Game & Watch: Zelda

Before Nintendo created The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the first game in the Zelda series for the Game Boy, they had developed and licensed out portable LCD games based on the Zelda series, which were confusingly named Zelda Game & Watch and The Legend of Zelda Game Watch.

Zelda Game & Watch
The Zelda Game & Watch (serial number ZL-65) was developed by Gunpei Yokoi and Nintendo R&D1 and released in August/September 1989 (reports vary), as part of Nintendo's Game & Watch Multi Screen series. Similar to other Multi Screen games, it had two screens with a hinge in the center and the buttons on the bottom half, making it look strikingly like the Nintendo DS. It was a platformer, and the gameplay and items were inspired by Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

There was no separate jump button (Up on the D-pad served this function) and there was only one attack button. To use the health-restoring Water of Life, the player pressed Down on the D-pad. The player can also collect a Tomahawk.

The storyline was the same-old "save Zelda" but it did not feature Ganon; instead there were eight stages (similar to the classic Zelda fare of eight dungeons) filled with enemies, with a dragon waiting at the end of each stage. The player fought the enemies on the bottom screen first, and then progressed up to the upper screen to fight the dragon. After killing each dragon the player got a piece of the Triforce. When the last dragon was slain, Link could finally free Zelda. Because of the limitations of the LCD screen, there is no fancy ending scene. Princess Zelda walks out of her prison and comes right up to Link (just as she does in The Adventure of Link as if to embrace him, but the animation ends just before they meet, leaving it up to the player's imagination.

In 1998, Toymax Inc. was licensed to make keychain-sized remakes of the Game & Watch series, one of them of course being the Zelda title. It has a significantly smaller screen size, and unlike its predecessor, looks more like a Game Boy than a DS. By at least 2007, Stadlbauer and It's Outrageous! have begun distributing the Mini Classics version in select locations within the United States, using art from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures.

In October 2002, Nintendo included a port of the game as a hidden unlockable extra in Game & Watch Gallery 4 for the Game Boy Advance. It wasn't a secret for long, however; word soon got out, and Zelda fans rushed to pick up the game. However they first had to do well in all the other games to earn enough stars to unlock the coveted port, as Nintendo had made it the very last of the unlockable games with the highest number of stars required to play it.

However, the game world is significantly different in this port. In order to fit everything onscreen at once, the second screen was reduced. Its height is about ⅔ that of the original screen, but it is almost twice its length.

Zelda Game Watch
The Zelda game included with this multi-purpose wristwatch made by Nelsonic was based on the original The Legend of Zelda and included such familiar foes as Aquamentus and Keese. However, it was considered the poorer of the two LCD games in that the screen was too small to reasonably allow much strategy or movement. The playing area was even smaller than that of the Game Boy titles in the series.

It came in black (shown), red, white, and the unusual choice of pink, which eBay sellers claim is rarer than the others.

The game consists of eight dungeons with four rooms each. In each room, Link has to collect a sword and/or a boomerang to beat his foes. As a reward, he gains a key to the next room. Though when entering it, he loses his found items and has to recollect them. The last two rooms of every dungeon also had hearts to replenish Link's health. Once all the enemies in the fourth room were dealt with, the dungeon's boss (which was always Aquamentus) appeared. To defeat him, Link had to collect a bomb and place it in front of Aquamentus. Following his victory, a Triforce fragment appears, allowing him access to the next dungeon.