Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: When was Zelda first released?
Since the original "The Legend of Zelda" was released in 1986, the series has expanded to include 19 entries on all of Nintendo's major game consoles, as well as a number of spin-offs. An American animated TV series based on the games aired in 1989 and individual manga adaptations commissioned by Nintendo have been produced in Japan since 1997. "The Legend of Zelda" is one of Nintendo's most prominent and successful franchises; many of its games are considered by critics to be among the greatest video games of all time.
In 1989, Nintendo signed a deal with Sony to begin development of a CD-ROM-based system known as the "Nintendo Play Station" (or the "SNES CD") to be an add-on to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that would allow for FMV and larger games. However, Nintendo broke the agreement and instead signed with Philips to make the add-on, which caused Sony to spin off their add-on into its own console called the PlayStation. Witnessing the poor reception of the Sega Mega-CD, Nintendo scrapped the idea of making an add-on entirely. As part of dissolving the agreement with Philips, Nintendo gave them the license to use five of their characters, including Link, Princess Zelda, and Ganon, for games on Philips's console, the CD-i, after the partnership's dissolution.
In 1989, Nintendo signed a deal with Sony to begin development of a CD-ROM-based system known as the SNES-CD (also known as the "Nintendo Play-Station", with separated words) to be an add-on to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that would allow for FMV and larger games. However, Nintendo broke the agreement and instead signed with Philips to make the add-on, which caused Sony to spin off their add-on into its own console called the PlayStation (with "PlayStation" as one word due to a copyright issue with the trademark "Play-Station" owned by Nintendo). Witnessing the poor reception of the Sega Mega-CD, Nintendo scrapped the idea of making an add-on entirely. As part of dissolving the agreement with Philips, Nintendo gave them the license to use five of their characters, including Link, Princess Zelda, and Ganon, for games on Philips's console called the CD-i, after the partnership's dissolution.
In 1989, Nintendo signed a deal with Sony to begin development of a CD-ROM-based system known as the "Nintendo PlayStation" or the SNES CD to be an add-on to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that would allow for FMV and larger games. However, Nintendo broke the agreement and instead signed with Philips to make the add-on, which caused Sony to spin off their add-on into its own console called the PlayStation. Witnessing the poor reception of the Sega Mega-CD, Nintendo scrapped the idea of making an add-on entirely. As part of dissolving the agreement with Philips, Nintendo gave them the license to use five of their characters, including Link, Princess Zelda, and Ganon, for games on Philips's console called the CD-i, after the partnership's dissolution. Contracting out to independent studios, Philips subsequently used the characters to create three games for the CD-i, with Nintendo taking no part in their development except to give input on the look of the characters based on the artwork from Nintendo's original two titles and that of their respective instruction booklets. Philips insisted that the development studios utilize all aspects of the CD-i's capabilities including FMV, high-resolution graphics, and CD-quality music. Because the system had not been designed as a dedicated video game console, there were several technical limitations, such as laggy controls (especially for the standard infrared controller), and numerous problems in streaming-audio, memory, disc access, and graphics.
Kondo was the third person hired by Nintendo to create music and sound effects for their games, joining Hirokazu Tanaka and Yukio Kaneoka. However, he was the first at Nintendo to actually specialize in musical composition. The first game he worked on was the arcade game "Punch-Out!!", although it was before he had officially joined Nintendo. Despite creating mostly jingles and sound effects, he was able to overcome the challenges of early arcade sound hardware. As the Famicom had become highly popular in Japan, Kondo was assigned to compose music for the console's subsequent games at Nintendo's new development team, Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (EAD). Kondo also wrote an instruction manual on how to program Japanese popular music into the Famicom using the peripheral "Family BASIC". To conclude his first year at Nintendo, he created the music to "Devil World" alongside Akito Nakatsuka. In 1985, Nintendo started marketing the Famicom abroad under the name the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to capitalize on the 1983 video game crash that devastated Atari, Inc. He composed the music for the hit releases "Super Mario Bros." (1985) and "The Legend of Zelda" (1986), which helped the system to sell 60 million copies in total and established some of the most well-known melodies in the video game industry.
Valtonen had previously written the "Legend of Zelda" arrangement featured in the touring concert act "PLAY! A Video Game Symphony", but was eager to create an arrangement that would be able to take advantage of the entire Zelda universe, from character themes, situations and emotional elements often found in the series. It took Valtonen about five months to create the arrangement, with three months used for researching the Zelda universe, and two months for the actual writing. Valtonen also expressed that he wanted the arrangement to create “discussion” within the Zelda fan base.
The original "Dragon Slayer", released for the PC-88 in 1984, is considered to be the first action-RPG. In contrast to earlier turn-based roguelikes, "Dragon Slayer" was a dungeon crawl RPG that was entirely real-time with action-oriented combat. "Dragon Slayer" also featured an in-game map to help with the dungeon-crawling, required item management due to the inventory being limited to one item at a time, and introduced the use of item-based puzzles which later influenced "The Legend of Zelda". "Dragon Slayer" was a major success in Japan, where its overhead action-RPG formula was used in many later games. The game's MSX port was also one of the first titles to be published by Square.
Typically action RPGs feature each player directly controlling a single character in real time, and feature a strong focus on combat and action with plot and character interaction kept to a minimum. Early action RPGs tended to follow the template set by 1980s Nihon Falcom titles such as the "Dragon Slayer" and "Ys" series, which feature hack and slash combat where the player character's movements and actions are controlled directly, using a keyboard or game controller, rather than using menus. This formula was refined by the action-adventure game, "The Legend of Zelda" (1986), which set the template used by many subsequent action RPGs, including innovations such as an open world, nonlinear gameplay, battery backup saving, and an attack button that animates a sword swing or projectile attack on the screen. The game was largely responsible for the surge of action-oriented RPGs released since the late 1980s, both in Japan and North America. "The Legend of Zelda" series would continue to exert an influence on the transition of both console and computer RPGs from stat-heavy, turn-based combat towards real-time action combat in the following decades.
"Super Mario Bros.", for many years the best-selling video game of all time for a single platform, was Kondo's first major score. The game's melodies were created with the intention that short segments of music could be endlessly repeated during the same gameplay without causing boredom. Kondo's soundtrack to "Super Mario Bros." gained worldwide recognition, and is to this day the most well-known video game score. The main theme is iconic in popular culture and has been featured in over 50 concerts, been a best-selling ringtone, and been remixed or sampled by various musicians. Kondo's work on "The Legend of Zelda" scores has also become highly recognized. He produced four main pieces of background music for the first installment of the series; the overworld theme has become comparable in popularity with the "Super Mario Bros." main theme. After the success of "The Legend of Zelda", he provided the score for two Japanese-exclusive titles, "The Mysterious Murasame Castle" (1986) and "Shin Onigashima" (1987). He also created the soundtrack to "" (1987), which was later rebranded outside Japan as "Super Mario Bros. 2" in 1988.
Using the orchestra enabled a greater expression of emotion, which meant that they used it when creating scores for environments, cinematic scenes, and emotional moments within the story. Conversely, the team were given less freedom to adjust tracks as they had been able to with synthesized tracks. Something new they did for "Skyward Sword" was producing unique themes for specific characters such as Link and Zelda. They also added people singing songs, another element new to the series. One notable element was the game's main theme "Ballad of the Goddess", which was actually a reversed version of the recurring tune "Zelda's Lullaby". Due to the use of an orchestra and the sheer amount of extra work going into the sound design, the music team doubled in size from the standard five-person group, and became the largest sound team at the time to have worked on a Nintendo game. The positive reception of the orchestral score within the company led to the creation of " The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony Concert", a celebratory concert featuring orchestrated versions of classic "Zelda" themes. Music was also woven into the story and gameplay through the use of the harp Link receives, using a recurring theme within the series of music being a central part of the experience. In contrast to previous games, the instrument could be played at any time rather than at specific times and places.
Scary Larry of "GamePro" viewed the game as the Genesis's answer to "", and remarked that "While "Zelda" had tons of hidden surprises, weapons, and fearsome bosses (making it one of the best action/RPGs ever), "Crusader of Centy" has a too-familiar story line, minor enemies, and a serious shortage of puzzles." He nonetheless concluded that though "Crusader of Centy" would bore the average RPG gamer, it successfully appeals to its young target audience. The four reviewers of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" contended that the game is a worthy "Zelda" clone, with Ed Semrad and Sushi-X going so far as to say it is equally good as the "Zelda" series. They identified the story and Zelda-like play mechanics as the game's strongest points, and gave the game a 7.75 out of 10.
The series revolves around Yoshi, a green dinosaur-like character. He was first introduced in the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) game released in 1990, "Super Mario World", where Mario and Luigi can ride on him. The antagonists of the series are Baby Bowser, the young king of Koopas, and Kamek, a Magikoopa who was Bowser's caretaker as a child. The first Yoshi game was the Nintendo Entertainment System puzzle game released in 1991, "Yoshi", which was developed by Game Freak. The first game in what is considered the main series, as well as the first to feature Yoshi in a playable main-character role, is the game released in 1995, "", which introduces the universe staples which are used in many following games. These staples include colorful storybook graphics, and several gameplay elements. One of the earlier games in the series, "Yoshi's Safari", differs heavily from the rest, as it is a Light gun shooter game. The latest game in the series is "Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World", a port of the Wii U game "Yoshi's Woolly World", released in 2017 for the Nintendo 3DS. An upcoming title, "Yoshi's Crafted World" is set to be released for the Nintendo Switch on March 29, 2019.
The music was composed primarily by Koji Kondo, with three tracks written by Toru Minegishi. The soundtrack largely consists of reworked music from "Ocarina of Time", complemented with other traditional "Zelda" music such as the "Overworld Theme" and new material. Kondo describes the music as having "an exotic Chinese-opera sound". As the three-day cycle progresses, the theme song of Clock Town changes between three variations, one for each day. IGN relates the shift in music to a shift in the game's atmosphere, saying that the quickened tempo of the Clock Town music on the second day conveys a sense of time passing quickly. The soundtrack was released on June 23, 2000, featuring 112 tracks from the game over two compact discs.
In 1972, the first commercially available video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, had a light gun accessory, the Shooting Gallery. This was the first involvement of Nintendo in video games. According to Martin Picard in the "International Journal of Computer Game Research": "in 1971, Nintendo had -- even before the marketing of the first home console in the United States -- an alliance with the American pioneer Magnavox to develop and produce optoelectronic guns for the Odyssey (released in 1972), since it was similar to what Nintendo was able to offer in the Japanese toy market in 1970s".
Their first video arcade game was 1975's "EVR Race"; a handful of others followed in the next several years, "Radar Scope" and "Donkey Kong" being among the most famous of these. The early 1980s saw Nintendo's video game division (led by Yokoi) creating some of its most famous arcade titles. The massively popular "Donkey Kong" was created in 1981, with Shigeru Miyamoto as its mastermind, and released in the arcades and on the Atari 2600, Intellivision, and ColecoVision video game systems (although Nintendo themselves generally had no involvement with these early console ports). This release method would be used on several later Nintendo arcade games of this same period, including the original "Mario Bros." (not to be confused with the later "Super Mario Bros.") In addition to this arcade and dedicated console game activity, Nintendo was testing the consumer handheld video game waters with the Game & Watch.
The Sega Genesis, known as the in regions outside of North America, is a 16-bit video game console that was developed and sold by Sega. First released in Japan in 1988, in North America in 1989 and in PAL regions in 1990, the Genesis is Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. The system supports a library of more than 700 games created both by Sega and a wide array of third-party publishers and delivered on ROM cartridges. It can also play the complete library of Master System games when the separately sold Power Base Converter is installed. The Sega Genesis also benefited from numerous peripherals, including the Sega CD and Sega 32X, several network services, and multiple first-party and third-party variations of the console that focused on extending its functionality. The console and its games continue to be popular among fans, collectors, video game music fans, and emulation enthusiasts. Licensed third party re-releases of the console are still being produced, and several indie game developers continue to produce games for it. Many games have also been re-released in compilations for newer consoles and offered for download on various digital distribution services, such as Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and Steam.
"The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword" is an action-adventure video game in which players take on the role of series protagonist Link through a series of monster-populated overworlds and navigating dungeons featuring puzzles and bosses. Link is controlled using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, and the Wii MotionPlus expansion device is required to play. The greater majority of gameplay mechanics revolve around use of motion controls: these include camera control with the Nunchuk and general hotkey actions and movement linked to the Wii Remote. Jumping across gaps and scaling ledges happen automatically within context. The Nunchuk is also used to make Link perform a forward roll. Link can sprint for short distances, but sprinting and other actions such as climbing and carrying heavy objects is limited by a stamina meter, which recharges after a few seconds when not performing actions that drain it. When depleted entirely, Link's movement speed is reduced and he is left vulnerable until the meter refills. Standard navigation takes place from a third-person perspective, while the Dowsing search function switches to a first-person view: Dowsing scans an area for a selected object, with new Dowsing objectives appearing depending on game context.
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, known in the PAL regions as Dragon Quest: The Journey of the Cursed King, is a role-playing video game developed by Level-5 and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2. It was first released in Japan in 2004, and was later released in North America in 2005 and PAL regions in 2006, making it the first main series installment released in the PAL region. It is the eighth installment of the popular "Dragon Quest" series and it is the first English version of a "Dragon Quest" game to drop the "Dragon Warrior" title. A version of the game for Android and iOS was released in Japan in December 2013, and worldwide in May 2014.
Three video games were released based on the manga and the film. All three of the titles were developed by Technopolis Soft and published by Technopolis Soft and Tokuma Shoten. "Nausicaä in the Nick of Time" also known as "Nausicaä's Close Call" ("Naushika Kiki Ippatsu" or "Nausicaä Kiki Ippatsu") is a Japanese shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Technopolis Soft for the NEC PC-6001 computer system in 1984. The game marketed as "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" and known by its title screen as , is an adventure game developed by Technopolis Soft for the NEC PC-8801: it was released in the 1980s, most likely 1984. The third game, for the MSX is the most well-known of the releases and has been frequently and erroneously referred to as a game where the player kills the Ohmu. These games signaled the end of video game adaptations for Hayao Miyzaki's films. The only other games based on Miyazaki films were the LaserDisc arcade game "Cliff Hanger" and the MSX2 platform-adventure game "Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro", both of which were based on "The Castle of Cagliostro". Luke Plunkett describes these "two awful adaptations" as the reason Miyazaki does not allow further video game adaptations of his films.
Dragon Quest is the first role-playing video game (RPG) in the "Dragon Quest" media franchise. It was developed by Chunsoft for the Family Computer (or Famicom for short) and published by Enix in Japan in 1986 as "Dragon Quest" and by Nintendo in 1989 in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES) as Dragon Warrior. "Dragon Quest" has been ported and remade for several video game platforms, including the MSX, PC-9801, Super Famicom, Game Boy Color, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 4 and mobile phones. In play, players control a hero character who is charged with saving the Kingdom of Alefgard and rescuing its princess from the evil Dragonlord. "Dragon Warrior"s story became the second part in a trilogy. Several more anime and manga series, which revolved around this overarching plot were created.
Nintendo was the last to release a fifth generation console with their Nintendo 64, and when they finally released their console it came with only two launch titles. Partly to curb piracy and partly as a result of Nintendo's failed disc projects with Sony and Phillips, Nintendo used cartridges for their console. The higher cost of cartridges drove many third party developers to the PlayStation. The Nintendo 64 could handle 3D polygons better than any console released before it, but its games often lacked the cut-scenes, soundtracks, and voice-overs that became standard on PlayStation discs. Nintendo released several highly acclaimed titles, such as Super Mario 64 and , and the Nintendo 64 was able to sell tens of millions of units on the strength of first-party titles alone, but its constant struggles against Sony would make the Nintendo 64 the last home console to use cartridges as a medium for game distribution.
A new "Zelda" game was first hinted at in April 2008, when Miyamoto stated that the "Zelda" development team were reforming to create new games. Miyamoto later confirmed at the 2008 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) that a new "Zelda" was in development for the Wii. The game was unveiled at E3 2009, although its title remained unknown. Due to its in-development state, Miyamoto could not show off gameplay as he had wished. Instead, he showed promotional art featuring Link and Fi. He also announced the game's use of Wii MotionPlus, along with its planned 2010 release window. In a later interview, Aonuma's comments on the game's playability brought this release window into doubt. He also noted that his wish to focus on the new game meant that the release date of "Spirit Tracks" was shifted to the end of 2009 rather than its initial projected release in early 2010. The game's title was announced at the event, along with its revised release period in 2011 and a playable demonstration. According to Miyamoto, the game was delayed from its planned 2010 release window as the staff felt that they would be releasing an unfinished product if they put the convenience of the company ahead of creating a quality experience. They used the extra year to both finish the core elements and polish up the game as a whole.
By September, Scott had completed his first novel, "This Side of Paradise", and the manuscript was quickly accepted for publication. When he heard the novel had been accepted, Scott wrote to his editor Maxwell Perkins, urging an accelerated release: "I have so many things dependent on its success—including of course a girl." In November, he returned to Montgomery, triumphant with the news of his novel. Zelda agreed to marry him once the book was published; he, in turn, promised to bring her to New York with "all the iridescence of the beginning of the world." "This Side of Paradise" was published on March 26, Zelda arrived in New York on March 30, and on April 3, 1920, before a small wedding party in St. Patrick's Cathedral, they married. According to Canterbery and Birch (and Fitzgerald himself), this first novel was Fitzgerald's "ace in the hole", a poker term. Scott saw the novel's publication as the way to Zelda's heart.
Three "Zelda"-themed LCD games were created between 1989 and 1992. The "Zelda" version of Nintendo's Game & Watch series was released first in August 1989 as a dual-screen handheld electronic game similar in appearance to today's Nintendo DS. It was re-released in 1998 as a Toymax, Inc. Mini Classic and was later included as an unlockable extra in "Game & Watch Gallery 4", a 2002 compilation for the Game Boy Advance. While the Game & Watch "Zelda" was developed in-house by Nintendo, the subsequent two LCD games were developed by third parties under license by Nintendo. In October 1989, "The Legend of Zelda" was developed by Nelsonic as part of its Game Watch line. This game was an actual digital watch with primitive gameplay based on the original "Legend of Zelda". In 1992, Epoch Co. developed "" for its Barcode Battler II console. The game employed card-scanning technology similar to the later-released Nintendo e-Reader.
The next "Legend of Zelda" for the DS, "", was released in December 2009. In this game, the 'spirit tracks', railroads which chain an ancient evil, are disappearing from Hyrule. Zelda and Link go to the 'Spirit Tower' (the ethereal point of convergence for the tracks) to find out why. But villains steal Zelda's body for the resurrection of the Demon King. Rendered disembodied, Zelda is left a spirit, and only Link (and a certain few sages) can see her. Together they go on a quest to restore the spirit tracks, defeat the Demon King, and return Zelda to her body. Using a modified engine of that used in "Phantom Hourglass", the notably new feature in this game is that the Phantom Guardians seen in "Phantom Hourglass" are, through a series of events, periodically controllable. It was the first time in the series that both Link & Zelda work together on the quest.