“Zelda: Living the Life of Luxury” Brings Casual Play to a Classic Game

On October 10, Nintendo released its first major update to its Nintendo Entertainment System app that brought with it NES Open, Solomon’s Key, and Super Dodgeball. And, while that’s pretty cool on its own, the company also added a bit of a surprise: a special edition of The Legend of Zelda that provides a great deal of assistance to casual players (or those who haven’t played in ages and need a little help!).

Dubbed The Legend of Zelda: Living the Life of Luxury, the whole purpose of this new edition is to make Link’s journey a bit less daunting from the get-go. This time around, the game starts players with the White Sword, Blue Ring, a Magic Shield, the Power Bracelet, and a whole slew of rupees. This makes Link a lot more powerful at the start of his quest as most of these items would typically take a great deal of time to collect. Also, the fact that Link starts off with all these extra items opens up a bit more of the playing field right from the start. It essentially turns the initial focus away from mere survival (and the fear of dying early on) and instead changes things to put a greater emphasis on exploring the game’s world. It’s a nice starting point for those wanting to ease into the classic adventure.

Of course, for those of us who grew up with the classic first entry into the series, we probably would never need anything like this. Personally, I never found the original Zelda to be all that challenging in the first place, but I still like that players now have the option to beef themselves up a bit at their journey’s onset, especially if that means people that would have otherwise been turned off by the game will now get to experience it in a more positive light!

This special edition, along with the other 23 titles in the Nintendo Entertainment System app, is only available to those who have subscribed to the Nintendo Switch Online service.