Forbes recently put out a list of the top 14 most influential video games, and the lovely (and old) The Legend of Zelda made the list. According to Forbes:

This swords and sorcery classic for the original Nintendo Entertainment System was full of innovations. First, players could move Link, the protagonist, anywhere they wanted, an open game style that is popular in many modern games like "Grand Theft Auto." Better yet, because Nintendo included a battery in the game cartridge, games could be saved. Prior to "Zelda," players had two options: Pause the game and pray their sisters didn't turn it off or turn it off themselves, surrendering all progress.

While I can't say exactly how glorious the new save feature was to gaming, mostly due to the fact that I wasn't born yet when the game came out, I can say using passwords in the Animorphs Gameboy game was an undeniable pain. So I'll thank Legend of Zelda for removing those monstrosities from games.

See the rest of the list.