The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, first screen, by Will.

First Screen of Zelda 3. I had played this game maybe three times all the way through before I realized the lantern was RIGHT THERE. (If you miss it, it replaces five rupees in a later chest)

[Josh says: I never properly played through this one, even though I’d spent far too much time with Zelda and Zelda 2, because while we had a NES we didn’t get an SNES.  My best friend down the block did have the newer console but he was less into RPG/adventure stuff and more into fighting games, so I played a whole hell of a lot of Street Fighter II during the years where I’d have otherwise been crawling around inside this.

My wife had an SNES as a kid, though, and we’ve still got that in a closet along with a passel of games.  The question of whether to haul that out and try and find a TV we can even hook it up to anymore vs. just playing stuff on Virtual Console or emulators is sort of a tricky one, because nothing really beats the actual oldschool console for a visceral bit of nostalgia but what a pain.]

The Legend of Zelda, world map excerpts, by Josh Millard.

I should clarify that this is woefully incomplete not because I can’t remember any more of the map but because for some fool reason I convinced myself I could do the whole map basically screen-perfect from memory and then found out in the trying that that was a ridiculous, demoralizing thing to attempt.

And so these drawings, across three sheets of paper (measured out carefully to 16*8 screen proportions on the graph paper but pasted together not-to-scale here in order to make the emptiness a bit less sprawling), stop the moment I was Not Quite Sure about how a screen broke across to the adjacent one.  Or in a couple cases, a screen too late — I’m certain that on the left end of the central section I divvied up the screen real estate wrong.  And I knew it as I was doing it.  And so I stopped.

I’ve been meaning to come back to this one for weeks and weeks now, and I keep not quite having the will to make myself crazy on it again.  I know ninety percent of the remaining map reasonably well, but not well enough to glue it all together without a reference like this.  It’s a maddening little feat — and defeat — of memory, the way individual screens come to mind without effort but slotting them into one precise puzzle of map with a ballpoint pen just doesn’t happen.  How uncertainty over where the tiles of the map went moving from screen A to screen B blossoms into a kind of mind-melting circle of doubt.

Because, the thing is, I’ve spent a lot of time with the Zelda map. 

Not just as a kid, though to be sure I spent a great deal of time with it, it was one of my early NES loves and I’d scoured most of the map in great detail, burning every bush, bombing every rock wall, memorizing the locations of the heart container. 

But more recently, even, less than two years ago, I spent days building Hyrule’s overworld from scratch in Minecraft from reference maps.  I felt after that like I had the map tattooed in my mind, indelible, unforgettable.

And yet, here we are.  Memory fades.

Zelda II: The Adventures of Link, overworld, by Kate Glasheen.

I’m not sure if something like this is cool to submit,  but this map was drawn from memory so I thought I’d give it a whirl.  Feel free to not post it if it doesn’t fly!

I find myself chortling like Game-Over-Ganon when ill-spirited things happen in my favor.

[Josh says: this flies like a goddam SR-17 with D.A.R.Y.L. at the stick, Kate.  Beautiful work.]

The Legend of Zelda, first screen, by pirateler.

[Josh says: this is just stupid great.  Gorgeous minimalist watercolor style work, pirateler.]

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, world map, by Sarah Smalley and Ben Andrews.

This is an Zelda: Ocarina of time map that my boyfriend and I drew (well he drew, I colored in and adapted a bit), many happy memories of playing this on a Sunday morning. Now to draw the dungeons….

[Josh says: ha!  Co-op!]

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Outset Island, by joseph.

Oddly this is the island that I spent the least time, but remember the most…

I only go there if I need soup, which is almost never, or when I’m bored

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Outset Island, by heartilly.

I loved this game when it came out. I used to play it all the time, and I spent ages exploring. Particularly Outset Island when I was running around getting used to it all and admiring all the bright colours. I added notes for stuff I remembered, like where a few of the people where, who the house belonged to, and important events and stuffed that happened. I tried to note where all those little pigs you had to collect were but I could only definately remember 1 or 2 of them and guessed the rest. It has a bit of a weird 2D/3D perspective this map, but I don’t mind. I compared it to a picture of Outset Island afterwards and I think I did pretty well! Forgot a few stones/trees/ledges etc, but other than that I’m pleased :)

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, sea chart, by joseph.

I’m surprised on how much I remember! I’ve got 99% (water) of it correct!!! just missing some 1% land here and there XD

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, world map, by Adrian Diaz.

Love the site. I kept trying to think of a map that I could do from memory and that you could still make out even with my crappy drawing skills. This is what I came up with.

I checked afterwards and realized that I got the Y to the right of lon lon ranch upside down but at least I was decently close with the two large poes that I could remember.