The box is majestic in appearance, even legendary, I will award it that compliment. It sure is an eye-catcher. Having played the game for a short while, experiencing what it offered in whatever rashes that it transmitted to me, the brightly colored box that I began with remains to be the best highlight of it all. It is fantastically unique depiction of some very familiar characters who, at that time, were characterized only as best as the graphical limits of the day could output. Here Link displays a very Tom Sawyer-esque, eternal boyhood image, that when you look at it makes sense to brand him that way as the board game was meant for that "Ages 6 and Up" crowd, which except for a few popular exceptions, usually translates to strictly kids-only stuff. (A teenager in 1988 is certainly not going to Toys 'R Us and walk up to a cashier with this in hand, unless he has a younger sibling along.) The Zodas are amazing and nicely detailed, too. Zelda, although much, uh, looking much "fuller" than what I imagined her size to be, also is a nice touch and goes well with the rest of the scenic portrayal. I hope the original artwork painting is hanging somewhere in an art museum, where it belongs.

And that just about does it for the positives. The fact of that matter is there was no purpose for this board game to have ever existed. The cardboard box, the paper used to make the board game instructions, all would have benefited if it had gone to better use: such as, to make an outer cardboard box for The Legend Zelda video game and paper for the video game's manual. Buy why, but why, why, why to create a board game? A deficiently unneeded game of board? Did we really build this city on unnecessary board games?

Because Milton Bradley wanted a piece of some of that golden Zelda ass. Nothing's going to stop them now.

The Contents (Alt Title: Place Sand Inside, Present to Household Cat)

I'm not one for reading instructions on how to play board games, especially those designed for children. For example, if you need to read the rules on how to play The Game of Life, perhaps you should not be living a life to be playing the game based on it to begin with. I made an exception this time after looking at the mess of cards and strange dice, and forced myself to yield to it.

 

Instructions

Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4

The first thing that struck me odd was the inclusion of only one game piece. I could just imagine the men and women at Milton Bradley who were presented with the project of transferring a single-player video game played on the TV onto a static board game for up to four children players. They could have gotten creative and made, besides Link, a player tile of Ganon, Zelda, or a fairy. It would have pleased all different types of child personalities: the boy bully, the princess girl, and the guy bully who believes he was born a princess girl. Instead, there is one, and only one, which makes things "interesting," and by interesting I mean "George W. Bush holding a press conference" interesting. Six-year-old kids, especially the ADD video game playing ones, are going to be about as welcoming to sharing a single player tile in a board game as they are the NES controller during a real Zelda game.

Behold, the game pieces. There are in all four labeled dice, one numbered die, thirty-three cardboard playing tiles, thirty-six heart chips, and the aforementioned Link cardboard figure. The photograph does not do them justice; they're much plainer looking in person, really.

The thirty-three cards, broken up into six colors to represent the six divided worlds on the board, ascend in number as you progress through the levels. I have not yet touched upon the game mechanics in this article, so it's as good a time as any. From my understanding of the instructions, the action of the game comes from drawing cards from the shuffled deck and hoping you turn over a magical item card, like a fairy in World One. If you're unlucky to not have drawn a magical item card, the player has to join with the other players to defeat the enemy card, the only other sort of cards in these decks. World One has a measly three cards in its pack, allowing the chance of pulling a magical item only one third (or three-fourths for those of you who failed out of math in high school). When you do possess a magical item card, you are allowed to move to the next world on the board. As you progress to more levels, extra cards of enemies are thrown in for the later levels, meaning more time and dice battling before finding the magical item of that world. The World Two deck consists of four cards, World Three has five, World Four six, etc. etc.

I'm a regular mind reader, so I know you're wondering what happens if an enemy card is chosen instead of a magical item card. (Is it just me or is this is beginning to sound like a Sony E3 press conference?) Well, that's where the excitement comes in...the excitement of rolling dice! Yes, you get to battle giant enemy crabs, or Tekittes, or whatever they're called, through the use of brutal dice rolling! The number that appears on the enemy card indicates its health points and how much massive damage must be inflicted in order to defeat it. Each die has two kinds of stickers on the six sides, four of which are swords (attack) and the remaining two are red blanks (miss). If you're still following along at home, that means an enemy card which has two health points requires two or more dice rolling on the sword side for victory. If you win, you pick up a heart chip. If you lose, you remove a heart chip from your supply. Lose 'em all, and you've lost not only the game, but my respect as a human being.

There's more to the delicate nature of the game rules, about two paragraphs worth, but as it is I've written enough about them, probably more than the whole instruction booklet or anyone on the face of the Earth has. I think you get the picture, unless you need the Cliff's Notes version: roll the numbered die, move, pick up card, if it is an enemy card--battle with the other dice, eventually obtain magical item, go to next world. In case you're wondering, the final magical item card is Princess Zelda, whose magic is far greater than that of raft or bomb: it possesses the great power of love.

Moving along before I become too overly feminine in my emotions...

There she is spread out, legs open, flashing for all to see. She's not a looker, but she'll do in a pinch. Diseased a little, maybe. Look, what I'm trying to say is, she's a filthy stinking whore with smeared make-up all over her face, but you're desperate, you paid the money to the corporate overlords to bathe in the goat blood, and, honey, it's bath time. You can judge a book by its cover, because you bought it and used it in the bathroom, it's been marked for good. Money can't buy you love, but it can buy you this game board. Milton Bradley has taught a very important lesson in finance and captialism to many a kid.

I could tell this article was heading to rapidly delve into the recesses of my cynicism, so I invited some friends over to play and keep my mind busy from thinking.

If I haven't mentioned it yet (and I don't think I have), the board game, like the video game, can be played alone. By yourself. You don't need them. You don't need any of them! In fact, according to the rules, after you get the Zelda card in World Six, if only one is playing, you don't have to roll to win Princess Zelda. That's right, it's to my advantage to play alone in my room without anybody around! It's to my advantage to not have friends. Yes. They want to label you, say you're too "artsy fartsy" and "poetic" and, oh hell, too gay for their ape-like masculinity. Well, that's just fine. I couldn't help the raspy lisp even if I wanted to hold it back. God how I've wanted; how I've tried.

Back to what I was saying before the flashback, I invited two close doll friends of mind, Steve Urkel and Baby Sinclair, and always the fashionably late, Android Krang action figure to partake in some bad board game festivities.

Unfortunately, my "friends" got into a fight from the very start, arguing over who would go and roll first. The instructions clearly states that the "youngest" begins, but Urkel made the astute point that Baby Sinclair was, even although theoretically, the youngest, evolutionarily speaking, he was in actuality the oldest of the three assembled. Krang did not get into the fight; he was too busy blubbering to Shredder on the comm something about cooking turtle soup. When finally Urkel brought up affirmative action, Baby and Android Krang looked at each other and shared a sigh, rolling their eyes a little. I tried to stop the ruckus, but before I could Krang went to looking at the back side of every card. When Urkel, confused at what Krang was doing, asked him, Krang replied, "I seeeee Keeploops and Ganon cardsss, but I have not seeeeen any race cards as of yet. Don't worry, I'm still looking, blabblabblab...." Baby then was all "Aw shit!," Urkel snorted loudly, and I drank heavily.

The game appropriately stopped when Baby Sinclair reached down and forced Link into his mouth, all the while saying, "Not the mama! Not the mama!" It made us all have a good chuckle, hearing that good catch phrase again, but after the twentieth time he recited it, I began to indulge in more drinking. Heavy drinking.

Krang got out of control and began stuffing his android body with paper hearts after convincing himself that God had chosen him to capture the Princess card and become the new Son of Man. He was tripping on something, definitely.

Everything else that evening was a blur. All that remains are these graphic developed pictures. (I was wondering at the time why that clean shaven man at CVS slipped in his phone number inside the envelope of photographs when he handed them to me. Now I know.)

I can't remember if we ever did make it to World Six and save the Princess Zelda by rolling four matching dice swords, but I do know we all have memories to last a lifetime pent up in the back subconsciousness of our minds. We, strangers from different walks of life, came together that day, and touched each other's hearts. We are The Milton Bradley Club, and we shared out innermost secrets, desires, and faults together. We also found how badly this board game sucked, and how much time has been wasted playing it and subsequently writing this cute review. Looking on the bright side, at least I'm not a fat guy who makes obscure references about Star Wars all day on his computer. (No, I make obscure "I Am Error" references instead, and it's just that more productive in the long run to do so, too.)

The shamelessness is high on this merchandising item that should never have existed, which is why I give The Legend of Zelda board game a rating of:

ONE VOYEURISTIC UPSKIRT UNDERAGED GIRL RIDING BICYCLE!

Have you no shame, Milton Bradley and Nintendo? Have you no shame?