I did this - on the Zelda Collectors' Edition on GameCube, so save States weren't available. I did have to use an emulator to practice the final boss without the 10 min runback 🙄 , but after practicing I repeated the feat back on the official hardware.
I did the whole game without any guide. It was SO satisfying. On both the NES games, if you can read the context clues, every required secret is fairly clear. And the game is really fair! It is hard, it's true, but it's very fair! It felt very good to master the combat. This was a great gaming experience.
Later in life I felt that Dark Souls had very similar vibes except in 3D (and except for a bad feeling from having a heavy story that it's hostile to telling you what it is 🙄)
Yeah absolutely - launching NSO with every NES, SNES, N64 and gameboy game from the entire library all there at once is almost the worst possible thing to do in terms of marketing, and all marketers know it. What really could suck for consumers would be if the service never completes the library though...