I had owned and played an Atari 2600 for several years at the time I first saw a NES. A friend of mine owned one, and he showed me two games back to back: Super Mario Bros...which was amazing and then BAM! Zelda. Wow.

The sort summary of my experience was that I loved it. As more games have been released in the series, I have played them. They seem to have gone a bit stale on me as the years go by. New games are released, but I do not find that draw that the earlier games of the series did. Ocarina was better than I thought it would be, and Twilight Princess was entertaining as well. Neither one of these games could create the same level of excitement I had for the original game or Link to the Past. Is it because I am older? I cannot say.

I'll have to read your dungeons and desktops book at some point, Matt. I am curious as to what you had to say about Zelda in a D&D book. There is a minor argument (or major depending on your corner of the internet) as to if Zelda is considered an RPG or not. I consider King's Quest an adventure game. I consider Zelda to be an action-adventure game. I don't really consider it an RPG. If I did, I would have to refer to it as an "action-adventure RPG game." Even then...I would be more likely to slap the "puzzle" genre in there (especially for the more recent games) before I would add RPG. Unfortunately, this opinion offends fans of Zelda. I do not know why. I still like the series - why does it matter what genre it is? The discrepancy comes from how people define the term RPG.

For me, Zelda defines the action adventure genre by taking what I consider a traditional adventure game to be - exploration, item acquisition, and puzzle-solving - and combining it with a fast-paced, arcade style combat system.

Regardless of the classification of Zelda games, I would say they still define action-adventure games.

So if Zork defines text-based adventure games, and Zelda defines action-adventure games, are they still from the same basic genre - "adventure games?" I wouldn't use the cliche apples to oranges to compare the two, but they aren't really the same...are they? How about an idiom along the lines of "an apple tree and an orange tree growing in the same garden?" Each game initially shares several basic traits before development begins, but each is completely different after it starts to take shape.