The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker From ... - Douglas Wilson

Figure 2 – The Legend of Zelda (Nintendo, 1986)
By contrast, The Legend of Zelda boasted an unprecedented degree of
environmental continuity. Although the overworld was technically divided into 128
separate rectangular “screens” in a sixteen by eight grid, the different areas transitioned
smoothly into each other, fitting together like puzzle pieces in the larger Hyrule map.
This two-dimensional, nonlinear world was viewed through the game’s overhead “three-
quarters perspective” hybrid view. Players looked down and towards the world from a
fixed distance, which provided some profile detail of Link, the landscape, and its
inhabitants. But because the view was largely overhead, players were able to move Link
across the planar world in any direction they chose, and accessed adjacent areas by
moving across the northern, southern, eastern, and western edges.
The world of Super Mario Bros. seems almost one-dimensional by comparison.
The clear trajectory of Mario’s (and his co-protagonist brother Luigi’s) motion was
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