So much of what I do online is about following the newest, latest, best stuff that’s out there. What’s the best phone? What are the best new games? What’s next in…everything?

This is just how I am and I generally enjoy being on the cutting edge. It’s fun to have things that the world has never seen before.

But recently I’ve gotten the urge to play some of the older games I remember loving when I was younger. I mostly blame the new podcast, PAL Keys and the ongoing Digital Fountry series, DF Retro for sucking me into this, but Daryl and John are nice guys, and they deserve nothing but appreciation for sending me down this road.

I’ve always been a huge fan of the Legend of Zelda series, with basically every game in the franchise completely blowing me away¹. I was introduced to the series with Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy Color, I fell forever in love with Ocarina of Time for the N64, I adored the weirdness in the other N64 title Majora’s Mask, and I most recently felt things no game had made me feel in decades with Breath of the Wild on the Switch.

Imagine a series so amazing that Wind Waker, A Link to the Past, and Twilight Princess are all skipped over when I think of my favorite games in the franchise.

I currently only own a Switch and a Wii² so my options for playing old Zelda games is pretty limited. To solve this, I picked up a Nintendo 2DS and plan on using this as my Zelda player for the next few months. While the 2DS is running some really old tech these days, it’s still totally capable for these sorts of games and has a massive library of content all of it’s own.

I’m stunned by how cheap this all is too. Here’s the prices for a bunch of games I’ve either gotten or plan on getting in the near future:

• Ocarina of Time - $19.99
• Majora’s Mask - $19.99
• A Link Between Worlds - $19.99
• The Legend of Zelda - $4.99 (free on Switch online service)
• A Link to the Past - $7.99
• Link’s Awakening DX - $5.99
• Zelda 2 - $4.99 (free on Switch online service)

That’s quite a backlog, and it’s crazy to me that I can get them all for $84 ($74 if I play them on the Switch’s online service)!

Anyway, this is more a diary entry than a blog post I hope to get major traffic, so thanks for reading this far, and maybe even for being reminded about how great The Legend of Zelda is and picked up one of those classics.