History YMMV / TheLegendOfZeldaI

* GoddamnedBats: Keese and Gels, for being quick little buggers who don't drop any goodies when vanquished; tempered somewhat by the fact that your boomerang can kill them. Peahats, on the other hand, are completely invulnerable until they slow down and stop flying, and they have a tendency to go a ''long'' time between stops.

** In the second volume, Dark Link [[spoiler: or rather Ganon]], takes the White Sword from Link's grandfather and corrupts it into the Dark Sword, in a manner similar to how Ghirahim's sword form is a dark version of the Master Sword.

*** Dark Link [[spoiler: or rather Ganon]], takes the White Sword from Link's grandfather and corrupts it into the Dark Sword, in a manner similar to how Ghirahim's sword form is a dark version of the Master Sword.

** The second volume, the adaptation of ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'', has it as Zelda I, the current one's ancestor, is the first one to have fought Ganon, with a design showing her with braided bangs, much like the reincarnated Hylia from ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'', who didn't so much face Ganon, than fought his previous incarnation, Demise. Also, Dark Link [[spoiler: or rather Ganon]], takes the White Sword from Link's grandfather and corrupts it into the Dark Sword, in a manner similar to how Ghirahim's sword form is a dark version of the Master Sword.

** The second volume, the adaptation of ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'', has it as Zelda I, the current one's ancestor, is the first one to have fought Ganon, with a design showing her with braided bangs, much like the reincarnated Hylia from ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'', who didn't so much face Ganon, than fought his previous incarnation, Demise.
*** Speaking of, Dark Link [[spoiler: or rather Ganon]], takes the White Sword from Link's grandfather and corrupts it into the Dark Sword, in a manner similar to how Ghirahim's sword form is a dark version of the Master Sword.

* HilariousInHindsight: In the Yuu Mishouzaki adaptation of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI The Legend of Zelda]]'', Link faces a duo of Goriyas known as the Goriya Brothers. ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames Oracle of Seasons]]'', released almost 12 years after the original publication of this manga, features a Goriya duo, also bearing the title of the Goriya Bros., who are fought as the game's first miniboss.

* VindicatedByHistory: While this game has almost never been considered outright bad, for a very long time it was overshadowed by later games such as ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast A Link to the Past]]'' and/or ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' for refining the experience by introducing story elements, telling the player where they need to go, and adding clearer yet more complex item mechanics beyond "randomly bomb/burn things for secrets." The original game was seen as archaic, unpolished, and overly cryptic in comparison. Come UsefulNotes/{{The Seventh Generation|OfConsoleVideoGames}}, with the explosion in popularity of open-world games, the first ''Zelda'' has now been acclaimed by many for being an early exemplary example of the WideOpenSandbox and for letting players discover things on their own, to the point that a surprising amount of people desired for the series to "return to its roots" by revisiting the framework of the original game. At E3 2014, Eiji Aonuma delivered on this desire, stating that the then-untitled ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' will be taking inspiration from this game in crafting its open world setting.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Though the game's open-ended nature remains revolutionary, it's still in many ways a product of its time. Elements such as the clunky combat, poor overworld map, nonexistent story, and TrialAndErrorGameplay can provide a bit of a barrier, especially for those who started with later 2D Zeldas. Part of this seems to be due to the translation, however; Japanese players still report that the game is different, but that's primarily due to the difficulty of the combat. Many hints wound up being translated awkwardly, if at all. (To be fair to the translators, Japanese text is a lot more dense in information; they had to convey similar information in English with the same amount of space. It's perhaps no surprise that they weren't always successful.)

* MemeticMutation: [[Memes/TheLegendOfZelda It has its own page.]]

* MemeticMolester: ''Music/{{Starbomb}}'' have a song called "It's Dangerous to Go Alone" where the old man who spawned the meme is a pervert who keeps disguising his penis as items in order to get Link to touch them.

** Level 2-2. Aside from being the first dungeon to introduce the Walk-Through Walls, it also throws a freaking '''Gleeok''' at you while you've likely still only got the Wooden Sword. It's a wake-up call that this second quest will not be pulling any punches.

*** The only saving grace is that the Raft isn't very deep into level 6-2, and it's possible to go in just far enough to grab it, then leave and use it to get that last heart container you'll need for the Magical Sword.

** '''Blue Wizzrobes.''' They do major contact damage, they're durable, their motion pattern is impossible to predict, and you can't stand in front of them because they continuously fire spells if you do. And unlike other enemies, they can walk into doorways and hurt you if you stand in the door and try to snipe - you can avoid them by getting far enough back, but if you get too far back you risk leaving the room and that resets all the damage you did. On top of this, they completely NoSell most of your conventional weapons you'd use to fight other enemies from a distance, like the Boomerang, Arrows, Magic Rod and fire (be it from the Magic Rod or Candle) — they're mercifully vulnerable to Bombs, but you only get 16 of those. The only strategy even halfway effective against them is to stand directly behind them, but that leaves you open to the Red Wizzrobes (see below) and Like Likes that often accompany them.
** Red Wizzrobes are normally easy enough to deal with, but they become quite dangerous in their own right when combined with Blue Wizzrobes. Trying to keep your distance from the blue ones tend to result in wandering into an orange one right as they either teleport into your path or fire a spell. The advantages the weaker variety has is the ability to teleport a greater distance, and their spells; the latter are twice as strong as those from the blue ones at '''four hearts''' of damage if you don't have the blue/red ring
** Blue Darknuts. They can't be attacked from the front, they're twice as fast and durable as Red Darknuts, and they do major damage. They change direction without any warning, including reversing direction. You can be running up behind one only to have it wheel around and bump into you. They can only be damaged by the sword, sword beam, and bombs, and since the sword beam only works at full health and bombs are a limited resource, you'll find yourself forced to rely on getting in close with your sword. You're required to clear out two entire rooms swarming with Blue Darknuts just to get the Whistle, and they'll all respawn if you die and have to try again.

** Before you get the bow and arrow, Pols Voice. Unpredictable movement pattern, exceptionally durable, immune to bombs and the boomerang, and they do major damage. In the Famicom version, they can be instantly killed with the microphone on the controller making them a lot easier to deal with.

** Level 8 in the first quest and level 7 in the second quest (inverting the entries for Breather Dungeon above) are ''full'' of [[DemonicSpiders Blue Darknuts]], who are some of the hardest enemies in the game. Level 7 in the second quest actually requires you to kill no less than three rooms full of them to progress to the end.
** Level 9, both quests. The first quest is considered the largest to navigate, large enough to be half of the overworld. It is very easy to get lost in this level. It also doesn't help that Wizzrobes and Patras exists to make things a lot harder.

* AntiClimaxBoss: The original Ganon is either UnwinnableByDesign or this. He may be invisible, but Link just needs to hit him four times to make him vulnerable to the Silver Arrow, while Ganon needs to hit a fully-equipped Link dozens of times to whittle down his health (with the Red Ring, his fireballs do only a half heart of damage). He's more frustrating for people doing a SelfImposedChallenge, where he actually stands a chance of winning the damage race and his random pattern makes it difficult to avoid getting hurt.

** ...Ganon. While Ganon's shots only do 1 full heart of damage, touching him, even at its invisible state, does 4 full hearts of damage. Those doing a [[SelfImposedChallenge minimalist run]] will find it almost impossible to do because of Ganon's random movements while invisible.
* ThatOneBoss: Gleeok the multiheaded dragon is far and away the game's hardest boss: it requires you to hit the heads exclusively, using the sword. The heads are fairly small and move constantly, and once a head comes off, it starts flying around as an invincible enemy. You also have three fights with Gleeok in the game, and each time, it gains an additional head, meaning you can have multiple invincible fire-blasting threats flying around the room, and you can't block their shots. The mini-boss fight with it in level 6 is considerably harder than the fight with the dungeon's actual boss.

** Gohma is located at the end of the Level 6, a grueling dungeon filled to the brim with [[DemonicSpiders Wizzrobes]] and a rematch with [[ThatOneBoss Gleeok]]. You'd think Gohma would be just as difficult, but it goes down in [[OneHitPointWonder just one]] arrow to the eye.

** Blue Wizzrobes. They do major damage, they're durable, they have an incredibly hard to predict motion pattern and you can't stand in front of them because they continuously fire spells if you do. And they can walk into doorways and hurt you if you stand in the door and try to snipe - you can avoid them by getting far enough back, but if you get too far back you risk leaving the room and that resets all the damage you did (these things are ''durable''). The only strategy even halfway effective against them is to stand directly behind them, but that leaves you open to the Red Wizzrobes (see below) and Like Likes that often accompany them.
** Red Wizzrobes normally are easy enough to deal with, but they become quite dangerous in their own right when combined with Blue Wizzrobes. Trying to keep your distance from the blue ones tend to result in wandering into an orange one right as they teleport into your path, as one of the only advantages the weaker variety has is the ability to teleport a greater distance (the other being their spells which are twice as strong as those from the blue ones). It should also be noted that their spells do four heart containers' worth of damage if you don't have the blue/red mail. For context, you start with three heart containers, and the only other enemy to do that much damage in the entire game is Ganon - the final boss.

** Like-Likes. They eat your Magic Shield. They also frequently show up with Wizzrobes, where losing your upgraded shield makes you much more vulnerable.

* GoodBadBugs: In both the NES original and the GBA edition, immediately exiting and reentering the Level 1 dungeon will somehow unlock the first door, netting you a spare key. The reason behind this bug ''is'' known[[note]]the game keeps track of the last door you went through and makes sure the other side is unlocked, but it doesn't keep track of whether said door is an exit; since the exit is to the south, it assumes when you reenter that you went through the south exit of the above room, so it unlocks the north door[[/note]], but it's unclear if it was intentionally left in or not, as it was "fixed" for the [=GameCube=] version. This can also be used in the randomizer in many levels, and in ''some'' cases (though not all) the same bug will also result in bombable walls being bombed when you come back, without needing to use a bomb yourself. (If there are two bombable walls, this technique will probably result in one being bombed and the other not. It's not clear what the cause was.) This probably would've occurred in the original game, too, but there are no bombable walls in opening rooms in the original game.

* PolishedPort: The American NES release uses Nintendo's MMC1 mapper chip to fit the entire game onto a single cartridge, as opposed to two sides of a Famicom Disk System diskette. Because of this, the American version eliminates the load times and disk swapping of the original Famicom Disk System release (at the slight expense of losing the Disk System's extra sound channel). This conversion, along with rampant piracy of disks, was one of the factors that spelled the doom of the Famicom Disk System, as Nintendo realized they did not need to make use of a separate peripheral to make larger, more technically demanding games for the Famicom/NES. Nintendo would [[RecursiveImport release the cartridge version in Japan]] in 1994.

* GoodBadBugs: In both the NES original and the GBA edition, immediately exiting and reentering the Level 1 dungeon will somehow unlock the first door, netting you a spare key. The reason behind this bug ''is'' known[[note]]the game keeps track of the last door you went through and makes sure the other side is unlocked, but it doesn't keep track of whether said door is an exit; since the exit is to the south, it assumes when you reenter that you went through the south exit of the above room, so it unlocks the north door[[/note]], and it was "fixed" in the [=GameCube=] re-release, but it's unclear if it intentionally left in or not. This can also be used in the randomizer in many levels, and in ''some'' cases (though not all) the same bug will also result in bombable walls being bombed when you come back, without needing to use a bomb yourself. (If there are two bombable walls, this technique will probably result in one being bombed and the other not. It's not clear what the cause was.) This probably would've occurred in the original game, too, but there are no bombable walls in opening rooms in the original game.

* GoodBadBugs: In both the NES original and the GBA edition, immediately exiting and reentering the Level 1 dungeon will somehow unlock the first door, netting you a spare key. The reason behind this bug ''is'' known[[note]]the game keeps track of the last door you went through and makes sure the other side unlocked, but it doesn't keep track of whether said door is an exit; since the exit is to the south, it assumes when you reenter that you went through the south exit of the above room, so it unlocks the north door[[/note]], and it was "fixed" in the [=GameCube=] re-release, but it's unclear if it intentionally left in or not. This can also be used in the randomizer in many levels, and in ''some'' cases (though not all) the same bug will also result in bombable walls being bombed when you come back, without needing to use a bomb yourself. (If there are two bombable walls, this technique will probably result in one being bombed and the other not. It's not clear what the cause was.) This probably would've occurred in the original game, too, but there are no bombable walls in opening rooms in the original game.

* GoodBadBugs: In both the NES original and the GBA edition, immediately exiting and reentering the Level 1 dungeon will somehow unlock the first door, netting you a spare key. Hard to tell if this is an unintentional bug or a deliberate secret, though it was "fixed" in the Gamecube re-release. This can also be used in the randomizer in many levels, and in ''some'' cases (though not all) the same bug will also result in bombable walls being bombed when you come back, without needing to use a bomb yourself. (If there are two bombable walls, this technique will probably result in one being bombed and the other not. It's not clear what the cause was.) This probably would've occurred in the original game, too, but there are no bombable walls in opening rooms in the original game.