The Legend of Zelda was a factor in kick-starting the concept of the roleplaying-adventure genre, mixing action and puzzle into one game. In a respect, is also helped start multi-genre games in general. However, a common misconception is that The Legend of Zelda was the first. It was actually very similar to a number of other games, with them having varying degrees of quality. Hydlide, originally on the MSX later ported to the Famicom and NES, is compared almost constantly to the Legend of Zelda. Hydlide is usually considered a cheap rip-off of TLoZ, and an abomination to the genre, but the MSX port is excusable as it was an early foray in uncharted territories. It could be forgiven as an experiment, but the Nintendo Entertainment System port, which came nearly five years later, must be held to the standards that were vaguely being put in place. 

On a visual level while the game isn't the worst in the world, it is well below par. The images are virtually identical to the MSX port, with no upgrades beyond some contrasting changes based on different hardware, which is a minor disappointment. The game makes no innovations with the visuals, and it comes off as plain at times. As well, it is difficult to distinguish what is what at times, which defeats the purpose of graphics in the first place. The single biggest issue is actually with the animations, particularly with the attacking. There is no animation for the sword, making it nearly impossible to tell who is attacking who, and considering this is one of those games that there is no room to die even once, it is a huge problem. When the indistinguishable enemies perish in combat, there is no animation indicating such either, but that is far from game crippling. The majority of the audio is a loop of what is essentially a rendition of the theme song from Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade." Using similar music is not a problem if done well, and used in a limited quantity...but literally the entire game is composed of this single loop, which could grow extremely annoying extremely quickly. The only differentiation in this music is towards the end of the game, which is also an Indiana Jones song remixed slightly. One redeeming factor is that the music is an 8-bit mess like something off of Action 52. The other audio is very upbeat and bright, but also can easily be perceived as annoying. Overall, the audio is definitely a lot weaker than the visuals.

The story-line follows basic formula: the kingdom is in danger, as is the princess, and you [the player] needs to rescue it. Nothing wrong with this, and the concept of having the princess turned into three fairies is rather unique. The story would be provided through the manual or, what is used most in recent years, across the Internet, but nothing else is provided. Since it was in the third generation of gaming, it was rather rare to see an in-game story so a player can't hold this against Hydlide. It is good to see a vague story-line because it leaves room for the gamer to use their imagination and fill the gaps properly, fulfilling an almost adventure-like atmosphere which the game would have been going for. It is not the story that has earned this game it's reputation for being horrendous however....

It was the game play.

Virtually every single documentation that reviews Hydlide will mention it's game play being much like the original Legend of Zelda by using an overheard perspective with a hero in a fantasy environment and individual screens for areas. As far as actual movement goes, it is extremely responsive and deserves top marks in that regard. It quickly goes down hill from there. Again, with the lack of animation for a sword, enemy damage and enemy death, it is virtually unplayable for that reasons alone. The player can not tell if they are doing any damage, or even if the swinging sword is within a mile of the enemy. The player do have magic attacks, but they are nearly impossible to use on the fly because there are several steps that are all done in real time when the enemy can still attack. The player also starts with a low life meter, which can be raised to stand a feasible chance of survival against the hordes of enemies. The problem is that it can only be upgraded by killing said enemies en mass to slowly fill the meter, which completely defeats the purpose of even having an experience bar in the first place. If the game was trying to replicate real life in that the hero has to slowly grow stronger, and they can in all actuality die easily...then it is quite logical as to why this game is designed in that respect. However, why is the weapon still invisible, and why did the game feel the need to implement a one life, game over policy? It's still a video game, and implementing that type of system is asinine. 

There is a one life, but there is also a save system. This save system is unlike Zelda, where the player is supposed to simply press the save button. In this game, the player presses the save button then goes to the password screen to get a code. This code would then be enters to put the player in the game following the specific items, health, experience etc. That they had when pressing the save button. This is comparable to the lack of GUI in earlier computers, and text commands would be necessary to perform the simplest tasks on some, and it makes sense why the MSX version would have this early save prototype. It is inexcusable, though, that the game should be released in 1989 with this unnecessarily complicated and time consuming means to save the game (lessened slightly through an emulator).

In the end, this early foray into the genre of role-playing adventure games was exactly that: an early experimentation. When it was later released on the NES with no improvements to reflect it growing, Darwin's theory of evolution rang through and this game died. Is it worth revisiting? Only as a curiosity in its historical context, and only on the MSX where it's quality can be forgiven. To play as a proper game like one would play TLoZ is absolutely not recommended, and should the player find it in a pawn store or at a flea market to avoid it if possible. 

Hydlide seems like a good classic NES game, I might see if I like it or not. Good job reviewing.
Good Job

Oh wow, this game does sound bad and it looks like Legend of Zelda, but probably in a bad version of it lol.  Very good review.

Marcmoney : The simplest comparison is the poor man's version of Zelda so yeah you're right: looks like Zelda but actually fails miserably. I tried to limit the comparisons a bit because many reviews does it, and I want to give the game a more fair evaluation.