Zelda’s best spinoff turned out to be a blueprint for gaming’s future

Early on in its history, Nintendo didn’t really care what happened with its IP. That sounds impossible today, but the 1980s were a different time. Nintendo would hand Mario off to Interplay so it could put him into Checkers or let a group of musicians create a Donkey Kong musical record that invented foundational lore about the character. That’s a far cry from the Nintendo we’ve come to know in recent years, with its iron grip on its most lucrative mascots.