The Legend of Zelda CD-i games

Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and Zelda's Adventure are three action-adventure games produced by Philips for the CD-i as part of Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda video game series. Not designed for Nintendo platforms, the games owe their existence to negotiations related to Nintendo's decision not to have Philips create a CD add-on to the Super NES. During these negotiations Philips secured the rights to use five Nintendo characters in their games for the CD-i, and the development of these games was achieved through the hiring of third party developers. The Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamelon were developed by Animation Magic and were both released on October 10, 1993 and Zelda's Adventure was developed by Viridis and was released on June 5, 1994. The games were given little funding or time for completion, and Nintendo provided only cursory input.

The Philips CD-i did not sell well and the games saw relatively small sales figures. Critical reception for all three Zelda CD-i titles is unusual in that while largely positive at the time of the games' release, they have seen nearly universal negative criticism since the mid-2000s. This is attributable to the reaction of many gamers to the obscure games' full motion video cutscene when they first became widely available through video-sharing websites like YouTube. Because the aging early 1990s visual effects of the titles failed to live up to the graphic effects of the 2000s, and because for many fans this was their first experience of the games, the CD-i Zelda titles have developed a critical reputation as particularly poor members of the Zelda franchise based largely on animation quality and to an extent on awkward controls. In the eyes of devout hardcore gamers, according to Edge magazine, these games are now considered "tantamount to blasphemy."

Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon are played using the side-scrolling view introduced in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, while Zelda's Adventure has a top-down view reminiscent of the original The Legend of Zelda. All the CD-i Zelda games begin with animated FMVs to illustrate the capabilities of the CD-ROM format, save Zelda’s Adventure, which begins with live action video.

History of the Zelda CD-i franchise

In 1989, Nintendo signed a deal with Sony to begin development of a CD-ROM-based system known as the "Nintendo PlayStation" or the SNES CD to be an add-on to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that would allow for FMV and larger games. However, Nintendo broke the agreement and instead signed with Philips to make the add-on, which caused Sony to spin off their add-on into its own console called the PlayStation. Witnessing the poor reception of the Sega Mega-CD, Nintendo scrapped the idea of making an add-on entirely. As part of dissolving the agreement with Philips, Nintendo gave them the license to use five of their characters, including Link, Princess Zelda, and Ganon, for games on Philips's console called the CD-i, after the partnership's dissolution.

Contracting out to independent studios, Philips subsequently used the characters to create three games for the CD-i, with Nintendo taking no part in their development except to give input on the look of the characters based on the artwork from Nintendo's original two titles and that of their respective instruction booklets. Philips insisted that the development studios utilize all aspects of the CD-i's capabilities including FMV, high-resolution graphics, and CD-quality music. Because the system had not been designed as a dedicated video game console, there were several technical limitations, such as laggy controls (especially for the standard infrared controller), and numerous problems in streaming-audio, memory, disc access, and graphics.

Link: The Faces of Evil

Link: The Faces of Evil
Boxart for Link: The Faces of Evil.
Developer(s)	Animation Magic
Publisher(s)	Philips Media
Series	The Legend of Zelda
Platform(s)	CD-i
Release
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Paired with Zelda: Wand of Gamelon in a simultaneous release, Link: The Faces of Evil represents the first of the Zelda games to be released by Philips for the CD-i. Following the traditional Link-saves-Zelda plotline, Faces of Evil was patterned most closely upon Nintendo's previous side-scroller, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The game broke new ground in the video game industry by using outsourced Russian animation to create all cutscenes, and the game received largely positive contemporary reception. The game has not aged well, however. Modern criticism is almost universal in its harsh negativity toward the game and the animated cutscenes have become particular targets of derision.

Gameplay

File:Zeldafacesofevil2.jpg

A screenshot of Link: The Faces of Evil

The player controls Link, who must find and defeat "the evil forces of Ganon", rescue Princess Zelda, and become the hero of Koridai. When the player begins this quest, three areas are initially available, accessible through Gwonam's map. The player can access the areas on the map by moving the on-screen cursor over one of the areas and pressing the selection button (Button One).

Gwonam, who aids the player in the quest, tells Link there is no time to pack; his sword would be enough. Consequently, the player is only equipped with a sword and shield at the beginning of the game. The sword is used to attack enemies and fire deadly Power Blasts, and the shield can deflect attacks thrown at the player. The shield is automatically lifted when the player is standing still or crouching. Other helpful tools, such as lamp oil (for lighting a lamp), rope (for climbing) and bombs (which can destroy some obstacles) are available for a price at Morshu's shop in Koridai. The rubies (known as "rupees" in other Zelda titles) that Morshu takes as currency can be obtained by defeating enemies. To pick up these gems, the player must strike them with the sword before they disappear. Rubies differ from rupees in that red rubies are worth 1, green are worth 5, and blue are worth 10 whereas in the original games green rupees are worth 1, blue rupees are worth 5, and red rupees are worth 20.

Link's health is measured in "Life Hearts". The number of Life Hearts the player currently has is shown on the upper-left corner of the screen when Link is walking around the island. Although the player begins the game with only three hearts, there are ways to earn more. Each time Link is injured, he will lose at least one-half of a heart. The first two times Link runs out of Life Hearts, the player will be given the option of continuing from near the point where Link's last heart was lost. When Link loses his hearts for a third time, he will be returned to the map, and the player will have to start the level from the beginning. Returning to the map replenishes Link's Life Hearts and lives, and he will retain any items and rubies he picked up.

Plot

The story begins in Hyrule Castle where a bored Link (the series' protagonist) discusses with King Harkinian the prospects of new adventure. Soon Link's hopes are fulfilled as Gwonam the wizard arrives on a magic carpet and tells them that Ganon (the series' antagonist) has taken over the far-off island of Koridai. Gwonam explains that according to a prophecy, only Link can stop him. Link is transported to Koridai and the wizard shows him the fabled island's giant stone statues known as the Faces of Evil which Link must conquer. During Link's time in Koridai, Princess Zelda is kidnapped by Ganon and is imprisoned in his lair.

Questing to rescue the Princess and to liberate Koridai, Link is sent by the Ice Queen to Fortress Centrum to retrieve the Treasure of Death. At the fortress, Link finds what appears to be a sleeping Zelda. Once awakened, however, the figure transforms into Goronu, a shapeshifting necromancer who works for Ganon. After defeating Goronu, Link retrieves the Crystal of Reflection, which allows his shield to reflect curses. Link then proceeds to defeat Ganon's minions, which include the revived Goronu, the anthropomorphic pig Harlequin, the armored pyrokinetic Militron, the three-eyed wolfgirl Lupay, and the gluttonous cyclops Glutko, from which the Book of Koridai is retrieved. A translator named Ipo, who can read the Book of Koridai, reveals that the Book itself is enough to defeat Ganon.

After trekking through Ganon's Lair, Link finally reaches Ganon, who attempts to recruit Link with the promise of great power and the threat of death. Link imprisons him in the Book of Koridai and then awakens the sleeping princess Zelda. Gwonam appears and congratulates Link on imprisoning Ganon. He shows Link a recovering Koridai and declares him the island's hero. However, Zelda refuses to kiss him as a reward.

Development

Faces of Evil was one of the first two Nintendo-licensed games released on the Philips CD-i (together with Wand of Gamelon). The game was given the relatively low budget of approximately $600,000 and the development deadline was set at a little over a year — time which would have to be split between the development of Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon. It was decided by Animation Magic, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based development team led by Dale DeSharone, that the two games would be developed in tandem and would share the same graphics engine to more efficiently use the budget. The animated cutscenes were created by a team of four animators from Russia (led by Igor Razboff) who were flown to the United States for the project. These games marked the first time that Russian outsourcing had been utilized by an American company — a move that was only possible due to the somewhat thawed political climate after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The rest of the development team included three programmers (all previous employees of Spinnaker Software), one musician (Tony Trippi), and freelance-writer Jonathan Merritt who created the scripts and designs. Under DeSharone's direction, game development progressed similarly to that of his earlier-directed title, Below the Root, a game which Retro Gamer's John Szczepaniak has suggested may have served as a forerunner of sorts. Background designs were created by local Cambridge artists, and voice-acting was entirely produced by local actors from the AFTRA union.

Reception

At the time of its release, contemporary criticism was largely positive. SNES Force magazine described the animated sequences as "breathtaking" and praised the game for its high-resolution graphics and its "brilliant" use of sound and speech. Highly anticipated by the French video game press, Joystick magazine's development preview of the title described it as a veritable arcade-quality game with stunning graphics and "perfect animation". The same magazine would ultimately score it a 79%, a few months later, giving particularly high marks for music, sound effects, and play-through time.

All three Zelda CD-i titles have garnered a largely negative reception, however, among modern critics, with The Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon standing out as the most frequently derided. GamesRadar named The Faces of Evil first on their list of "The Top 7... Franchise Embarrassments". IGN described the games as "infamous" and "cheesy"; other reviewers called the animated cutscenes "freakish" and "an absolute joke". Wired magazine said that the animation on the first two Zelda games was extremely simple and stilted and that the graphics had several glitches. The voice acting was criticized by Zelda Elements as jarring.

Despite the largely negative reception that the games have received, there have been a few positive reviews as well. Both Danny Cowan of 1UP.com and John Szczepaniak praised Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon as among the best games on the CD-i. Szczepaniak in particular suggested that several of the gaming magazines that had rated and reviewed Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil had engaged in hate campaigns having never even played the game. Cowan's and Szczepaniak's praises drew from the games' detailed, well-drawn in-game backgrounds and "pretty decent" gameplay, although both criticized the controls. While the audio was thought to be "average", and not up to the usual Zelda quality by some reviewers, this has been contested by others who have described it as diverse and high-quality with an adventurous upbeat tempo blending electric guitar, panpipes, marimbas, and other unusual instruments. In a periodical for Retro Gamer magazine, Szczepaniak identified the natural comparison of the games by reviewers to the quality of games in the rest of the Zelda series as an improper comparison to make and suggested that when reviewed in their own right the games were actually excellent. Contrary to what were described as "lies perpetuated about [Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon]," Retro Gamer described these games as "astoundingly good" and rated them together as number ten in its "Perfect Ten Games" for CD-i. While acknowledging that the games lacked canonicity, the games were praised for exhilarating pacing and superb gameplay design and music. The games' background art was also described as ranging from Gigeresque to Monet-esque.

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon
Boxart for Zelda: Wand of Gamelon.
Developer(s)	Animation Magic
Publisher(s)	Philips Media
Series	The Legend of Zelda
Platform(s)	CD-i
Release
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Paired with Link: The Faces of Evil in a simultaneous release, Zelda: Wand of Gamelon represents the first of the Zelda games to be released by Philips for the CD-i. Reversing the traditional Link-saves-Zelda plotline, Wand of Gamelon stars Zelda as she adventures to rescue Link and her father the king who have not returned from their quest. As with Faces of Evil, the game was patterned most closely upon Nintendo's previous side-scroller, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and again features outsourced Russian animation for all cutscenes. Despite the game's similarly positive contemporary reception along with Faces of Evil, modern critics have almost unanimously derided and ridiculed the game for its inability to live up to modern expectations with the animated cutscenes again having become a particular target of negative reception.

Gameplay

The player controls Princess Zelda, who must find and defeat Ganon and rescue both King Harkinian and Link to become the heroine of Gamelon. When the player begins this quest, three areas are initially available, accessible through Impa's map. The player can access the areas on the map by moving the on-screen cursor over one of the areas and pressing Button One.

At the beginning of the game, the player is only equipped with a sword and shield. The sword is used to attack enemies and to fire deadly Power Blasts, and the shield can deflect projectile attacks thrown at the player. The shield is automatically lifted when the player is standing still or crouching. Other helpful tools, such as lamp oil (for lighting a lamp), rope (for climbing) and bombs (which can destroy some obstacles) are available for a price at the General Shop in Sakado. The rubies that the Merchant takes as currency can be obtained by defeating enemies. Red rubies are worth 1, green rubies are worth 5 and blue rubies are worth 10. To pick up these gems, the player must strike them with the sword before they disappear, unlike prior Zelda titles where rupees could be collected by simply walking over them.

Zelda's health is measured in "Life Hearts". The number of Life Hearts the player currently has is shown on the upper-left corner of the screen when Zelda is walking around the island. Although the player begins the game with only three hearts, there are ways to earn more. Each time Zelda is injured, she will lose at least one-half of a heart. The first two times Zelda runs out of Life Hearts, the player will be given the option of continuing from near the point where Zelda's last heart was lost. When Zelda loses her hearts for a third time, she will be returned to the map, and the player will have to start the level from the beginning. Returning to the map replenishes Zelda's Life Hearts and lives, and she will retain any items and rubies she picked up.

Plot

King Harkinian announces his plan to aid Duke Onkled of Gamelon when the latter falls under attack by Ganon, and orders Zelda to send Link for backup in case that he does not return from his mission within a month. A month passes without word from the King, so Zelda sends Link to find him.

When he too goes missing, Zelda ventures off to Gamelon (accompanied by an elderly Impa) to find both Link and the King. During Zelda's time in Gamelon, Impa discovers that King Harkinian has been captured, and that Link has engaged in a battle, the outcome of which is unclear. As she adventures across the island, Zelda meets many friendly characters and battles with many monsters and enemies including the villains Gibdo and Iron Knuckle. Along her travels Zelda battles the sorcerer, Wizzrobe, to free Lady Alma, who gives Zelda a canteen that she claims Link gave her in exchange for a kiss.

On reaching Duke Onkled's palace, Domodai Palace, it is revealed that Duke Onkled has betrayed the King and is working for Ganon. Zelda storms the palace, kills Ganon's minion Hectan, and saves an imprisoned Spaniard named Fari who used to work for the King. Fari reveals the secret entrance to Onkled's chamber, and when they confront him he reveals the entrance to Reesong Palace, where Ganon has taken residence.

Zelda travels to the Shrine of Gamelon to defeating the head-switching chimera Omfak and obtain the Wand needed to defeat Ganon, and she also visits Nokani Forest to obtain the magic lantern needed to clear the darkness around Ganon. Finally at Reesong Palace, Zelda fights Ganon, incapacitates him with the Wand, and rescues her father. Back at Hyrule Castle, Duke Onkled is turned over to the king, begging for mercy. He is arrested and punished by becoming a lowly drudge for the King. Although Link's whereabouts are still unknown, a comment by Lady Alma prompts Zelda to throw her mirror against the wall and as it smashes Link magically materializes, seemingly having been trapped in the mirror.

Development

Wand of Gamelon was one of the first two Nintendo-licensed games released on the Philips CD-i (together with Faces of Evil). With the relatively low budget of approximately $600,000, Wand of Gamelon was given a little over a year for completion — time which would have to be split between the development of Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil. It was decided by Animation Magic, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based development team led by Dale DeSharone, that the two games would be developed in tandem and would share the same graphics engine to more efficiently use the budget. The animated cutscenes were created by a team of four animators from Russia (led by Igor Razboff) who were flown to the United States for the project. These games marked the first time that Russian outsourcing had been utilized by an American company - a move that was only possible due to the somewhat thawed political climate after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The rest of the development team included three programmers (all previous employees of Spinnaker Software), one musician (Tony Trippi), and freelance-writer Jonathan Merritt who created the scripts and designs. Under DeSharone's direction, game development progressed similarly to that of his earlier-directed title, Below the Root, a game which Retro Gamer's John Szczepaniak has suggested may have served as a forerunner of sorts. Background designs were created by local Cambridge artists, and voice-acting was entirely produced by local actors from the AFTRA union. The voice of Princess Zelda was provided by Bonnie Jean Wilbur and the voice of Link by Jeffrey Rath, while additional voices were provided by Jeffrey Nelson, Mark Berry, Natalie Brown, Karen Grace, Josie McElroy, Marguerite Scott and Paul Wann.

Reception

At the time of its release, contemporary criticism was largely positive. SNES Force magazine described the animated sequences as "breathtaking" and praised the game's high-resolution graphics and "brilliant" use of sound and speech. Highly anticipated by the French video game press, Joystick magazine's development preview of the title highlighted the fact that this would be the first of the Zelda games to feature true voice acting, and described its plot as highly original and the background graphics as a tableaux of great beauty.

All three Zelda CD-i titles have garnered a largely negative reception, however, among modern critics, with The Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon standing out as the most frequently derided. The magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked Zelda: Wand of Gamelon the sixth worst game of all time, and GameTrailers rated it fifth worst game of all time. The Star Tribune described the game's voice acting as "laughable" and it was also criticized by Zelda Elements as jarring. IGN described the games as "infamous" and "cheesy"; other reviewers called the animated cutscenes "freakish" and "an absolute joke". Wired magazine said that the animation on the first two Zelda games was extremely simple and stilted and that the graphics had several glitches.

Despite the largely negative reception that the games have received, there have been a few positive reviews as well. Both Danny Cowan of 1UP.com and John Szczepaniak praised Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon as among the best games on the CD-i. Szczepaniak in particular suggested that several of the gaming magazines that had rated and reviewed Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil had engaged in hate campaigns having never even played the game. Cowan's and Szczepaniak's praises drew from the games' detailed, well-drawn in-game backgrounds and "pretty decent" gameplay, although both criticized the controls. while the audio was thought to be "average", and not up to the usual Zelda quality by some reviewers, this has been contested by others who have described it as diverse and high-quality with an adventurous upbeat tempo blending electric guitar, panpipes, marimbas, and other unusual instruments. In a periodical for Retro Gamer magazine, Szczepaniak identified the natural comparison of the games by reviewers to the quality of games in the rest of the Zelda series as an improper comparison to make and suggested that when reviewed in their own right the games were actually excellent. Contrary to what were described as "lies perpetuated about [Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon]," Retro Gamer described these games as "astoundingly good" and rated them together as number ten in its "Perfect Ten Games" for CD-i. While acknowledging that the games lacked canonicity, the games were praised for exhilarating pacing and superb gameplay design and music. The game's background art was also described as ranging from Gigeresque to Monet-esque.

Zelda's Adventure

Zelda's Adventure
Boxart for Zelda's Adventure.
Developer(s)	Viridis
Publisher(s)	Philips Media
Series	The Legend of Zelda
Platform(s)	CD-i
Release
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Gameplay

A screenshot from Zelda's Adventure

Unlike the previous two CD-i Zelda games, which take the side-scrolling view from Zelda II, Zelda's Adventure is played with the same top-down view found in The Legend of Zelda. Playing as Princess Zelda, the aim is to fight through the Seven Shrines of the Underworld to collect the celestial signs, and bring the land of Tolemac to an Age of Lightness.

Unlike the other two games, Zelda's Adventure was created by Viridis, an entirely different company, with a change in style and gameplay. Level design is very much like the original The Legend of Zelda and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, with an overworld that allows access to individual dungeons. The FMV sequences that present the plot are live action instead of animated.

Plot

Ganon has kidnapped Link and stolen the seven celestial signs, creating an "Age of Darkness" in the kingdom of Tolemac. Princess Zelda learns from the court astrologer Gaspra (played by actor Mark Andrade) that she must collect the signs to defeat Ganon and save Link.

Development

The backgrounds for Zelda's Adventure were created from videos of scenery near Santa Monica Boulevard in West L.A., footage of Hawaii taken from a helicopter, and the developers' vacation photos. This decision was responsible for much of the game's RAM usage, causing backgrounds to scroll slowly and causing extreme frustration to the game's developers. The CD-i's technical abilities were so limited that the use of one or two kilobytes of system RAM caused arguments amongst the developers. The composer for Zelda's Adventure also played the part of Gaspra in the game's cutscenes. The houses and interiors built for the cut scenes were built as scale models. Developers have stated they were not influenced by the first two CD-i Zelda games. Zelda's Adventure spent two years in testing, longer than it took to develop the game. Much more music was composed for the game than was used. Developers had difficulty making sure all the areas of the game had proper background masking.

Reception

Like the other two CD-i Zelda games, modern criticism of Zelda's Adventure has been quite negative. The graphics of Zelda's Adventure were called "blurry and digitized". Wired magazine said that the graphics were some of the worst ever encountered. The game's acting was criticized as unprofessional. Another flaw that has been identified is that the game could not produce both sound effects and music at the same time. Scott Sharkey of 1UP.com called the box art of Zelda's Adventure one of the 15 worst ever made. Zelda's Adventure was released as the Philips CD-i was being discontinued and has become very rare over time, as have the first two Philips Zelda games; Zelda's Adventure is regularly sold for over $100. Danny Cowan of 1UP.com called Zelda's Adventure "unplayable" due to the jerky frame rate, unresponsive controls and long load times.

Despite giving positive reviews for Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon RetroGamer's John Szczepaniak would not extended them to Zelda's Adventure which he described as demonstrating arbitrary and illogical design, sloppy visuals, nearly-nonexistent music, excruciatingly high difficulty, and cumbersome loading and controlling. Gameplay for Zelda's Adventure has also been portrayed as a trial and error effort to guess which items can be used to defeat which enemy. In discussing the popular online conception that Zelda's Adventure is superior to Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil, Retro Gamer pointed to the top-down perspective as fomenting misinformation regarding the game's similarities to the original Zelda when in fact the game is not worth playing.