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

The Legend of Zelda transcended this quality of disposability, precisely because
its areas interconnected to form one unified mega-environment. In the absence of any
time limit, players could wander Hyrule on their own terms. The game required Link to
explore and re-explore each area, whether in search of dungeon entrances and items, or
simply passing through while trekking across the gameworld. Even in the maze-like,
significantly less open-ended dungeons, players were forced to retrace multiple paths. In
addition, The Legend of Zelda abandoned the notion of “multiple games” almost entirely.
The Zelda game cartridge introduced a battery backup feature that allowed players to
save their progress and resume their quest in the next play session. “Dying” now signified
a minor setback rather than an unambiguous “game over.” Effectively, the save
mechanism shifted the gameplay balance from performance to exploration and character
development.
In many ways, the 1988 sequel Zelda II: The Adventure of Link signified a step
back towards the action-first design of Super Mario Bros. Despite a handful of small
design changes clearly derived from traditional role-playing games (RPGs), players once
again navigated Link through Hyrule in search of palace-dungeons. But this time around,
the overworld was presented in a more map-like top-down view. Although it was no
longer broken into discrete screens (the view panned slowly along with the player), the
new overworld lacked the interactive potential of its predecessor. Instead, much of the
action and exploration had been abstracted into a secondary sidescrolling mode. Towns,
dungeons, caves, and battle sequences were now rendered in an entirely separate, profile
perspective and with different artwork. The sequel was first and foremost a Zelda game,
but the new sidescrolling view channeled the jump-intensive “platformer” spirit of Super
18