It’s amusing to me how true this was when I was a kid playing. Now as an adult, the ‘clues’ they give you are so obvious I feel like I’m barely even playing.
You can’t go home adventuring again
The first one was really vague with the clues, especially with the kinda bad translation. The second one is better with the clues but incredibly difficult. I cannot beat Ganon in 2.
2? You mean majora’s mask?
Oh, you mean the very first games. I never got to play through those for real. My first was ocarina of time. I tried LoZ2 on the super disc that you got with wind waker on the gamecube, but I was still young enough (and spoiled from ocarina, majora’s mask, and wind waker) that I didn’t really get into it and beat it.
If you want to give it a try sometime, don’t pick up any of the six or eight or however many extra lives are available. You’ll need them for the final dungeon and Ganon. You can read a guide online for the locations, I recommend it.
I think the game is really fun. Many people hate it. It is the hardest Zelda game by a country mile. My favorite of the series, the original, is second place in difficulty. Every other game in the series has been easy, sometimes absurdly easy like Twilight Princess. Link to the Past is probably the most difficult of anything other than the first two. I didn’t play Majora’s Mask or anything on the GameBoy so I missed two(?) games.
I actually like how flippantly you say you never beat it because you didn’t really get into it. I have been REALLY into it and I can’t beat it. I beat Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I can’t beat The Adventure of Link. I played a lot as a kid and I’ve made two serious attempts as an adult. It’s no joke! Good luck!
I had the opposite experience. I played the game growing up and the Water Temple was one of my favorites. I always saw the memes about how difficult it was and laughed it off, since I didn’t remember anything particularly hard about it.
Then I played the game a few months ago and FUCK ME I could not figure that level out! Eventually had to look up a guide online.
Did you play the original again as an adult? Because I remember reading that for a re-release they updated the water temple to make figuring out where to go easier. I remember that temple being kind of a pain and I wasn’t a kid at the time.
I think it wasn’t so much about not knowing where I wanted to go but there was a room with water currents that you had to navigate carefully or you’d get pushed out to another section and have to trek back and try again.
I don’t have the original N64 golden cartridge anymore (there’s a fun story, involving an insane fundamentalist christian mother), but did play both the ‘Master’ edition and the ‘original’ edition that they put together on a gamecube disc. I remember that the ‘master’ edition water temple was easier than the original, despite the point of ‘master’ being that everything was harder.