Nintendo worried first Zelda game too difficult for Americans

On August 22nd, 1987 a certain game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the USA which was to become the first game in one of the most successful game franchises in history. As we all know, The Legend of Zelda received endless praise and sold extremely well. The game was soon to be released in Europe despite having been available in Japan for almost a year by this point but, prior to its American release, the then Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa had concerns that the game might be too difficult for American audiences.

Find out why after the jump!

Just like with pretty much every Zelda game, one of the large focuses of the games is exploration. Whereas with games like Mario and Sonic where, in their respective first games, all you had to do as find your way from the left side of the stage to the right side. Sure, some of the stages required a bit of exploration but The Legend of Zelda was in a whole different league. All you need to do it look at the map of Hyrule and you know there are a lot of places you can explore.

However, it seems as though it was this high focus on exploration caused Minoru Arakawa to believe that the game would be too difficult for American players because they wouldn’t have enough patience to understand the game. This be all Western gamers, not just American’s, but looks like he was worried for no reason. I’m not sure if he was suggesting American’s were impatient or if they thought the game was too slow paced for even patient players but, whichever way round it is, the game is still being raved about after more than two decades.

I’ve only played the game once and that was many years ago on the GamecCube’s collectors disk but I really enjoyed it. Admittedly I used a walk through for most of it but it’s been so long and I can remember so little of the game, it may as well be my first play so would be great to experience the game and explore Hyrule as it was intended to be explored. I replay Zelda games regularly so there’s not much new stuff to find (though last time I played Twilight Princess there was a random cave I’d never explored before) but to play that classic game and find loads of the secrets would be a lot of fun.

What did you think of The Legend of Zelda? Did you think the exploration took too long or do you think the more exploration the better? Tell us your thoughts in the comments befow.

Source: Did You Know Gaming