantasy is often thought of as the game that introduced RPGs to North America, the truth is that another title did so first. The Legend of Zelda might not be a classic JRPG, but most of the Action-RPG genre owes a huge debt to the game. From overworlds filled with dungeons to the reliance on tools to open up new areas of the map, there are few third-person games that don’t crib something from the long-running series. RPG Legends: Link and Zelda | LitRPG Reads
I've played almost every Zelda games and I will never forget the feeling of awe when we figured out what "Up, up, up the mountain" in the first Zelda meant. We drew maps of the whole world, we explored, we ran away from bunnies and hamburgers, we attempted harder dungeons and died a zillion times, we exploded every wall, and we got very excited whenever we saw a cave. It's amazing what 8-bit can do that present-day graphics can't. (And I played this on the Wii virtual console as an adult, so it's not even nostalgia) That feeling of awe is never captured again until Windwaker. My username is actually based on Windwaker's 'capital city' - Windfall Island, the most thoughtful side-quest hub ever.
A wise old guru tells my character "It's dangerous to go alone. Take this," before handing him a bag of shrapnel grenades.
