Did you actually beat this game without using any guides? If

Had a smooth sailing on the first 3 dungeons, then I got stuck, I think it was on the one that's on an island in the middle of the water, didn't know how to get there. I should get back to it.

I didn't, but I remember my cousin got stuck on the "Hungry Goriya" until I interjected that he might want food.

Yes I did. I didn't have internet at the time, and since I was playing it for the first time through Animal Crossing, it's not like I could just go out and buy a walkthrough.

It took me maybe a week, give or take some days. I didn't find all the heart pieces, and im sure my death count was in the 400s,

It's not too difficult if you recognize that there is an item in every dungeon, and you think about what the old men/women tell you, there's hints for the more obscure dungeons all around the game.

The only thing that I spent forever on was Ganon's lair, because fuck that place is huge and confusing, I didn't have the hang of fighting darknuts back then and I still don't have the hang of fighting blue wizzrobes. Also I didn't find the magic key.

I beat it without any specific guide or FAQ, but I must have gotten some hints from somewhere (aside from the manual + map that came with it). Back then it was really common to see random tips in the back sections of game magazines, plus friends talked all the time, so a lot of times you would pick up tips for games even if you didn't own them and sometimes didn't play them for years later.

I'm positive we beat Zelda 1 without a guide though, because my mom hand-drew a map of Death Mountain with little annotations saying the monsters and traps in each room. Really wish I had kept it; it'd be a fun bit of nostalgia these days. Later on we bought the NES Game Atlas and the 2nd quest was still too fucking hard, lol.

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>>3558958
I played through it recently and beat it, but I kindof had help? I had the map/manual that came with the game, and little me used the power of 8 year old autism and managed to not only find a lot of shit, but to fill out the map with details too. So I beat the game legitimately, but it took me a good 15 years to do it (or 2 days if you only count the time in which I started recently)

>>3558958
Beat first quest without help back in the day when I was stuck in Idaho for a few months. Didn't beat second quest without help though. Ended up talking to an old grognard at the only videogame rental place and he showed me how to get one of those free AOL discs and get dialup so I could go online at look some old ass online forum to get though second quest.

>>3559012
This is why I love the fact that my old man drew maps for all the dungeons.

Never had a problem with this game.

>>3558958
No, I haven't beat it.

I've been pretty damn far. Got the Magic Sword, then got stuck on the dungeon with Wizzrobes.

Yeah, plenty of times as a kid. Maybe a month or so. My dad beat it first, though. Same with mario land on the GB. One of my earliest memories is watching him play the plane stage in the basement during a storm. I used to yell for him to come beat the zelda bosses for me.

>>3558958
Of course, I didn't have a guide and no one I knew had internet back then. It took a while since I wasn't trying to beat it fast or anything. I enjoy taking my time in games like these

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>>3558958
The first time, yeah. There wasn't really much for internet back then. My death count was 120-150. I now do 0 death runs, 3 heart challenge, swordless, etc. for fun.

>>3558958
I've yet to beat it, been hammering away for 4 years here and there. Currently can't find the 8th dungeon (that 7th one was a real bitch).

Now to leave this thread so I don't get spoiled.

>>3559306
*A bitch to find I mean. Took me 10 minutes to beat, and then back to wandering around aimlessly.

>>3559306
>>3559310
I always found Dungeon 7 to be a nice breather lever after the general dread and horror I feel about 6, and before the difficult 8 and grind that is Death Mountain. Even knowing the route, it still can be a bitch. So nice game design decision to make Dungeon 7 the way that it is.

>>3558958
weeks
maybe months
had to draw my own maps
figure out "grumble grumble"
bomb everywhere
burn everything
had to press every tombstone

First quest, beat everythingg up to level-9 and then called a helpline for directions.
Second quest, fuck no.

He many of the people saying yes got tips from their friends?

I picked up a couple of things from Nintendo Power before owning the game, like feeding the hungry goriya, so I never had a chance to figure it out myself. Most things I did find on my own just exploring though.

I was stuck on finding level 7 for a long time, until the solution started appearing on Nintendo Power ads packed in other games.

>>3558958
Played it on emulator 2 years ago. Took me about 3 weeks. It was a bitch, but I promised myself I would not look up any guides because I wanted to see how difficult the game was because my friend was arguing that it was harder than Zelda II.

>>3559423
No tips from friends, closest thing I got was 9 years before I played the game for myself, I saw my brother's friend playing the game and finding the way into the 7th dungeon, but that would have been easy to figure out on my own anyway, since "There are secrets where fairies don't live" is kind of obvious.

To be fair, I first played the game when I was maybe 17 or 18, so I didn't have idiot child brains when I played.

I was 4 when i first played it with my older brother, he was 5.

Got stuck on dungeon 7 and 9, had an older cousin help us through it.

>>3558958
Yes and about two weeks.

>>3558958
>If so, how long did it take you.
Dude, it was 25 years ago... I honestly don't remember.

the manual pretty much is a walkthrough up to dungeon 2, so that's pretty nice.

I think I beat it back in 95 or so, only guides used were the ones that came in the box. The hardest thing was finding Level-8's entrance, which I accidentally found looking for secrets in bushes.

>>3558958
You can't beat the game without using any guides. There's two parts where you need the power, nintendo power. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever taken the time to bomb each tile to find the entrance. They all got help from somebody or something else to find those two things because there is literally nothing in game to point you to it. I'm not exaggerating. If you got amnesia and forgot about this game and went to play it for some reason, you would get stuck and look for the solutions.

>>3559973
>Nobody, and I mean nobody

You underestimate my 8 year old self, chummer. I bombed every tile north of the graveyard and west of the river, and burned every bush in south central part of the map.

God the red candle was so awesome.

My mom and I played this together when I was a kid and it took about a month to beat. We hand drew maps and everything. Such good times

>>3559973
> there is literally nothing in game to point you to it
>SPECTACLE ROCK IS AN ENTRANCE TO DEATH

>>3559928

SECRET IS THE TREE AT THE DEAD END

>>3559973
Piss off you colossal faggot, there's nothing in the game that can't be figured out through the clues given by the old man and just a little bit of critical thinking.

>>3559382
>weeks
>maybe months
>had to draw my own maps
>figure out "grumble grumble"
>bomb everywhere
>burn everything
>had to press every tombstone

That was me as well. I was playing a friends copy and he had lost the map so I didn't even have the hints on what to look out for.

Most of the tips came from schoolyard lore. We knew these was something strange at the pond without the fairies but didn't know what to do about it. Someone at school mentioned "play the flute thing" and I realized I had not tried that.

I did.My favourite moment was when I got stuck in the last dungeon of the first quest and I had to kill myself with the red candle so I can get out and save.

>>3560176
I remember trying to fight Ganon without the silver arrows, only to realize I had nothing that could hurt him. Was real bad because I just reset the game instead of letting him kill me.

Same thing happened in the second quest, dungeon 5, I got stuck in a loop after entering a wall and didn't have enough keys to open the way out.

>>3558958 (OP)
Playing it for the first time, currently on the 6th dungeon. The only thing I missed was the bow and arrow from dungeon 1, thanks to a random OP image for the tip. I also think I missed the red candle. Will go back through 2-5 one of these days

>>3560471
The Red Candle is in Dungeon 7 and one of the few actually unnecessary items.

>>3558958
Took a few months on and off, but its definitely possible if you're thorough as fuck. Although I'm sure this game was meant to be a "playground" game where you and your friends get together and share secrets.

Btw I was genuinely surprised that "grumble grumble" was seen as cryptic. I know it can sound like a generic monster sound, but it felt like a stomach rumble too

>>3560501
I take that back. Thinking about it now, about half the items are completely unnecessary to actually beat the game.

The Sword(s) are necessary unless you are doing swordless and even then you still can't beat Gannon.
Bombs are 100% necessary.
Arrows, Silver Arrows, and the Bow are also necessary (Gohma, Gannon).
The Raft and Step Ladder are also needed to complete the game.
And the Recorder/Whistle/Flute whatever you want to call it is also needed.
Oh and the Blue Candle is also needed (Dungeon 8).

Everything just makes the game easier but are not strictly required to do so.

>>3560528
Forgot the Bait/Food, also 100% needed as mentioned many times already.

Augh yeah folks cant wait to get mah NES MINI and sit around playin zelda on the crapperooni in pixel perfect mode in HDMI on mah modern LCD tv augh yeah folks :D

>>3560558
you're a fucking faggot dude.

>>3560528
So you need pretty much everything at some point except for the sword upgrades and the potions and boomerangs?

I beat Ganon with just the wooden sword before because I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get the silver sword and never came back to the waterfall after trying. I think the whole game could've been beaten with much less of a slog had I known about it.

I beat it on my first try, all items, and no damage. Completed it so fast that I got the super great rare ending where Zelda takes her dress off. Anyone who finds this game hard or makes "maps" is a giant pussy and you need to kys. Alright nerds. Gotta go. My qt3.14 gf wants to Fuck.

t. average hardcore /vr poster

>>3560558
Boy, you just hate everything.

>>3560660
Swords, letter, potion, book, wand, boomerang, red candle, rings, bracelet are all unnecessary.

>>3560660
>>3560782
The swords are unnecessary in that you can get to Gannon without them, but you cannot damage Gannon without a sword. If you are doing a swordless run, then the Wand becomes absolutely necessary.

Otherwise,both the Red and Blue Rings, Magical shield, Boomerang, Magical Boomerang. Book of Magic, Magic Rod/Wand, Heart Containers, Red Candle, Power Bracelet, Magical Key, Letter from the Old Man, Red and Blue Potions are all not needed to complete the game.

It took me my whole 7th grade year. People asked around at school back in the day to get past hard things. Also, played games together, too.

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>>3560970
>playing single player games with someone else

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Beat the first quest with just this.

For some reason I had a lot of trouble finding the silver arrow in the second quest though.

>>3560982
this made me sad

>>3560673
I'd believe it, Zelda was always a game meant for 6 year olds. The first one has maybe 10 sentences to read.

>>3561219
6 year olds in 1987 maybe, give this shit to a 8-13 year old today and watch them say everything is too hard. They can't even handle Super Mario World.

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>>3560982
>>3561014
>this made me sad
Likewise. To first realize that there are so few women who are that nerdy, and then the realization that those who are, are ostracized by assholes as depicted.

>>3560982
>>playing single player games with someone else

That is how we marathoned games and beat so many of them on a 2-day rental.

When one person plays, the other s watching and learning. For zelda not so much, but in other ames with enemy patterns or hints (punch out, etc) the tag team really works wonders.

You hand the controller back and forth every 15 minutes, or after a continue, whcihever came first. For a 6 hour gaming session you are really only playing 3 hours of it, so the fatigue is way lower. It also curbed the frustration levels and prevents you from burning out after repeat failures.

I am skeptical if kids now have the attention span to do this. When I see kids play now one is focused on the game and the other is fucking around on a phone or tablet. They are not gaming together, they just happen to be in the same room that happens to include a video game. It is a big difference.

>>3558958
Has anyone here ever seen the rare purple Gannon? I thought I got the right cart off of eBay but alas the word "Caution" on the back wasn't underlined...

No guide, assuming you don't count the map that came with the game. I actually had to be told you could push the blocks though (I'd run at them long enough several times while clumsily bumbling about that I thought none of them would move), and I thought I might have just not gotten to the item that lets you break them yet... I kept waiting for it so I could backtrack and get whatever was down those stairs in Level 1 (the ever critical bow...), and got stuck at Level 4 until a classmate pointed out what I was doing. I'd found level 8 in the meantime, slowly burning every tree on the damn map.

I got lucky with the second quest, I don't recall what possessed me to run at precisely the right wall at the right time to figure out THAT trick... but no guides for either one when I first played them.

>>3561295
>When I see kids play now one is focused on the game and the other is fucking around on a phone or tablet.
Not just kids.
My sister (24) does this when we watch movies or play Mean Bean Machine.
It's fucking irritating because we have almost no time together anymore.

>>3561323

I feel you on this, I've given up trying to watch movies with anyone other than that one last friend that hasn't become a slave to facebook.

>>3559503
>17 or 18
>didn't have idiot child brains

the toppest of keks to you sir

>>3558958
in the 80s, yeah. i had seen a friend play through the first two dungeons, and i had access to the manual with the item descriptions and the partial map (through dungeons 1-2)..

most everything was figured out through trial and error. i used to burn every single bush (with the blue candle, even), bomb every wall and rock, etc. made my own maps indicating places that i'd checked, etc. i think i missed 2 of the hearts the first time around.

the manual actually had a lot of obvious, plus some not-necessarily-obvious information (e.g., behind the prologue text in the manual, there's a full map of hyrule, you can know exactly how many hearts are in-game by looking at a screenshot where link is missing 2 hearts and 2 pieces of triforce, also that you can expand your bomb capacity, etc). once i realized there was only 1 secret per room, that made things a bit easier, too.

probably 30-60hrs total.

>>3560848
Trivia: Manhandla is completely immune to starting sword. He'll flash as if he's taking damage, but won't be hurt. He's the first real "hint" to a player besides the old man to get the upgraded sword.

Of course, it's a moot point if you know the trick with bombs.