Last updated at 28 / 10 / 1998

The Zelda CD-i games ...

Most of you don't even know they exist. And even if you know, you probably never played them.  I've got to admit I never played them either. But Niels from Zelda HQ has! Here's what he thinks about the games. There are pictures now !

When Nintendo was going to produce a SNES CD-ROM, there was quite a bit of hassle with two big electronics companies. Both Sony and Philips (a big Dutch company) wanted to make the CD-ROM player for the Super Nintendo, and Nintendo made deals with both of them. In the end, nothing was made by either company, as Nintendo opted to develop a totally new next-generation platform, seeing how dismally the Sega CD had failed.

Instead, both electronics giants made their own machines. Sony's Playstation was awesome, but Philips' CD-i was a true disaster. Playstation even managed to push Nintendo from the market in some areas, but CD-i only pushed itself from the market. Somehow, however, Philips pulled a special license from their earlier talks. This allowed them to use Nintendo's characters in their games.

The result of this license is, among games such as Hotel Mario, three Zelda games for the CD-i. They weren't made by Nintendo, but by companies closely tied to Philips.

Over the years that Zelda Online has been online, I've had some coverage on the CD-i games on this site, but I never played the games myself. I had read the reviews in Power Unlimited, the Dutch gaming magazine, and had heard the reports from people who had played them. Pretty good games, but nowhere near Nintendo-quality, was my conclusion. How wrong could I have been...

Just recently, I got to borrow the first two Zelda games from someone. And a CD-i player from someone else. So, I actually got to test them.

Zelda's Adventure

so far, I haven't been able to track down Zelda's Adventure, a title that was released much later then the other two CD-i games. It's seen through a topdown view, with photorealistic backgrounds and once again starring Zelda. This sounds like a much better game then the other two, but then again, I don't have high hopes.

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

This game was released simultaneously with Link: Faces of Evil, and is just as bad. It's basically the same as the other title, however the story is different in that Zelda has to save Link this time. An excellent opportunity for feminist Zelda fans to learn some more about why we should all appreciate the astonishing level of gameplay in Nintendo-games.

Link: Faces of Evil

This is a terrible game. It starts out with a very pixelated movie, without any sort of anti-aliasing. The characters look horrible, the voices are awful and the story is stupid. You know, I could've said: "I don't want to sound too negative," but there's really no reason why I wouldn't want that.

Then, the game starts. The map screen looks very good, but when you enter the different levels (it's a 2D-sidescrolling game) you'll soon feel how unbalanced the gameplay is. It's just too hard. Not because the puzzles are hard to solve. No, the game doesn't react to your actions well, and beating the enemies is often impossible, and otherwise frustrating.

The character sprites look terrible, however the background graphics and music are both very good. Still, there's absolutely zero reason here to even look for the games. Except if you're really nuts, and want to make your collection complete.

CD-i