The Retrospective: The Legend of Zelda (Part 2 of 3)

Posted by Sean McCabe on 08.22.2006

In the second part of the retrospective on the Legend of Zelda, I take a look at the few games in the series not actually made by Nintendo themselves, and shaking some dusty old skeletons in the closet while I'm at it.

Well, I have to say my first column was a resounding success. I got a whole lotta feedback, including from those rare people who managed somehow to beat that sadistic Zelda II. I will print that feedback right between the Intro and Retrospectives, seems the most ideal place to put it. I laid out my rules of engagement last week, that I will take a quick glance over the histories and impact of the most (in)famous franchises in game land. This sometimes requires entering the closet and examining some pretty mouldy skeletons, pretty much what we will be doing in part two of the Zelda retrospective. I think trying in anyway to review gems like the Wand of Gamelon is a pretty pointless endeavour, considering that I never played them (luckily) and their shittiness is legendary anyways. No, I'll just be taking a look at whatever possessed Nintendo to strike a deal with Phillips that very much bombed for both companies (So Nintendo are with Panasonic these days). And I seem to be liking my Parentheses right now. I'll also cover the other Zelda games not made by Nintendo, Capcom's Oracle games. That's pretty much all I'll be doing in this part though, mainly because it keeps a theme, and also that I'm a bit busier this weekend than usual with my Aunt from Australia due to arrive here tomorrow, and well, she's stuck in Dubai right now, probably not the best place to be.

The Introspective

I guess the big news this week is I decided to get myself both Xmen Legends games after finding some spare cash buried deep within my room. That or I finally beat the first level in Cirith's campaign on Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes after about two weeks of trying. When something is called Very Hard on the campaign select screen, it's best to believe it. Also, on the subject of Kingdom Under Fire, I plead anybody out there with an Xbox, put down Halo or whatever other overrated crap you are playing and buy Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders and Heroes. Awesome multiplayer, awesome single player, awesome story, awesome characters, just awesome in every way. Oh well, at least not one but two new KUF games are 360 bound. It also seems South Korea has made it's choice between the PS3 and Xbox 360 with the fact that Magna Carta 2, the sequel to probably the most popular non MMO based RPG ever developed in South Korea is heading to the Xbox 360 over the PS3, though of course the game will also be heading to the PC like it's predecessor. Pretty cool game, I have the PS2 version of the original. Of course, it's really most well known for the character designs being drawn by the famous Hyung Tai Kim.



That's Reith. Scrumptious little filly, isn't she?

Oh, and I tried out Dirge of Cerberus. I think if you look at the feedback in Jordan's next column, you'll see my opinion of it right there. But let me just say because I love to say it. Fuck you Square… just Fuck you.

And with that tirade out the way…

Now to some feedback. I got quite a lot this week, so it should cover for the shortness of the rest of the column.

Scott Williams wrote:

Hey Sean
Great article and it was fun to look back. I am normally a person who will only buy Sport title games. Zelda was the exception. I was one of the few who did beat the adventure of Link, but I needed the old Nintendo magazine maps of the game and the Game Genie to finally beat it. I still remember that the last level was ridiculously hard even with a game genie. Ocarina of Time is one of my favorite games I have ever played. I would get wrapped up for hours in the story, and remember the one time I went to my dorm room to see someone else playing it that I was pissed that it wasn't me playing the game. When I sold my N64 I really had to debate in my head if I was going to sell that game. Anyway great article and I can not wait for the next one.
Scott

This was the first piece of feedback I have received as a 411 columnist, and I have to say it is pretty damn heartening, that people enjoyed my first column so much. Of course, it surprises me not that somebody resorted to "gasp" cheat their way to victory in Zelda II, but sometimes doing that can be justified. And of course, who didn't like Ocarina of Time? People who aren't real gamers, that's who!

Carlos Waller wrote:

Hi, I'm at work and I happened to catch your article on Zelda and I'm one of the few, the proud, one of the people that's beaten Zelda 2. I really didn't think it was that hard when I first got it (I was 10 or 11... I'm 27 now... I feel so old now). I blew through the first 3 dungeons and took my time with the other 3. The last dungeon is impossible unless you're at level 8 across the board and are actually good at the game because some of the enemies are just evil!!

What I thought of the game was that I loved it. The world was huge and the interaction and slight puzzle solving involved made it a nice change from the first Zelda. I consider this game part of a holy trinity of sequels (Super Mario 2 and Castlevania 2 being the others) on the NES that tried something different instead of being the original game plus extra stuff (see almost every sequel ever made).

Either way, hope you like the feedback. Thanks for your time and thanks for the article. I'm a Zelda whore and it brought back good memories.

I actually thoroughly enjoyed Super Mario Bros 2 and Castlevania 2, and probably would have Zelda 2 if it wasn't so damn hard. Glad to see someone had the mad skillz to somehow beat the game, and I'm glad that you enjoyed the article, coming from somebody who's a good few years younger and who's first Zelda game was actually Link to the Past.

Jason Carr wrote:

haha my cousin and I spent quite a few years trying to beat zelda 2 for nes. and we did make it pretty damn far until the system froze on us! but I have it on disc in that gamecube set now so maybe I'll give it another shot. it was indeed one of the hardest games I've ever played for nes.

Little bit short but I'll respond to anybody who takes the time to write to me, and indeed it's that very disc that I've been using to experience the awesomeness of the first two Zelda games myself. I'm surprised to hear about a Gamecube freezing up because it's not a common occurrence, and it certainly sucks that it happened at a point like that.

Nelson J. Cupello wrote:

Hi-
Great column. I am pumped to read the rest. The only reason I still own a GC is because I am still holding out hope that the next Zelda will eventually come out. Anyway, I beat Link when I was about 10 years old and yes, to date it is probably the most difficult game I've ever played. One thing that made it so difficult was that it took forever to get enough points to get the magic spell necessary to defeat the boss before fighting Gannon. Then to make things even more ridiculous, the maze in the final castle took me about a month to figure out and once I did, this flying angel type character (sorry I don't remember names) was unbeatable (until obtaining the aforementioned spell), but one you DID beat him, Gannon was nothing more than this weak little Link clone that if you cornered and kept jumping and stabbing downwards on him, it would probably take under two minutes to defeat. So after months of gameplay, the final boss was one of the easiest ones and made all the work fairly unrewarding. Agreed, not the best game ever, but it's uniqueness keeps it's place in history secure.

Interesting insight into a part of a game that I will probably never, ever reach. And Easy final boss syndrome is known to affect many a tough game, I mean Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox, the Emperor was incredibly easy. Took me 3 days and 50 trys to beat Alma but that bitch at the end went down inside three minutes. Of course, that game had a manageable difficult curve, but Zelda II… I think I'll just go with that cheating idea if I ever try it again. To be honest, a Zelda II remake with a better-judged difficulty curve, completely overhauled graphics and some of the other AI niggles ironed out would make a damn fine DS game, don't you think? Kinda like Metroid: Zero Mission, but better since Zelda II really needs a remake if its ever going to be recognised for what it offered.

That is the emails out the way; time to read what the staffers had to say on the forum:

From the Triple Threat's own Sean Garner:

I really liked the column man. I have to agree with your assessment of Link II. I had it and played it a couple of times. I always wondered why in the world it was so freaking hard but thankfully for everyone they changed it back to simpler gameplay. I've played all those games you listed and I wasn't that big of a Zelda fan until Ocarina of Time. That game was just flat out awesome and I had tons of fun with it. I actually had a CD-I and my dad bought the two Zelda games just because he knew the name. All I gotta say is I felt like I was playing some of the worst games ever. I'm looking forward to the next column and so far your doing well. If you get any hate mail I would be rather surprised since you didn't say anything bad about Link.

Ah, bit of a pre-emption on the feedback this week, with Sean having played the CD-I games. Well they do sound awful, don't they? I would suspect most people got into Zelda either at Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time, just like the vast majority of Final Fantasy fans got into that series at VII. And I didn't expect any hate mail for this particular retrospective, I've already named the ones where it'll no doubt happen… and possibly when I cover Resident Evil 4 when it comes to that series to.

And from Steve McHugh, the nice man who organises the Top 5 column every week and a fellow countryman:

Enjoyed the column a lot and looking forward to the next one. I agree with pretty much everything you said, although that's likly to change when you get to Halo.

oh and i agree with you about the fact that its a nightmare for us Brits having to wait forever for releases. Like Dead Rising which is out 5 weeks after the US versions. but don't get me started on that as I'll be here a while.

I actually think that along with Mario 64 and goldeneye, Zelda was probably the most important release on the N64. without those 2 games the console would probably have done very badly indeed.

Steve, Steve, Steve. 5 weeks is nothing. Try waiting for over a year for a J-RPG like I've had to so very often. Even Square take ages with Final Fantasy and Kingdom hearts despite how mind numbingly, and unexplainably, popular those two series are. And yep, the N64 was built on the fantastic games Nintendo and Rare made for it. But that's no bad thing, 32 million units sold is a bona fide success if you ask me. It doesn't matter that the PSX sold a 100 million, considering about half of them were probably rebuys after the initial ones broke down.

And now to business:

The Legend of Zelda: Wand of Gamelon, Faces of Evil and Zelda's Adventure



Format: Phillips CD-i
Release: 1994-5
Notes: Pretty much only exist because Nintendo got cold feet when developing a CD add-on between themselves, Phillips and Sony, but only after signing a contract to Phillips that extended use of the Zelda franchise for three games. It was arguably the poorest business decision Nintendo ever made. I do think though that it wasn't completely their fault, it was definitely tough to say at the time how much success CD based media could have outside of music, and certainly, the CD-i flopped… but well the Playstation did not.

I have to say I have not played these games, and wouldn't particularly want to. I mean look at them, just, eww. Basically I read a few reviews and to summarise them, Zelda's Adventure is the best of the three and just about barely playable. However, all three suffer from really poor presentation, sound, graphics, FMVs, all done really badly. The gameplay in all three is generally confusing, none of the usual intuitive structure and level design associated with the rest of the series. I suppose for this week the feedback I'd be looking for would be from people who might have played these games, whether to confirm if these games deserve their reputation or maybe, somehow, they're not that bad.

In Retrospect: Nintendo and Zelda fans alike really want to forget these games ever happened. I do to, so lets close the book now, and never speak of these games again (unless I get any feedback anyway, which I'm not really expecting).

Well, that was the way in which that painful saga ended. But not every relationship Nintendo pursues with other companies ends in failure, particularly when said relationship is with proven hands like Capcom.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons



Format: Gameboy Color
Release: 2001
Notes: Developed by a Capcom team, introduced a lot of new characters into the Zelda Universe. Also the two games could be linked for bonuses, much like the wildly successful Pokemon games, basically riding on that success.

To be fully honest I've only spent a pretty short amount of time on these two games, basically because I never owned them and borrowed them for a short while from a friend. However, it was enough to at least know that these were solid entries into the Zelda series from a non-Nintendo team that still understood how to make decent Zelda games. Of course, I have heard some people did not like these games. It's true that the focus of them seemed to be a little different; more story-driven, and more action orientated, but I'd still say that these games had the core that every other (good) Zelda game has. I wouldn't mind seeing some of the new characters again, like Veran and Ralph who were pretty good characters in their own right and made the Hyrule of the Oracle games seem a lot more thriving than usual. It's worth pointing out these were the second games after Majora's Mask to not have Ganon as the villain, something that would become more common later in the series.

In Retrospect: These games were by no means landmarks, but they were solid games that tried to make the Universe of Zelda seem more comprehensive and fleshed out, and pretty much succeeded giving a lot of entertainment to fans along the way. They were also very difficult at times from what I'm told, but that's not really new for the Zelda series. They are also the biggest success story of Nintendo's relationships with third party developers… F-Zero GX and Starfox Assault did not really live up to their potential. But I think these games did.

And that's that for another week. Next week I'll be covering all the other games in the series, quite a varied bunch, from Majora's Mask to the Minish Cap. Looking at the actual main, Retrospective section and it was pretty damn small this week, but that shouldn't be the case next week with 4 released games and 2 as yet to be released games, all of which will be covered, plus a final retrospective rating the format of which I'm still deciding on. Until then. keep things in perspective! (yeah, took me a little longer to come up with that one)