On February 17, 1986 I turned 10 years old. Four days later Nintendo released a game that would become my favorite game franchise of all time. Released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, The Legend of Zelda captivated me like no video game, including any Mario game, had ever done before.

The problem for me was, I owned a SEGA Master System, not a Nintendo. Fortunately, my friends down the street had a Nintendo, and I loved going to their house to play Zelda. From time to time we’d even swap systems for a few weeks so they could play our SEGA games and my brothers and I could play their NES games. Zelda was unlike any other game of the era. Instead of it coming in a grey or black cartridge, it came in a shiny gold one. Instead of losing your progress when you turned off the console, Zelda had a battery inside the cartridge that allowed your game to be saved even if you powered off the console. Read More...