Published on 12/24/2016
Of all the challenging ways to play Legend of Zelda that people have attempted on a NES console, one of the most famous is the "swordless" challenge. In this challenge, the player must beat all of the game, up until the final boss Ganon, without using a sword. It is not possible to damage Ganon without a sword however, so many swordless runs reach Ganon's room to die there.
In order to actually complete the game, Lord_Tom does pick up a sword and kills Ganon. However, the sword is only obtained shortly before attempting the final level, and even then, the sword is not used until absolutely necessary. In the meantime, sit back and watch a run which relies heavily on luck manipulation and effective bomb usage to beat the game very quickly. For more details, see the author's comments.
This is a 34-second improvement over the previous movie by Baxter.
View this movie played back on a real NES right here.

The official encodes feature commentary by the author as soft subtitles.


Please do not link directly to the files. Link to this page or the front page instead.
Republication of movies from this site is only allowed under the following conditions:
  1. Video and audio content must not be changed (including the pointers to this site).
  2. The movies must be prominently labeled as tool-assisted speedruns.
  3. The actual player(s) (always shown at this site) must be properly credited.
Do not label them with speculations. If unsure, ask the site staff for details.


Page History Latest diff List referrers