The greatest trick the Legend of Zelda games ever pulled was convincing the world the third dimension didn't exist. Flat and 2D, the original Zelda was a trailblazer. It connected neural pathways in our minds for a new genre of storytelling: the role-playing game. It wasn’t the first RPG, but no one can deny it was the most popular, launching a franchise and creating a world every bit as immersive as our own. Even as the franchise has grown to include literal new dimensions, its medium is always part of the message.
When it came time to put a Zelda title on a new platform, the Game Boy, in 1993, Nintendo could’ve played it safe. It would’ve been easy to follow in the footsteps of 1991’s A Link to the Past, a gorgeous SNES opus that still serves as a cornerstone for the franchise. Instead, for the highly anticipated fourth entry in the series, Nintendo did something completely different. It launched the first of what would be a recurring theme for the franchise: the experimental Zelda game.
