Legend of Zelda Concept Sketches

The image that you see to your left is one of the first ever sketches of the original Legend of Zelda, dated all the way back to February 1st, 1985. During the latest installment of Iwata Asks, the group talk extensively about the handheld history of the Legend of Zelda. In particular they took extensively about Link’s Awakening and how it borrowed a lot from the Mario series, as well as an appearance of Kirby as an enemy. It really is quite a good conversation that they have.

However, after the handheld discussion, they pulled several sketches out from their vault and these were some of the first documented sketches of the original Legend of Zelda. They talk elaborately about them and the part that I found to be most interesting was that the Second Quest was a mistake! They weren’t supposed to have the memory available but after finding out that they did, they decided to include a second quest to the game. There were several other concept images made available, so read on to check them out.

Check out the full Iwata Asks Transcript for the full discussion. The discussion about the concept sketches can be found in the Ancient Documents from 1985 part of the site. They have individual discussions about each of the pieces of concept pieces shown below.

The last image that you see here is actually concept material for the original Super Mario Bros. Apparently there was originally only going to be five worlds, but that was expanded to eight and this is also talked about in the newest release of Iwata Asks. I really think that this months edition of Iwata Asks is really a treat for any old school gamer and you certainly don’t want to miss out!