CD-I Zelda games?

[JagWarlord]

Anyone played these Zelda games for the CD-I system?

There are 2 that I know of.

[Classic Pac]

I did at Best Buy when the CD-I was still for sale. Total Crap all of them.

[x6d696168]

I haven't played them. But G4 did a epsisode of 'Icons' dedicated to Zelda. They interview some people, and talk about every zelda game. They even covered the CD-I games and boy they were crap.. They showed a bunch of footage from the games and mocked them. Icons is probablly the only show worth watching on G4... =)

[x6d696168]

Well, I do like that commercial with HSW doing that funky dance.. That commercial makes me laugh and sad at the same time.. HSW is so excited about yars revenge, and then sadly announces that he made the worse game of all time ET.. Anyways, back to work...

[MegaManFan]

They also mention the Zelda CD-I games in a Filter episode about the ten biggest failures of all time.

[PuddWakkr]

I've never played the Zelda games on CD-i. What makes them so bad? Controls? Graphics? Load times?

[Ze_ro]

It's pretty pathetic that Phillips managed to get the rights to make these games, and then makes them completely different than any of the previous games. If they had just stuck with tradition and made a Link to the Past type game (or better yet, two of them), they might have something worth buying.

 

At least the guys who were doing Super Mario's Wacky Worlds seemed like they knew what they were doing and kept to the theme of the series ('course, the game never came out, but at least they were on the right track)

 

--Zero

[JagMX]

Links game is pretty good - the Zelda game thats basically identical to Link is alright -

but the Zelda's Adventure game that goes for tons of money is crap - its realistic graphix - overhead view - its got the zelda 3 feel fro mthe snes but this game isnt very good at all

[sebastius]

There are three:

 

Link: The Faces of Evil

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

Zelda's Adventure

 

The first two are platform puzzle adventure type games. More platform/fight than puzzle, but still.

 

Adventure is pure and utter ugly crap. Faces is basically Gamelon but with less quality in graphics.

 

I personally like Gamelon a lot (I bought it when it was just out, i didn't have a NES then).

[justice_is_blind]

It's pretty pathetic that Phillips managed to get the rights to make these games, and then makes them completely different than any of the previous games. If they had just stuck with tradition and made a Link to the Past type game (or better yet, two of them), they might have something worth buying.

 

At least the guys who were doing Super Mario's Wacky Worlds seemed like they knew what they were doing and kept to the theme of the series ('course, the game never came out, but at least they were on the right track)

 

--Zero

 

Thought the SNES CD was going to be compatible with the CD-I system.Personally, I think Nintendo not doing a CD system is the biggest blunder they ever made.

[Ze_ro]

I think Nintendo not doing a CD system is the biggest blunder they ever made.

 

Considering how "well" the SegaCD and TurboGrafx CD did, I think Nintendo was better off. However, the fact that their slip-up lead to the PSX probably caused them quite a bit more trouble.

 

--Zero

[justice_is_blind]

I think Nintendo not doing a CD system is the biggest blunder they ever made.

 

Considering how "well" the SegaCD and TurboGrafx CD did, I think Nintendo was better off. However, the fact that their slip-up lead to the PSX probably caused them quite a bit more trouble.

 

--Zero

 

I think the SNES CD system would have done better than the Sega CD.Zelda CD,Mario CD,Star Fox CD,Metroid CD and so on and so forth.

[MegaManFan]

Fanboy in me says yes. Realist in me says no. Honestly it's the fact they keep updating the older games to newer systems, even with added features and better graphics, that cause people to say they've "run out of ideas" because they keep milking old franchises. That's a double-edged sword though, because when you've been around as long as Nintendo has you almost +have+ to rehash the old franchise characters to keep your long-standing customers loyal. A very evil catch 22. Personally I'm glad there wasn't a CD iteration of updates in the 90's. Losing the PlayStation may have been a colossal blunder on Nintendo's part, but we all won because it introduced a great generation of fun PS games and revolutionary titles like FF7. It's no different from Atari blowing licensing Nintendo. If they had succeeded we would have had NES updates of 2600 games, the same way we did on 5200 and 7800. Nintendo going off on their own led to some of history's greatest games.

[Bruce Tomlin]

Yeah, okay, so I'm bumping. But I'd rather bump than start a new thread.

 

I came across my two CD-I Zelda games while cleaning up yesterday (I don't have the rare one with the FMV live-action Zelda), and since I had recently found a second CD-I unit and had my CD-I joypad handy, I started playing Link: Faces of Evil.

 

First of all, the graphics are both good and bad. The backgrounds are quite nicely rendered, especially the overworld screen. Link's sprite looks a little dorky, especially when he jumps around, but it's not all that bad. But the animations look like they were done in MS Paint, not to mention the crappy, sloppy art style. Ug-lee. Link looks like a total dork in the cut scenes.

 

When it comes to gameplay, the first problem was figuring out what the hell to do. You shouldn't have to read the instructions, so I didn't. I defeaded all the monsters in a level and it looked like I should be able to go into doors, but it wouldn't let me. I had to download a walkthrough to figure stuff out, like how in two of the first levels you needed to collect snowballs/fireballs from the other level to get anywhere on the second screen.

 

Then there are the controls. The left button attacks with the sword. That's simple enough. Up and down on the joypad have you jump and squat. Not too much trouble there. It's the use of the second button where things get complicated. If you are in front of a door, it makes you go through the door. If you are squatting, it brings up the status screen, which lets you select your secondary weapon/equipment. Otherwise it uses the secondary equipment. In that order. Too bad if you're sitting in front of the door and you want to change your secondary equipment, or want to throw a bomb.

 

Jumping sideways is a pain in the butt, too. As near as I can tell, you can only actually jump if you're not already moving or attacking, and so you have to roll the joypad from up to diagonal. It's still way too easy to miss a jump, and Link doesn't jump very far anyhow.

 

Other than that, gameplay is pretty much your standard platformer. Progress is made by collecting items, and by using the triforce scrolls that take you back to the overworld. There's a triforce scroll at the start of a level to let you go back to the overworld, and one at the end which opens up a new area. You only get two retries before you have to completely start a level over, so if you die right away it's best to let the five-second timer run out and start again. It can be tricky to go through two or three maps before reaching the end of a level (retries start you over on the current map) without dying, especially at first when you only have three hearts.

 

There are also dark screens, so you have to use a lamp. The problem is, the lamp lasts about 15 seconds per use, you have to make it your secondary equipment to use it, and the screens where you need it usually have monsters which need a snowball or fireball as your secondary equipment. And when you start the level in the dark, you're in front of a door. So you have to move to the side, squat, select the lamp, use the lamp, then select another secondary item. And 15 seconds later you either have to remember what the level looks like, or go through that crap all over again. I found it easier just to rely on my memory.

 

From looking at my position in the walkthrough I used, I'm already more than half way finished after only eight or so hours of play. Admittedly, that's with a walkthrough, so I didn't have to waste time figuring out what to do next, but that's still with a lot of retries to get through levels. Which isn't entirely bad, because I'm not sure where the save games on CD-I go, or if it dies after I reset or unplug the player, so I would rather finish it sooner than later.

 

One parting bit of wisdom: don't use Goo-Gone on CD-I discs! The colored parts of the disc art use an ink which is soluble in Goo-Gone! Or finish the job completely and claim to have a rare uncolored version.

 

<Kamino> that game needs more cowbell

[Ze_ro]

Actually, since I posted to this thread in 2003, I've gone out and bought a CD-i, and one of the games I have for it now is Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. I eventually want to get the other two, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

The FMV sequences are pretty terrible... Dragon's Lair really spoiled us on FMV since the artists were so good, now everything else since then just looks like it was drawn by a 2 year old or something. Maybe I'm a little biased because of all the high-quality stuff I've seen since this game came out, but I honestly think this looks terrible even for the time period. Screenshots of it really don't do it justice either, as the animation itself really is bad.

 

The gameplay itself isn't TOO bad, but it suffers from some weird control issues, most of which Bruce outlines above. Often it's not obvious what you can and can't jump on in levels, due to the rather odd layout of platforms and the strange way your character jumps... sometimes you'll have a tough time getting up onto something even when you KNOW it's possible, just because you're not jumping in quite the right spot.

 

Anyways, overall the games aren't as horrible as people usually make them out to be. Obviously, they're nowhere near as good as any of Nintendo's Zelda games, but considering the rest of the CD-i library, they're downright decent. If you want a good platform game on the CD-i though, I'd instead recommend you try out The Apprentice instead.

 

--Zero

[SteveW]

I've got Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon too, and I couldn't play it all that far. I got to a point and couldn't figure out what to do, so I gave up. My copy's a demonstration version, so I wasn't sure if the game was capable of letting me get past this one spot. The animated intros are atrocious. I was shocked at how bad the animation looked. Not only the low resolution style of it, but the artistic direction too. The background art isn't all that bad, but I had a hard time finding where to jump, since the surfaces that you can walk on weren't all that well defined graphically. The game isn't the worst videogame of all time, but it's down there.

[Phineasfool]

I think Nintendo not doing a CD system is the biggest blunder they ever made.

 

Considering how "well" the SegaCD and TurboGrafx CD did, I think Nintendo was better off. However, the fact that their slip-up lead to the PSX probably caused them quite a bit more trouble.

 

--Zero

434344[/snapback]

 

Actually the TurboCD (PC Engine CD) did very well in Japan. Even being the top seller over there for awhile over the Super Famicom.

 

I used to have the CD-i Zelda games when they first came out and had some fun with them. Been years since I played them though. Sold my CD-i back in like '98 or '99.

[2600khz]

DOWN WITH SONY! DOWN WITH SONY! DOWN WITH SONY! DOWN WITH SONY!