CD-i games based on The Legend of Zelda series

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A screenshot from Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon.

In the early 1990s, an obscure trilogy of video games based on Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series were produced for Philips' CD-i multimedia system under a special license agreement. The games were made with no involvement of Nintendo, and deviated significantly from the mainstream Zelda games in terms of style and gameplay.

1 History
2 Plots
3 Gameplay
4 Reception
5 Notes

[edit] History

In 1989, Nintendo signed a deal with Sony to begin development of a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Famicom. However, Nintendo suddenly broke the contract and instead signed with Philip (this fallout with Sony later led to the development of the Sony PlayStation). The CD-ROM add-on was later dropped, but Nintendo had already licensed the rights to Philips to use some of its characters, including Link, Princess Zelda, and Ganon. This was done in hopes of gaining Philips as a partner on the way to making the compact disc-based console. Contracting out to independent studios, Philips subsequently used the characters to create three games for its own "CD-i" console, without influence from Nintendo or the chief Zelda series developers Shigeru Miyamoto or Eiji Aonuma. The characters and artwork were based on the Legend of Zelda cartoon series. These titles are:

Link: The Faces of Evil (1993) — by Animation Magic

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (1993) — by Animation Magic

Zelda's Adventure (1994) — by Viridis

Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil were given the relatively low budgets of $600,000 each and it was decided by the Cambridge-based development team Animation Magic, led by Dale DeSharon, to develop the two games in tandem in order to more efficiently use the budget. On this low budget, each aspect of the two games were handled by the same small group of people. Hotel Mario, a game based on the Mario Bros. series, was also the result of Nintendo's licensing, though a true sequel to Super Mario World was also in development.

[edit] Plots

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Link: The Faces of Evil

Link, feeling increasingly useless in the now safe land of Hyrule, has no idea that the faraway island of Koridai has been taken over by his old nemesis, Ganon. Ganon has also kidnapped the princess of Hyrule, Zelda, and is holding her captive there. A mysterious wizard visits Link on a flying carpet to inform the hero of the dire situation. Only Link, with the aid of the Book of Koridai, can defeat Ganon. After being refused a kiss by Princess Zelda, Link then flies away with the man on the flying carpet and moves toward an island populated by stone statues in the shape of diabolical faces known as the "Faces of Evil."

[edit] Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

The story begins with the King of Hyrule going off to fight Ganon. He tells Princess Zelda to send Link if he does not return after a month. An entire month passes without word from the king. As instructed, Zelda sends Link to find him, but he doesn't return either. Zelda then decides to venture forth herself to search for Link and her father.

[edit] Zelda's Adventure

Tolemac (Camelot spelled backwards) is in the middle of the Age of Darkness, as Ganon has kidnapped Link, and unleashed his rule over Tolemac. Princess Zelda sets out to save the young adventurer and learns from the astronomer Gaspra that she must first collect seven cellestial signs before she can conquer the dark king and bring Hyrule to an "Age of Lightness."

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Gameplay

Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon are played using the side-scrolling view introduced in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, while Adventure has a top-down view reminiscent of the original The Legend of Zelda. For a variety of reasons, it is generally accepted that the games do not play as tightly as The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link, including the quality of the CD-i controller, the slow gameplay speed, and the jerkiness of the animation. The story is largely told through animated FMVs, in an attempt to make best use of the CD-ROM format. Many backgrounds were taken from the Zelda cartoon and used in the game.

It is notable that Wand of Gamelon and Zelda's Adventure are the only Zelda-titled video games where the protagonist is Princess Zelda herself.

[edit] Reception

Like the system they were created for, the three games were never very popular and today are obscure. Zelda's Adventure was never officially released outside of Europe, hence its rarity and extremely high resale value.

All three games are considered to be on the list of computer and video games considered the worst ever, by such sources as game critic Seanbaby^[1] and the G4TV series Filter. They are infamous for poor gameplay quality in comparison to the mainstream series. The FMV sequences demanded by Phillips for the first two games were outsourced to the newly opened Russian market, and the results, with their Russian animation style, were poorly received. The voice acting, produced by local AFTRA actors was criticized as misdirected and amateurish.^[2] As these two areas were considered key benefits to the CD-based technology, their flaws were all the more magnified. Zelda's Adventure was created by an entirely different company with a change in style and gameplay, and is considered a slight improvement. Regardless, as all three games were not produced with the guidance of Nintendo, they are not recognized as canon by the Zelda gaming community.