I’ve been thinking a lot about the influence of TTRPGs on video games. It’s probably because I played video games first, and it’s probably because the games I love most are older now and therefore closer to this genesis point of primordial interest.
I didn’t realize how true that was until I read Palace of the Silver Princess though. (Green Cover, none of what I write here will be about the fated Orange Cover release, that’s like, a whole other thing man)
It’s Zelda.
Most specifically it’s Link to the Past.
Let’s look at the broad strokes-
Palace of the Silver Princess Introduction
(Italic Text indicates things you find out later in the adventure)
Also, obviously, spoilers.
Haven is a peaceful valley surrounded by mountains, and kept prosperous and safe by a group of magical beings called The Protectors that live in a timeless land called Faerie.
The Princess Argenta rules the land from her Shining Marble Palace is kind, fair, and loved by all.
The Dwarves in Haven unearthed a gigantic ruby, and made a gift of it to the princess, calling it “Our Lady's Heart” The gem is actually “The Eye of Arik” an ancient evil thought to have been sealed away in a “special dimension” long ago. He has cracked the seal enough to throw one of his eyes through and the dwarves unearthing it from the mountains allowed him to channel his evil magic into Haven.
The Princess decides to throw a big party, inviting everyone in the kingdom to celebrate the Dwarves' achievement. The day before the party, a mysterious stranger arrives on the back of a dragon. This stranger is Ellis The Strong, a Knight of the White Drakes, an order of Knights devoted to repelling evil, as his Dragon’s name “Ariksbane” suggests. He came to Haven to investigate the ruby, as he thought it might be Arik, but was still somehow caught by surprise. Upon arrival he immediately fell in love with the Princess. Both he and the Princess are trapped inside the gemstone, and the rest of the palace is driven mad or turned to stone.
At midnight, the land was plunged into chaos. Crops withered, livestock died, the palace and everyone in it was frozen in a ruby force field, the land was besieged by all manner of terrible monsters, and the protectors vanished. The evil cleric Catharandamus, among the summoned, begins the ritual to break the dimensional prison using the ruby sword of Arik and attempts to unleash Arik upon the world.
The players are visited in a dream that night by The Protectors, who tell them that Haven is in trouble and that they need help. They’ll use the limited power they have (because Faerie is also under attack) to open a portal into the castle so you can save everyone. In order to defeat Catharandamus you must destroy the gem using
1. The ruby sword of Arik, a powerful weapon unable to be effectively wielded by anyone except Arik, but touching the two together will be enough to shatter both.
2. The breath of the Dragon Ariksbane (who has been banished and must be summoned via 3 statuettes found within the palace) or
3. The song of banishment, played on the Ice Harp, a relic once wielded by Rowena, a mysterious hero from Haven’s past, that now resides in Faerie.
You then play through and introductory scenario that gives you a crash course in Roleplay Adventure Games. It basically reads like a choose your own adventure that the group plays through together, in which you have to figure out how to open the inner portcullis of the gatehouse so you can begin the actual adventure of running around the castle.
Link To The Past Introduction:
Title Screen Intro:
Long ago in a beautiful Kingdom called Hyrule that was surrounded by mountains and forests, legends told of a great golden power that resided in a hidden land, many went looking for it but no one knows what happened to them. Then evil power started to flow from the land and the king commanded 7 wise men to seal it up. A great war was fought in order to seal the evil into the sacred land. The wise men were aided by the Knights of Hyrule, an order of Knights dedicated to fighting evil and then guarding one of the pendants that allows you to wield the master sword.
A mysterious wizard known as Agahnim came to Hyrule to release the Seal. He killed the king, and imprisoned the descendents of the 7 wise men, one of which is the Princess Zelda.
You name your character and start playing
Princess Zelda visits you in a dream and tells you she is imprisoned in the castle dungeon and that Agahnim has seized control, captured the descendents of the 7 wise men, and is trying to break their seal. You wake up, and your uncle says he’s leaving for a while, but will be back by the morning and tells you not to leave the house.
Obviously you leave the house, and after being repelled by the castle guard, you find a hidden entrance into the castle, where you find your uncle lies defeated, he gives you a sword and shield and tells you to save the princess.
You fight your way through the castle, find the princess, and she tells you that Agahnim is controlling all the soldiers with his magic.
You escape the Palace via a secret route that the princess knows and you wind up in the Sanctuary, where you learn that if the Wizard breaks the seal it will flood the land with evil. You are told to seek out the Master Sword, an ancient relic that can't be wielded effectively by just anyone that's powerful enough to stop Agahnim. Link finds out that he and his uncle are descended from the Knights of Hyrule so he’s worthy of wielding the sword.
Tip of the Iceburg
That doesn’t even cover all of the similarities, some of which I’m sure are just coincidence, but I can’t help but be forced to look at the whole Silver Palace adventure through any other lens than Zelda now.
I didn’t even MENTION how Harps are always showing up in various Zelda games.
Or how Agahnim also has big eye imagery. I know this is probably a reference to “The Evil Eye” but c’mon-
Or the 3 protector statues in Silver Palace that bow to a veiled woman that could totally be Din Foror and Nayru bestowing Hylia with the Triforce
or the themes of music fixing problems
Or how Ellis is basically Link except he’s not the main character and so he has to get rescued too and how that’s way better than always making the Princess be the one stuck in the castle- MR. MIYAMOTO.
Or the ways that tapestries are used to tell the backstories of tons of Zelda games.
Or how all the soldier in sunken Hyrule got frozen in time/turned to stone,
I’m not gonna drag on any more about it. If you’re interested, pick up a copy and spend a day turning into Charlie Day like I did. It was fun, and now I have read way too many things about both Silver Princess, and Zelda.
So they’re similar. Lots of Fantasy stories in RPGs and Video Games play out like this.
Palace of the Silver Princess was released in 1981. A few years later in 1982 a company called Shinwa Publishing released a Japanese release of Keep on the Borderlands; they did 3 print runs. As best I can tell this was the first major North American RPG product translated into Japanese, but if you know better than that feel free to correct me.
The Mentzer Red box didn’t hit shelves in Japan until 1986. Which means that when Palace of the Silver Princess was released in Japan in 1983 it was predating most of the D&D products that would eventually be available in Japan (to say nothing of RPG systems like Sword World that were made to be more tailored to a Japanese audience which was first release in 1989 and is the basis for Record of Lodoss War) and the people that played it were most likely using the introductory rules found in Keep on the Borderlands, or possibly just the procedure for play found at the beginning of Silver Palace.
The point I’m trying to make is that two years before anyone in Japan was playing Wizardry, or Tower of Druaga, The Black Onyx or Hydilide, Palace of the Silver Princess and Keep on the Borderlands were there, being read by a niche group of people who were seeking out new and interesting forms of entertainment.
You remember the first time you read a TTRPG book, and you remember which one it is. And you remember what happens in it, because it's confusing and exciting and makes you want to MAKE THINGS.
So I like to imagine that sometime while they were studying at Osaka University of the Arts, Kensuke Tanabe and Tekeshi Tezuka played in a game of d&d where they saved Princess Argenta and Ellis the Strong from the Ruby Prison and thought-
“Hey, that was pretty fun”.
