NES controls
| Input | Overworld / menus | Side-scrolling scenes |
|---|---|---|
| D-pad | Move Link and choose menu entries. | Walk, crouch, climb elevators, and aim learned thrusts while airborne. |
| A | Use the Hammer when standing on a valid overworld tile. | Jump. |
| B | Play the Flute or interact where required. | Swing the sword, collect stabbed pickups, talk, and interact. |
| Start | Open or close the subscreen and pause or resume play. | |
| Select | Cast the currently selected spell. | |
English NES experience thresholds
Attack raises sword damage, Magic lowers spell costs, and Life reduces damage. Each can reach level 8. When an offered upgrade is not the stat you want, canceling preserves the current experience but advances the next target; a game over erases all unspent experience.
| Level | Attack | Magic | Life |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 200 | 100 | 50 |
| 3 | 500 | 300 | 150 |
| 4 | 1,000 | 700 | 400 |
| 5 | 2,000 | 1,200 | 800 |
| 6 | 3,000 | 2,200 | 1,500 |
| 7 | 5,000 | 3,500 | 2,500 |
| 8 | 8,000 | 6,000 | 4,000 |
| After level 8 | 9,000 awards an extra life instead of another stat level. | ||
Lives, game over, and saving
- Link begins with three lives. Falling into water or lava, or emptying the life meter, costs one.
- When all lives are gone, Continue returns Link to North Palace with permanent items, spells, containers, techniques, and purchased levels intact—but with zero unspent experience.
- Inside the Great Palace, Continue restarts at that palace entrance instead of North Palace.
- Each Link Doll grants one life only once. Collected dolls do not respawn after saving or a game over.
- Modern emulated editions may provide restore points or rewind outside the original game's rules.
Combat fundamentals
- Fight at shield height. Crouch against low attacks and vary standing or crouching sword pokes to exploit an Iron Knuckle's guard.
- Jump with a purpose. Knockback over a pit is often deadlier than the hit. Jump late, land on secure ground, and use Shield before narrow bridges.
- Use the thrusts. Downward Thrust controls small enemies and block floors; Upward Thrust protects Link from jumping enemies and breaks ceilings.
- Spend magic by room value. Shield prevents more damage than Life can heal in long fights, Fairy bypasses specific geometry, Reflect handles Wizzrobes, and Thunder is mandatory once.
- Take safe experience. Bank an upgrade before a dangerous cave or boss instead of carrying a large unspent total into a possible game over.
Disk System warning
The table above is for the English NES balance. In the Japanese Disk System original, all three stats share the same thresholds, and saving reduces higher stats to the current lowest stat. Do not apply the NES leveling plan to that edition.