Family Computer Disk System

The Famicom Disk System is a peripheral for the Famicom that was only released in Japan, on February 21, 1986. It enabled the Famicom to play games that were released on a proprietary, two-sided floppy disk format known as the "Disk Cards". Disk Cards are rewritable and allowed players to save their game progress. The Legend of Zelda was released as a launch title for the Famicom Disk System. A year later, in 1987, a sequel to the game was released, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Many titles that were originally released on the Famicom Disk System later saw a standard cartridge release, both in Japan and overseas. Instead of utilizing a Disk Card's rewritable memory, passwords and battery-backed memory were used to store save data. Both The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link were released on a cartridge format overseas, for the Nintendo Entertainment. In Japan, the first title saw a re-release as a Famicom cartridge many years later, in 1994. Its sequel, Zelda II, was never re-released on a Famicom cartridge.