Role-playing video game
Typically action RPGs feature each player directly controlling a single character in real time, and feature a strong focus on combat and action with plot and character interaction kept to a minimum. Early action RPGs tended to follow the template set by 1980s Nihon Falcom titles such as the "Dragon Slayer" and "Ys" series, which feature hack and slash combat where the player character's movements and actions are controlled directly, using a keyboard or game controller, rather than using menus. This formula was refined by the action-adventure game, "The Legend of Zelda" (1986), which set the template used by many subsequent action RPGs, including innovations such as an open world, nonlinear gameplay, battery backup saving, and an attack button that animates a sword swing or projectile attack on the screen. The game was largely responsible for the surge of action-oriented RPGs released since the late 1980s, both in Japan and North America. "The Legend of Zelda" series would continue to exert an influence on the transition of both console and computer RPGs from stat-heavy, turn-based combat towards real-time action combat in the following decades.
Satellaview games from The Legend of Zelda series
Since the last broadcasts of "BS Zelda" (in January 1997) and "BS Zelda: MAP2" (in March 1996), restoration-minded fans have created numerous patches that have been applied to the original ROM dumps to alter the game by removing the game's download pauses and time limits, stringing together all four episodes into one, and providing a title screen and file selection screen, among others. Some patches have also replaced the game's protagonist with Link, the hero of the original "The Legend of Zelda" in order to more closely mimic this game. Further altering the game, some emulation-based restoration projects have removed the "Listen closely" sign to replace it with a display showing the text of the narration that originally accompanied the "Listen closely" sign, and more recent MSU-1 emulation projects have introduced fan-made voice acting of the original script. The game has been translated by fans into English, French, Spanish, and German. The cumulative effects of all of these alterations has led to a great deal of confusion among fans as to the character of the original broadcasts and as modern hacked versions are often missing plot details initially present in missing vocal files, this has contributed to the misconception that the games were little more than 16-bit remakes of the original.