Obligatory questions when meeting a new Zelda fan include,”Which Zelda game was your first?” and “Which game is your favorite?” While I always find it very hard to answer the second question, I don’t always know how to answer the first one either.
I know that The Wind Waker was the first Zelda game I beat but I always make sure to add that Ocarina of Time was the first game I played. But sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t Zelda Game & Watch that truly was the first Zelda game I played. I have faint memories of pressing the buttons while hiding in my mom’s closet (I was an odd child I guess) but I can’t remember at all if it had batteries in it or not.
20 years or so later, I found the very same Game & Watch stored in my brother’s bookcase when we did some cleaning. I knew it was old — in fact, today marks the 40th anniversary of the first Game & Watch! — and I was curious to see if it still worked. After getting my brother’s permission to take it, I began searching for batteries in the places where we usually store them, but unfortunately, we had no button cell batteries.
I wasn’t sad, though! I don’t live too far away from an electronics store so the next day, I put on a floral bomber jacket and my black beret and brought the green, double-screened Game & Watch with me in a bag and began to walk. Fifteen minutes or so later, I arrived and I made my way through the shelves until I found the wall displaying every kind of battery you can imagine — except for the one I was looking for, of course. I felt bummed but I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.
I asked one of the staff members if they had any in-store. He told me they didn’t but I was welcome to order one at the reception desk without extra charge. I did what he suggested, got a receipt, and showed it to the guy at the checkout so I could pay for the batteries. He asked me what they were for and I answered that they were for a Game & Watch. He seemed impressed, or perhaps happily surprised, and asked me, “Which one?” and I’m fairly sure I saw a smile on his lips when I replied “Zelda!”.
I had to wait a few days for the batteries to arrive in the mail but once I got them, I opened the package immediately and struggled for a minute to figure out which side of the batteries should be facing up. The batteries were in, the lid closed and the moment I had been waiting for had come. Would our old Zelda Game & Watch work after all these years or not?
The upper screen made a creaking sound as I carefully opened it like a Nintendo DS. I pressed the “GAME” button and then I heard a beep. I looked down and saw the familiar picture of Link on the lower screen, already prepared for battle with a sword and shield in his hands. It was working! I was cast into action immediately and had to fight a Moblin while avoiding a moving Stalfos attacking from below with something looking like a dagger. Defeating the Moblin proved to be enough to clear the first stage, but unlike most Zelda games, I didn’t get a reward. All I could do was climb up the stairs to continue to the next level.
I soon learned that most of the game was the same thing over and over: avoid the Stalfos and occasional Poes, beat the Moblins, and continue with varying difficulty levels. If I went to the right room, I would find a map, a tomahawk, or a Water of Life which restored my hearts. There was no backstory but I think the background in the screens hinted that I was in a castle (perhaps Hyrule Castle?). I did the fighting in the lower screen and the upper screen showed which rooms I had been to and what items I had in my inventory. All the stairs looked the same until I was about to enter one of the three top floors. I watched Link climb up a rope of skulls and could tell that a boss would most likely be waiting for me at the other end.
I know that piano keys might be the most stressful sound to Zelda players, and that beeps might not sound very stressful in comparison, but let me tell you, stress is what I felt when I fought a fire-breathing dragon with all I had. Dodge. Slash. One step backward. Stay focused on the fireballs and the dragon’s pointy tail. If I thought previous levels were hard, this was even harder! I can’t remember if I beat it on the first try (I doubt I did) but the reward for defeating the dragon was very satisfying: a piece of the Triforce!
I wasn’t the most skillful player because I believe it took me at least an hour to completely clear the game and, no, you can’t save your game and pick up where you left off if you need to take a break. After some time, it began to feel repetitive and I wanted nothing more than to reach the end so I could leave the beeps behind but something kept me going. I think that something was my curiosity to find out what would happen once I collected all eight Triforce pieces.
After defeating the final dragon and receiving the last Triforce piece, I watched Link step up to the upper left corner of the top screen, waiting for the wall that kept Princess Zelda locked behind to open. What happened next wasn’t too impressive but it absolutely felt worth spending an hour pressing buttons and hearing the same beeps just to see her. Princess Zelda jumped out from her cell and joined Link by his side — and that was it. Like I said, it wasn’t much (and perhaps anticlimatic in retrospect), but their silhouettes looked so cute on the screen and I was glad I was able to help her and Link again. I stared at them for a moment longer and then decided that it was time to take the batteries out and take a beep-break.
I still can’t remember if I ever played Zelda Game & Watch in my mom’s closet or if I just pressed the buttons and imagined figures moving on the screens, but I can at least now say that I have played it with certainty. I keep it displayed in my bookcase now but I haven’t picked it up to play again. What I do know, though, is that it won’t take me another twenty-or-so years to put in some button cell batteries. In fact, that is what I will do today to honor the 40th anniversary since the first-ever Game & Watch saw the light.
