By Adam Profili

During the childhood of a great man,

this man had a dream: A dream to create
debatably one of the best video game series
in history. This man was Shigeru Miyamoto.
Before we get there we
should back up a little.
Miyamoto was born on a nice
November day in Sonobe,
Japan. The year was 1952. As
he grew up, Miyamoto loved
to

Shigeru

explore. Hed stroll around town and talk to

people to discover more. Eventually he even
built up the courage to enter a cave near his
house, bringing with him his trusty lantern.
Jumping to 1977, Shigeru Miyamoto
had acquired a degree in industrial art in
design. Since his father had a connection to
the head of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi,
Miyamoto luckily got an interview to work
for Nintendo. At that time Nintendo made
mainly kids toys. Miyamoto revealed to
Nintendo his concept art for a few items and
he got a job.
This was the beginning of an
amazing career. In 1993 Nintendo released
their first multi game loading console, the
Famicom! (You may know it as the NES)
This system was it. The game changer.
Miyamoto, as a concept artist, did just that.

He was in charge of ideas and art designs for

new games. It was the mideighties, and the
Famicom console had been out for about
two years. At that time I was working on a
Super Mario Bros. compilation for the
Famicom, but the Disk System was about to
come out, and we needed to
develop a launch title for it.
says
Shigeru
Miyamoto
(Himekawa, Miyamoto, and
Aonuma 5). He started work
on a new game influenced by
previous games such as
Adventure and Indiana Jones,
both for the Atari 2600. Dungeon crawling,
monster hunting, this game was sure to be a
hit, for this was merely the beginning of the
Legend of Zelda franchise.
The general story of these games is
as follows: Once upon a time the world as
we know it was created by three spiritual
Deities: Din, Nayru, and Farore. They
created an all-powerful object called the
Triforce and positioned it in the Sacred
Realm of Hyrule. The Triforce contained
three equal pieces, all representing each
power of the three Deities: Power, Wisdom,
and Courage. The Triforces purpose was to
grant a wish of any person who touches it as
long as they have an equal balance of the
three forces. If they dont, the Triforce gets
broken up and is spread around the world to
someone who best fits it. This is where you
come in.

You play as Link, a kid

who is born with the Triforce of

Link
Courage. The evil wizard Ganondorf had
tried to get a wish from the Triforce, but he
only had power, so he was given the
Triforce of Power, splitting the Triforce
into three. The Triforce of Wisdom went
to Princess Zelda, the Princess of
Hyrule. Ganon then set on a quest to
collect the other two Triforces at no
cost. In a hurried attempt to protect her piece
of the Triforce, Princess Zelda splits it into 8
pieces and spreads them around Hyrule,
only before being captured by the wizard
Ganondorf. Your job is to find all 8 pieces of
the Triforce, save Princess Zelda, defeat
Ganondorf, and protect Hyrule as a whole.
To get these Triforce chunks you
must adventure about Hyrule: defeating
dungeon after dungeon, boss after boss, until
you reach your destiny. Each member of the
Zelda franchise is known for its unique
feature such as merging into walls,
becoming a wolf, or riding a boat. This sets
each game apart to make it its own game.

Over the years this series has had its

ups and downs though. The
first game was a
hit, but the
sequel didnt
do too well

because of some
drastic changes in
gameplay and art
style. The third
game titled A Link to the
Past was a drastic upgrade to the series for
the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom. This
new game had lots of new features and far
improved graphics making it still a popular
classic today. Nintendo even made a sequel
to that game, even if it did take 22 years.
After that was when the series went 3D with
the release of the N64, bringing plat-forming
and puzzles to a whole new dimension in
Ocarina of Time. This game was where the
series really got big. Ocarina of Time got a
99/100 on Metacritic, making it the highest
rating the site has ever given. This really
shows how such big things can come from
just one kid. Keep believing, and one day
you just might become the Shigeru
Miyamoto of your time.

Works Cited
Aonuma, Eiji, Himekawa, Akira, and Miyamoto, Shigeru. Hyrule Historia. Milwaukie, Oregon:
Dark Horse Books, 2013.
Fahs, Travis, and Thomas, Lucas. IGN Presents the History of The Legend of Zelda. IGN. IGN
Entertainment, Inc., 5 Jul. 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
<http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/06/ign-presents-the-history-of-the-legend-ofzelda>
Paumgarten, Nick. Master of Play. The New Yorker. Cond Nast, 20 Dec. 2010. Web. 12 Feb.
2014. <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/20/101220fa_fact_paumgarten?
currentPage=all>