Follows the story of a young boy named Link that must save a kidnapped princess from the evil, demonic Ganon, who put a spell on his lair which can only be removed with the 3 pieces of the Triforce, a golden triangle with mystical powers.
Shigeru Miyamoto got the idea for the game from his childhood memories. As a young boy, he would often explore the countryside around his house in Kyoto, and one day he found a cave, which he entered after getting a lantern from his home and mustering all his courage. This was the kind of experience he wanted to recreate for the game. The labyrinth dungeons were based on Miyamoto's family house which had many rooms and sliding doors, and was therefore easy to get lost in.
Old Woman:
BOY, YOU'RE RICH.
In one of the dungeons, you will receive a hint that the enemy Pols Voice dislikes noise - yet blowing the whistle does nothing to hurt the enemy. The Famicom (the original Japanese version of the NES) had a microphone, and the player could make noise in it to kill these enemies. As the American NES aborted this feature, this was not possible. Nintendo went ahead and translated this hint verbatim, but because of the lack of a microphone in the American NES, it no longer made any sense and was often misinterpreted.
During the end credits, the entire crew except for executive producer Hiroshi Yamauchi is listed under pseudonyms. E.g. producer/director Shigeru Miyamoto is credited as "S. Miyahon", and composer Koji Kondo as "Konchan". See also Trivia.
Re-released in 2003 as part of a Zelda Collector's Disk which also included The Adventure of Link, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and a demo for The Wind Waker. Although the gameplay and graphics remained the same, a lot of the infamously translated text was cleaned up, namely the story introduction and some character dialog.
English, Japanese