The (New) Joy of Gaming Podcast - Episode Twenty-Seven

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On this episode of The Joy of Gaming Podcast, we are getting ready for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in the most complete way we could think of: by looking back and tracing the entire chronology of The Legend of Zelda series. We track the series’ origins on the NES all the way through Breath of the Wild on Switch, discussing each game in release order and also exploring its place in the overall series chronology. So if you have always wondered how the various mainline Zelda titles are connected, this episode has the answers.

After all, in 2013, two years after the release of Skyward Sword, Nintendo released the Hyrule Historia, from Dark Horse Books - an epic tome that finally revealed the official order of events for every game in the Zelda franchise. So for our journey, we start with this book, first walking through the three branching paths of the timeline at a high-level before zooming-in to see where each mainline game fits into the overarching narrative. 

And once we understand the chronology at a high-level, we travel back to 1986 and the original The Legend of Zelda to begin our complete series retrospective, game-by-game and memory-by-memory. So join us, as we celebrate one of the most storied franchises in all of gaming, and prepare for the next epic chapter in Link and Zelda’s adventures. 

00:00 - Introductions / Our History with the Series 

• Legend of the Gods and the Hero of Time
  • The Hero is Successful
    • Adult Era / Ganondorf Sealed

21:58 - The Legend of Zelda - Series Retrospective 

• The Legend of Zelda (JP - Famicom Disk System - The Hyrule Fantasy: Zelda no Densetsu - 1986; NA & PAL - NES - 1987; Battery save version in Japan - Famicom - 1994)

• NES Classic Series (Gameboy Advance; JP, NA, PAL - 2004)
  

• NES Classic Series (Gameboy Advance; JP & NA - 2004; PAL - 2005)
  

• Gameboy Advance w/ Four Swords (NA - 2002; JP & EU - 2003); Four Swords Re-released on DSiWare (Four Swords Anniversary Ed. - 2011)
  

• The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX (Gameboy Color; JP & NA - 1998; EU - 1999)

• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest (GameCube; JP - 2002; NA, EU & AU - 2003) - Two-Game Bonus Disc!

• The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D (3DS - 2015)
  

• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD (Wii U - 2013)
  

• Includes 4 Classic Games! (The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II, Ocarina of Time, and Majora’s Mask)
  

• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (Wii U - 2016)
  

• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD (Switch - 2021)
  

02:22:30 - The Legend of Zelda - Spin Off Titles

• When did Nintendo Really Start Thinking about the Official Timeline?