At a time when most 2D video games only dared to offer linear movement and exploration, Nintendo, as it has so many times before, decided to change things up. The infinitely successful Mario series brought the developer plenty of laurels, but former Nintendo boss Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to give players true freedom to move and explore as they wished. Thus, The Legend of Zelda was born. The series really needs no introduction, constantly hitting it out of the park with the likes of A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and more recently, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. While each game had its own unique mechanics, exploration was a major pillar across all of them.
This highly successful formula would not have been possible without the original Legend of Zelda, and Heritage Auctions just sold a CGC 9.2 A+ early copy of the game for a massive $32,500. While it was popularized on the Nintendo Entertainment System, the game was initially launched as Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy for the Famicom in Japan. Older fans will know that the Famicom was basically the same console as the NES, but with a different outer shell. Nintendo felt the need to redesign and rebrand it once U.S. and other foreign markets came into play. However, this copy of Zelda no Densetsu received such a high valuation for several reasons.
Firstly, the fact that this copy of the game is for the Famicom and features its original Japanese title already makes it one hell of a find. Considering that the console only launched as the NES in the U.S. means that finding a Famicom game was already pretty rare in the West. Nintendo tried to separate the two versions of the console for the longest time, making it almost impossible to buy a Famicom console or game in the West until much later; and even that wasn’t possible via traditional retail outlets. But even so, this particular copy of Zelda no Densetsu is particularly valuable because of the yellow text on its packaging.
A closer look at the game copy will reveal the words ‘Disk System’ written in a yellow font on the packaging. The fact that it’s in yellow, means this was an early production copy, as the font color was eventually changed to white. It’s unclear whether this means it was a first edition copy, but its definitely one of the oldest copies of the game in existence. All of this is further amplified by the fact that it has received a grade of CGC 9.2 A+, meaning it’s in excellent condition for a 40 year old game. For Zelda fans and collectors, this copy is a Grail, or rather a Master Sword of a find, and is well worth the $32,500 price. The beloved series owes a lot of its success to this early version of the game, and you could even say it’s the one copy to Hyrule them all.
