The Legend of Zelda series games

The Legend Of Zelda

— a series of action-adventure games from Nintendo, which has become one of the company's "calling cards" and has earned, without exaggeration, a cult status. It is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-running game series of its genre and in 2010 ranked third in the list of the best game series of all time by the same book. It is released exclusively for Nintendo platforms, including the Wii, Wii U, and Switch; as of 2019, about two dozen main games have been released, not counting spin-offs and non-canonical titles.

The games are set primarily in the fantasy world of Hyrule, inhabited by both humans and fantastical intelligent races. The name "Zelda" mentioned in the title is borne by the princesses of the kingdom of Hyrule, while the main character is always named Link; however, the action takes place at different times, and the names "Zelda" and "Link" can be held by different people. Despite the series' formal classification as action games, the gameplay is quite diverse, combining elements of enemy battles, world exploration, role-playing development, puzzle-solving, and even racing. An interesting feature is the extensive use of musical instruments—they are often used as a puzzle-solving element, for finding hidden areas, for teleportation, etc.; players can perform different melodies by pressing a specific sequence of actions on the controller. The canonical games of the series are united by a continuous storyline, which at one point branches into three storylines, each with its own set of games.