ゼルダの伝説：神々のトライフォース
The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods

The opening starts as text, with simple drawings in shades of brown (as if from an ancient text) to complement the information. The first drawing is of three golden triangles arranged in a larger triangle, drawn as if glowing, with a mountain range in the background.

Adjectives would end with ～き (-ki) when modifying nouns in an older form of Japanese, as 美しき (utsukushiki) does here. Such archaisms occassionally appear in modern times for poetic effect or to make something sound ancient.

The drawing changes to a massive battle, fought mostly with swords.

Throughout this speech, sentences end with things like と言うことです (to iu koto desu) and そうです (sou desu) to indicate that the speaker did not witness these events firsthand, but heard them from another source.

The drawing changes to show seven robed figures holding staves.

The drawing now shows the seven circled around a mystic symbol of some kind, making various gestures.

"Should" here, はず (hazu), gives the sense that there was no reason to believe it would happen, not necessarily that it would be wrong or prohibited, though the narrative also seems to imply that. The point is that the seal would have lasted indefinitely if left alone.

The ancient-text style part ends. The screen shows a vast realm, surrounded by mountains and forests, then zooms in on a castle in the center. The view switches inside, showing an old (possibly skeletal) figure seated on the throne, and the text resumes.

The scene changes to a dungeon, where a creepy guy in creepy robes oversees soldiers escorting a girl out, while another (wearing a princessly dress and tiara) watches from her cell.

The censorship hit this part hard.

The scene changes to a creepy altar where the creepy guy does some creepy ritual and the girl taken from the dungeon vanishes.

王女 (oujo), the term for princess here, specifically means royalty. Elsewhere, the game tends to use 姫 (hime), either by itself or as a respectful suffix with her name. That term can apply to any young woman of the nobility, and probably comes closer to "Lady" than "Princess".

Two people sleep in this plain one-room house. A message appears across the bottom of the screen, not enclosed in a textbox.

The lights come on. The boy in bed sits up. The blue-haired man who is already up speaks.

He leaves, carrying a sword and shield. Despite the reassurances, Link is worried and gets up. It's unclear what he thinks he can do, since he's equipped with nothing but the clothes he's wearing (a green tunic and a forest green hat that covers most of his pink hair) and three heart containers (used as the life meter). But he goes anyway. Before leaving, Link opens the chest in the corner.

The Lantern lets Link see his immediate surroundings in dark areas, and can also cast flame a short distance to light torches. Casting flame consumes 4 magic (a full meter is 128, allowing 32 uses of the Lantern).

You can also skip the chest. It's linked with two other upcoming chests in a fine example of Schrödinger's Gun, such that whichever of the three you open first will contain the Lantern, and the two remaining chests will then contain five Rupees each.

Link goes outside. It's pouring, but he heads north towards the castle anyway. There's nowhere else to go regardless, since all other paths are blocked off.

At present, only a small portion of Hyrule is accessible, consisting of the castle itself in the center of the kingdom and the area immediately around Link's house just south of it. A large rock blocks the way east from the castle, and soldiers blockade the remaining exits from the area.

If you manage to leave the expected area, by whatever means, you'll find the rest of Hyrule strangely empty. Rain continues everywhere, and the usual overworld entities haven't been loaded yet. That means no monsters, no NPCs, no heart pieces or other items that would normally be sitting out in the open, and none of various other interactable objects. Indoor areas still work as usual.

Stranger still, everything that appears in the Light World after the introduction? It's currently hanging out on the Dark World map! Though most of the sprites get jumbled. But as for why they're there at all... I have no idea.

The ALttP Randomizer, when using the Standard (or Retro) world state (in which the player starts from the usual beginning of the game), adds another guard behind the heavy rock to prevent leaving the area even if the Power Gloves turn up early.

Unsurprisingly, the castle gatekeepers are unhelpful.

But Link hears Zelda's voice in his head every so often...

...she's far less annoying than Navi, though, if only because she stops nagging after the intro.

And so Link finds a passage hidden under a bush near the castle wall. The man from earlier is here, wounded.

The princess's last hope, I'd assume.

The man's use of なら (nara) when saying that Link can do it implies that not just anyone can.

As noted above, 姫 (hime) probably comes closer to "Lady" than "Princess".

Link takes up the sword and shield. The sword is an ordinary one with a fairly short reach and unremarkable offensive ability, and the shield is a little blue one that can only block simple projectiles like arrows and rocks, but they're better than nothing. The secret sword skill is the charge-up spin attack that has become Link's trademark, and usually inflicts extra damage.

In Standard (or Retro) world state, the ALttP Randomizer ensures that your uncle will give you some sort of weapon that works on the dungeon guards (unless Sword mode is Assured, in which case you start with a sword, but can't use it until now due to game logic). In other modes, the item he gives you is as random as anything else.

Link continues into the courtyard and fights off the remarkably aggressive (but completely unskilled) guards, then heads into the castle...

One interesting part of the castle is the tower door on the roof. Link can't enter, because it's blocked off by some kind of magical energy barrier that is impervious to anything he can do.

Anyway... finding the stairs down into the dungeon, Link continues fighting off attackers, and before long...

Every one of the labyrinths Link has to clear has a map and a special treasure. The treasure here is lightly guarded, and doesn't even rate a special chest, but it's still quite useful...

The Boomerang flies a short distance and returns when thrown. It will carry items it hits back to Link, and will also stun most enemies, though some are immune, and some take damage instead (normally half the amount of a swing from the starting sword).

Deep in the dungeon, Link finds a tougher enemy with a ball and chain weapon. His sword works, and the Boomerang can cause a very brief stun, but there are some pots nearby that Link can throw to finish the enemy more quickly, easily, and safely.

The ball and chain attack also has a surprisingly large blind spot directly in front of the trooper, especially when he's facing down (which centers the ball's smaller spin further up, making it safe to get closer than otherwise), so pinning him against the north wall and slashing away works, too.

The foe drops another item found in every labyrinth...

...such as the cell door. Princess Zelda is expecting Link inside.

Still fighting off the occasional guard, Link escorts Zelda to the first floor hall...

The term I rendered "abbot" here is a different term for "priest" than the one used for Agahnim. These kanji, 神父 (shinpu), mean approximately "holy father", while Agahnim's, 司祭 (shisai), mean something more like "director of rituals", but both roughly translate to "priest" in normal usage.

Inside the throne room, Zelda stops in front of a large decoration.

The base game won't allow you to push the decoration out of the way unless you have the Lantern. The ALttP Randomizer removes this requirement, and in Standard (or Retro) world state provides light while passing through here even if you don't have it. In other modes, you're free to enter whether you have the Lantern or not, but won't get any lighting without it, making whatever's in there technically reachable but out of logic.

The passage is dark and full of bats and snakes. Eventually, they come to a very wet section.

They cross the watery area and reach a section that is both dry and lit. There are badly cracked walls here, but they don't react to anything currently available.

Come back with Bombs or the Pegasus Shoes to break down the weakened walls. Chests in the room beyond contain 300 Rupees, plus some Arrows and Bombs. And in a Randomizer run, there might even be something critically important in there. Regardless, once you have the Power Gloves, you can drop directly into this section by pushing the northwestern headstone the graveyard (it's blocked by rocks), instead of going all the way through from the castle.

Eventually, they come to a room with two levers in the wall.

She doesn't say which switch, but it's only when Link approaches the one on the right that she adds:

The Randomizer community calls this whole section of the game the escape sequence. The castle dungeons are referred to as the "front of escape", the room behind the cracked wall is the "back of escape", and the chest (originally a key) in a cross-shaped dark room along the way is "Dark Cross".

For Randomizer purposes, the escape sequence (everything from the castle dungeons to the church) has a map and small key (if these aren't shuffled beyond their usual dungeons), and six other items. The three chests in the front require only some sort of weapon, Dark Cross logically requires a Lantern, the three chests in the back require Power Gloves or a Lantern (except in Standard or Retro world mode) to get there in addition to Bombs or the Pegasus Shoes to open the room, and the chest in the church has no requirements. Link's uncle and the chest near him are another two item locations, and have no requirements.

There are also two small keys and a big key dropped by enemies in the dungeon, and a small key dropped by a rat in one of the later dark rooms between the castle and the church. These are not randomized and will always be in their usual locations.

When using Entrance Shuffle, keep in mind that the main section of Hyrule Castle has three different entrances, plus the back section also has its own drop-in entrance and one-way exit. Depending on the settings, these might all connect to completely different areas on the overworld.

When Link pulls the lever, the door to the south opens. On the other side is the church. An old man dressed as clergy is here.

The old man speaks.

退魔 (taima), literally 'repel' + 'magic/demon', is not a "real" word as such, but appears relatively often in fiction when driving off or slaying monsters or demons. "Exorcising" works well here since a sword is primarily offensive, while I've translated it as "warding" in more defensive contexts for other games. On a side note, several later Zelda games have 退魔の剣 translated as "blade of evil's bane."