Legend of Zelda If you've played the Legend of Zelda then you're familiar with the aspects of the game. If you haven't then shame on you. Get an old Nintendo and buy the Legend of Zelda. Or if you already own it and want to download a backup copy ;-) go to emurater.com and download an emulator (I suggest either Nesten or Nesticle) and then download the Legend of Zelda Rom. Either way, enjoy my analysis of the game.

Wooden Sword Link, unless he's having a very bad day, finds this well-hidden prize about five seconds into his quest. The only problem with it is that it's made out of wood. Wood? I wasn't aware that wood was ever used to make swords under any circumstances. How sharp could a wooden sword be? Why not use a stick or a 2 X 4?

White Sword The white sword is... well... white. And it's a sword. The Magical Sword is magical. The Wooden Sword is wooden. The White Sword is white.

Magical Sword Link graverobs this sword late one night in the cemetery. It's obviously magical because it's pictured at a 30 degree angle. The Wooden sword and white sword that shoot phantom blades at enemies are apparently not magical at all.

Rupy I have often wondered where money comes from in video games. It's often found lying there on the ground or sitting on a ledge. Sometimes when someone in a video game is killed, money appears. Did the money belong to the deceased? That seems reasonable when you're fighting, you know, a guy. But when you get money from killing spiders and stuff, it seems a little weird. Did the spiders just collect interest from their investment portfolio? Nonsense, spiders can't invest. We think they just got some money from their grandma, just for being good.

5 Rupies What's less credible than a spider with one rupy? A spider with five rupies.

Heart Collecting these little baubles is truly a treat for our hero. He will go anywhere to get a heart which restores one unit of life, even if he has to lose five or six to get it. This is what is known as a "false economy." We think.

Heart Container Link likes getting Valentines. Even better than that he loves coming across someone elses private valentines and stealing them. He finds them in caves, floating perilously on rafts or in the tunnel under a tree he just burned down. He even steals valentines from the enemies he kills at the end of each level. What a bastard.

Fairy This is why this game was a huge hit with boys. You run around dancing with fairies trying to catch them. Link sometimes goes to the fairy's lake for tea. She surrounds link with love and gives him energy. Oh brother.

Bomb In Zelda, as in real life, the lesson learned from bombs is this: If you blow things up, you can win prizes. Unfortunately Link's invisible satchel is only large enough to hold eight bombs along with all his other goods. You can pay people later on for a bigger satchel. Link uses up his bombs quickly blowing up Dodongos and looking for heart containers. He also blows people's houses up accidentally. Why someone is living inside a sealed rock remains to be seen.

Key Keys are weird. They will open any door in Hyrule. Any door. But here's the catch: They only work once and then they disappear. That's how normal, non-magical keys work.

Magical Key The magical key has a lion on it, and that's cool. It's a skeleton key that works on all locks in Hyrule. It's magical because Link gets to keep it after unlocking a door. This is why we play fantasy games, to escape into a world where you can do magical stuff like use the same key twice.

Magical Clock The magical clock is great. It freezes all the enemies on a screen so that Link can simply stand in front of them and slowly kill them. A problem with the clock is that you're a little more likely to get it from killing someone than you are to get the magical sword. Another problem is that eighty percent of the time Link gets the clock, it's from the last enemy he killed on the screen.

Boomerang The Boomerang may look like a simple banana, but it kicks twice as much ass. You throw it at your enemy and it temporarily paralyzes them. "Yes," you may be asking, "but any banana can do that. What else can it do?" Simple: if you throw the boomerang, it comes back to you. If you turn around you can catch it with your back turned. If you run from side to side, it will track you. There's just no getting away from it. It's actually kind of annoying.

Magical Boomerang Seemingly the only "magical" thing about this boomerang is that it goes twice as far as the regular boomerang. I think causing paralysis on an enemy is a little more magical than tossing distance. Perhaps it's made magical by its blue color.

Map Link usually finds the map just lying on the floor in one of the rooms of an underworld level. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a hiding place for the map or if someone just dropped it.

Compass There isn't much to say about the compass. It works like any regular compass. It tells you where bad guys live by making a red spot flash on your map.

Bow The Bow is either the first or second cool weapon found by Link. Link's a little peeved when he finds that it doesn't come with any arrows. He figures that he'll find them in the next level. He's wrong.

Arrow By buying the arrow, link now has access to the invisible arrow merchant. The invisible arrow merchant is a little pixie that flies around following Link and selling him arrows at the very reasonable price of one rupy each. Even though Link is a great return customer the invisible arrow merchant will not give arrows to Link when he runs out of money no matter how much of a pickle he's in.

Letter The letter is by far Link's greatest disappointment. Link is excited to find that it is his mission to deliver this letter from the man above the waterfall to the strange silent women who reside in caves and under trees across all of Hyrule. Perhaps when he presents one of them with this letter, they'll have great advice for him or have a Valentine to give him. No such luck. It's basically his membership card to shop at their exclusive potion boutique. They're like the BJ's of Hyrule.

Blue Candle Here's an exception to the "Blue being better than red" Rule of the Legend of Zelda. The Blue Candle is a pretty piss poor candle. For starters, the flame is blue. This would lead you to believe it was magic or something. Nothing is farther from the truth. It's a little worse than your average run of the mill candle. It can only be lit once per screen. On the plus side, it taught my generation as children that it was fun to burn down trees.

Red Candle The Red Candle is apparently magical. All the elements are there. The flame is red. You can light it more than once per screen. That's about it. It's basically just a candle. It just seems amazing after being saddled with the blue candle for so long.

Life Potion The Life Potion restores health to Link. Link selects the life potion and presses the 'B' Button. Then in just twelve short minutes after listening to a shrill piercing noise he's fully restored. Just enough time for Link to forget that the potion is still his selected item. If he had a red potion he will accidentally restore the half heart damage he took since taking the last potion. If he had a blue potion he will be trying to attack Wizzrobes with the letter.

2nd Potion Now there's delicious Second Potion. Second Potion was planned as a replacement for Life Potion. It did not fly so well with the public so after two weeks they re-released Life Potion as Life Potion Classic. You can still get Second Potion but now it's called New Potion.

Raft The raft is a raft, just not a very good one. The only thing link can do with the raft that's worth anything is to get to Level 4. Link cannot use the raft to get the Valentine he sees floating on another raft in the water. For some reason it doesn't work that way. He also cannot use the raft to sail into the lakes and fire at the Zolas that constantly shell him while he's on shore. The raft apparently needs some sort of special dock to launch from. If the raft was magical perhaps it could be used like a regular raft.

Stepladder The stepladder isn't really a stepladder so much as it is a bridge. It can get to places that the raft just wouldn't be able to. However it's always used over water. Link doesn't think too much about the logistics of it, he's just happy to get another Valentine

Magical Sheild The magical sheild is such a nuissance. Link forks out hard earned rupies for the magical sheild and then finds out he's been rooked. It's thirty rupies cheaper somewhere else! The worst part about the sheild is it's the only thing Link can permenantly loose during the game. Like like will digest the metal of Link's sheild leaving his skin unharmed. Link will sometimes go for an hour or two before he even realizes that he's lost his sheild. Then he forgets where the cheapest store is. Woe is him.

Power Bracelet In case Link doesn't look like he's dudded up enough to be attending the Renfest, this particular item puts him over the top. It looks like a leftover prop from a low budget fantasy movie from the eighties. Either that or jewlery that muppets were wearing in Dark Crystal.

Recorder When Link finds the recorder it apparently comes with some sort of Mel Bay Lesson booklet that he doesn't get very far in. Link plays only one six-note song every time he plays the recorder. It is very magical indeed. Sometimes a tunnel will appear in the sand, sometimes water will vanish from a pond, but usually a tornado will come and swallow Link up. Perhaps Link shouldn't play the recorder as much as he does.

Food The second stupidest item in the game. Link laughs at the thought of buying food from every merchant who tries to sell it to him. Browsing at the top of the screen Link sees that he does not need food to survive, only hearts and money. Unfortunately Link meets up with a hungry oaf in Level 7 that refuses to move. Link curses himself for not buying the food even though he has 255 rupies. He also learns that his sword has no effect on the famished fool.

Magical Rod The magical rod appears to be a fantastic replacement for the boomerang. However instead of paralyzing an enemy it injures them. The plus is that it always shoots, wheras the sword only shoots when Link is completely full of love.

Book of Magic Apparently the only thing sketched in this book from right to left is the instructions of how to make the magical rod make fire after it shoots, causing Link to injure himself more often than not. Apparently it's easy to use the rod until you want to burn something. This seems to me to be a rather large manual for the magical rod.

Blue Ring If there's one thing that this game teaches you it's that Blue is Stronger than Red. Unless you're Link. It's some sort of weird reward to see Link's clothes change blue. And when you buy the ring it takes so long to drain the money from Link's account that Link thinks he can beat the system by travelling off the screen. Bankers never fall for any tricks of this nature.

Red Ring We are scarecely able to enjoy Link in his flashy red suit. He looks like he should be in a Tim Burton movie when he's dressed all in red. Enjoy it while it lasts because in ten minutes Link will be dressed back in green all Robin Hood style with only three hearts and all his preciously collected paraphernalia will be scatered across Hyrule.

Silver Arrow The silver arrow much like the red ring is given to Link at such a late point in the game he isn't given much time to enjoy it. The only thing Link uses the silver arrow for it to kill Gannon. The silver arrow sounds like a one time only item, but apparently he wasn't aware that the invisible arrow merchant carried them until he finds out about them in the depths of level 9.

Triforce Link's glee reaches a climax as he enters the room with the triforce in it. It's just a small part of the triforce but he hoists it up over his head like the stanley cup. You expect him to kiss it and drink life potion from it. After Link deafeats Gannon he has his name inscribed on each piece of the Triforce. Coming next... Level Bosses -- Read about chief guardians of the nine levels of Legend of Zelda.