Next up is the infamous CDi games. Having now finished the first two, I feel a lot of the opinions of these two games is based solely on a small handful of YouTube videos that people have viewed and repurposed as gospel. For starters, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and Link: The Faces of Evil are nowhere near the worst games of all time. There are actually a lot of parts that are pretty fun. Given the difficulty emulating these hard-to-find games, I believe most haven't given them a fair try (which is something I'm working on here).
First up for me was Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. To save resources, it was developed simultaneously with Link: The Faces of Evil and they were released at the same time. They often get lumped together as the same but are actually quite different. The Zelda game is a bit more cerebral, focusing on collecting items from people around the world to outsmart bosses. If you have the right item, most of them go down in a single hit. Link's game is more combat focused (which I'll describe more in the next post).
Most of this game's notoriety comes from these infamous cutscenes:
Indeed, the animation is a special kind of terrible. It was farmed out to a Russian-based animation group as the soviet union was falling. I have two huge complaints. First, most of the people look hideous. Every person in every village looks disgusting. Some of the scenes would also be okay, except the animations had to have every body part of every character moving at all times. Link can't just talk to the king, his eyes have to be spinning around in his head while his arms twerk around and the camera zooms in and out. It's so strange. Half the scenes would be fine if they just stood and talked to each other.
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| Why couldn't they just make Zelda act normal in this scene? |
There's a couple elements where I give the cut scenes a pass. First, the video quality is amazing for the time. Compared to video compression on contemporaries like the Turbografx CD and Sega CD, the video is crisp and pretty smooth. I also don't think the developers can be blamed for some of the characterizations and dialogue. You have to remember this was being developed at the same time as Link to the Past. That means the most recent work the developers could look at was Zelda II on NES and the Zelda animated cartoon. Indeed, the characters all talk and act like the cartoon characters (like Link desperately begging for a kiss at all times). In that regard, the game seems to be succeeding at much of what it set out for.
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| What most of the game actually looks like |
I mentioned Zelda II, that is the game that plays the closest to Wand of Gamelon. This game is a side-scroller. The levels would not be bad if not for the limitations of the console. For starters, the CDi only has two button inputs. This game needed many more. Because of that, up on the control pad is jump. Thankfully, I've been playing a lot of MSX games in the past year with a similar control style so that wasn't too bad for me but I know is tough for others who have played the game. Button 1 is your sword and everything else is on button 2. This leads to confusion when trying to go through doors (button 2), use items (button 2) and open the menu (button 2 while crouching).
The levels look pretty and are hand painted. But there is no telling at times what is the background and what you can interact with. Some levels (like the terrible Washubi Swamp level) require precision jumps but you can't tell where a ledge begins and ends. Sometimes you can also wander around without understanding what is and isn't an entrance to another area. Exploring the second half of the village of Sakado requires you to enter a certain home, stand on a specific window ledge and press button 2. Seriously, don't attempt this game without a guide.
Thankfully, the levels, while tough, are short enough you can beat with practice. The game starts very difficult and gets much easier when you upgrade your sword to shoot projectiles and gain a cloak to make yourself temporarily invincible. It all comes together in a challenging and fun final battle through Reesong Palace. I felt accomplished when I beat Ganon and am happy I played this game.
I should also mention the music. While it doesn't sound like much of the series, it is frequently fantastic. I've had many of the songs stuck in my head since completing the game.
Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon was fun at times, challenging and sometimes humorous. Yeah the animation was bad and some parts felt cheap, but honestly no more cheap and vague than parts of Zelda II. This would be the CDi game I would recommend if you can only try one. Someone even put out a version for the computer recently that fixes many of the problems (and will run on your PC). Either way, I think these games are worth a try for fans of the Zelda series.
Here's my updated list:
1. The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
2. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
3. The Legend of Zelda
4. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
5. Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon
6. BS Legend of Zelda
7. Zelda (Game & Watch)
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