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| Zelda's Adventure | |
|---|---|
 Box art forZelda's Adventure | |
| Developer | Viridis Corporation |
| Publisher | Philips Interactive Media |
| Director | Anna Roth |
| Designers | Lee Barnes Christopher Thompson |
| Series | The Legend of Zelda |
| Platform | Philips CD-i |
| Release | |
| Genre | Action-adventure |
| Mode | Single-player |
Zelda's Adventure is anaction-adventurefantasy video game developed by Viridis Corporation and released on theCD-i format, based onThe Legend of Zelda franchise. Set in the land of Tolemac, the game follows a non-traditional storyline, in whichLink has been captured by the evil lordGanon, andZelda must collect the seven celestial signs in order to rescue him.
Released nearly eight months after the first twoZelda CD-i games,Zelda's Adventure uses a different game engine fromFaces of Evil andWand of Gamelon. Whereas the first two CD-i games were patterned on the side-scrollingZelda II: The Adventure of Link,Zelda's Adventure took the top-downThe Legend of Zelda,A Link to the Past, andLink's Awakening as its models.Zelda's Adventure is the onlyLegend of Zelda game to feature live-action cutscenes. Reception for the game was negative, and whereas some critics have given more nuanced reviews of the first two games,Zelda's Adventure is regarded asone of the worst video games ever made.
Unlike the previous two CD-iZelda games, which take theside-scrolling view fromZelda II,Zelda's Adventure is played with the overhead view found inThe Legend of Zelda.[3] Playing asPrincess 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.[3][4]
Unlike the other two games,Zelda's Adventure was created by Viridis, an entirely different company, with a change in style and gameplay.[3][4] Level design is very much like the originalThe Legend of Zelda andA Link to the Past, with an overworld that allows access to individual dungeons.[4][5] TheFMV sequences that present the plot arelive action instead of animated.[5]
Ganon has kidnapped Link and stolen the seven celestial signs, creating an "Age of Darkness" in the kingdom of Tolemac (Camelot spelled backwards).[6] Princess Zelda (Diane Burns, Annie Ward) is recruited by the courtastrologer Gaspra (Mark Andrade in costume, voiced byHal Smith) to collect the signs to defeat Ganon and save Link.[7]
Guided by the words of Shurmak, Zelda must first travel through the forest to the Shrine of Rock,[8] where she encounters Llort, a greedy minion of Ganon who protects the first celestial sign.[9] Gaspra appears to congratulate Zelda and direct her to the Shrine of Illusion where she faces Pasquinade to earn the second celestial sign.[10][11] Guided by the inhabitants of Tolemac, Zelda then makes her way to the mountains to conquer the Shrines of Air[12] and Destiny[13] before crossing the great south sea to challenge Agwanda at the Shrine of Water for the fifth sign.[14][15] Gaspra directs Zelda once more to the Shrine of Power in the southeast where her strength is tested,[16] before traveling to the Shrine of Fire where she will face Warbane.[17][18] As Zelda reaches to collect the final celestial sign Ganon's claw stops her, and she is drawn into his lair for the final battle.
In the game's final scenes, peace returns to Tolemac. Link is revealed to be safe, holding hands with Zelda where the entrance to Ganon's lair once stood, the land now thriving with new growth and Gaspra praises Zelda for saving Tolemac from Ganon and restoring peace and prosperity.[19]
In 1989,Nintendo signed a deal withSony to begin development of aCD-ROM-based system known as the "Nintendo PlayStation" or theSNES CD to be anadd-on to theSuper Nintendo Entertainment System that would allow forFMV and larger games.[20][21] However, Nintendo broke the agreement and instead signed withPhilips to make the add-on, which causedSony to spin off their add-on into its own console called thePlayStation.[20][22][23] Witnessing the poor reception of theSega Mega-CD, Nintendo scrapped the idea of making an add-on entirely.[20][21] As part of dissolving the agreement with Philips, Nintendo gave them the license to use five of their characters, includingLink,Princess Zelda, andGanon, for games on Philips's console called theCD-i, after the partnership's dissolution.[21][24] 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[21][25] based on the artwork from Nintendo's original two titles and that of their respective instruction booklets.[26] Philips insisted that the development studios utilize all aspects of the CD-i's capabilities includingFMV,[27] high-resolution graphics, and CD-quality music.[26] 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),[27] and numerous problems in streaming-audio, memory, disc access, and graphics.[26] Viridis was tasked with observingA Link to the Past and basingZelda's Adventure's gameplay on it, though was told to still show off the CD-i's capabilities, meaning that the game still used Redbook audio and animated cutscenes.[28]
The backgrounds forZelda's Adventure were created from videos of scenery nearSanta Monica Boulevard inWest L.A., footage ofHawaii taken from a helicopter and the developers' vacation photos.[29] 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.[29] Photos of the characters were shot using mirrors mounted on the ceiling, which was so low it precluded mounting the camera. All of the game's human characters were portrayed by the in-office staff. The character's sprite walking animations were done by having the actors walk on a motorizedtreadmill.[30] The game's music composer, Mark Andrade also physically portrayed the part of Gaspra in the game's cutscenes, while his voice was dubbed byThe Andy Griffith Show star,Hal Smith which was notable for being Hal Smiths final voice acting role before he passed away in 1994. Zelda in the game's opening cutscene was played by office receptionist Diane Burns due to the games low budget, while in other cutscenes as well in-game she was portrayed by Annie Ward.[29] The houses and interiors built for the cut scenes were built as scale models.[29] Non-human characters were created using clay models and being animated instop motion animation. The model artist was Jason Bakutis, who had worked in Hollywood on movies likeCritters 3 andFreddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.[31] Developers have stated they were not influenced by the first two CD-i Zelda games.[29]Zelda's Adventure spent two years intesting, longer than it took to develop the game.[29] Much more music was composed for the game than was used.[29] Developers had difficulty making sure all the areas of the game had proper background masking.[29] There were plans at one point to hireEcho & the Bunnymen to do the music.[31]
Intending to push the capacities of the CD-i to its limits, development initially progressed with a goal of 600 screens and 160NPCs. At this early stage, Viridis president Lee Barnes suggested that playthrough time might take as much as 300 hours.[32] These development figures were reduced in the final product which had only a handful of NPCs and whose playthrough time has been placed by one commentator at only 12 hours.[33]
The majority of the game's programming was done by one person—Randy Casey, who was responsible for programming all of the game and all associated tools. Additional programming for the inventory system and game progress tracking, dubbed "FRP engine", was done by Gavin James. There is conflicting information about the game's budget—one developer claims there was "no budget at all"[30] while Bakutis claims (likely erroneously) it had "at the time, the biggest budgetever for a video game".[31]
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| CD-i | 84%[34] |
Zelda's Adventure was widely panned by critics. The graphics ofZelda's Adventure were called "blurry and digitized".[22][35]Wired magazine said that the graphics were some of the worst ever encountered.[22] 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.[35] Scott Sharkey of1UP.com called the box art ofZelda's Adventure one of the 15 worst ever made.[36]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.[35][37]
Despite giving positive reviews forFaces of Evil andWand of Gamelon, neither Danny Cowan of1UP.com norRetroGamer's John Szczepaniak would extend them toZelda's Adventure, which Szczepaniak described as demonstrating arbitrary and illogical design, sloppy visuals, nearly non-existent music, excruciatingly high difficulty and cumbersome loading and controlling. Gameplay forZelda's Adventure has also been portrayed as a trial-and-error effort to guess which items can be used to defeat which enemy.[38] Cowan calledZelda's Adventure "practically unplayable" due to the jerky frame rate, unresponsive controls, and long load times, summarizing his review with a warning to avoid the game at all costs.[35] In discussing the popular online conception thatZelda's Adventure is superior toWand of Gamelon andFaces of Evil,RetroGamer pointed to the top-down perspective as fomenting misinformation regarding the game's similarities to the originalZelda when, according toRetroGamer, the game is actually not worth playing.[38]USgamer staff rankedZelda's Adventure as the second worstThe Legend of Zelda game, noting that it is counted separately from the other CD-i games due to being less terrible than the others. They considered it a "well-meaning attempt" to recreate the originalThe Legend of Zelda on the NES, as well as crediting it for being one of few video games to let players play as Zelda, but felt that the lack of experience on the designers' part as well as the CD-i's technical limitations made it a "dreadful" game to play.[39]IGN writer Peer Schneider was excited that a new developer was chosen instead of the one behindWand of Gamelon andFaces of Evil, though still felt it was not worth playing despite being an improvement over the other two games. He recommended it only for "die-hard Zelda fan[s]".[28]
In April 2023,indie developer, John Lay completed a port to the NintendoGame Boy. The game was build using GB Studio and released on the indie game platformitch.io. In November 2024, an update was released adding color and quality of life improvements. On November 9, 2025, John Lay released version 2.0.0 as Zelda's Adventure DX designed to run on the NintendoGame Boy Color.
The July 1994 issue of Computer and Video Games included a preview ofZelda's Adventure, where it gave a release date of August of the same year. Likewise, the August 1994 issue of the UK CD-i magazine had a review ofZelda's Adventure, which gave an October release date. Neither of these release dates stuck, and the game would be pushed back to early 1996. Had any of the releases happened, it's likely thatZelda's Adventure would've been released in North America around the same time.
Out: 10/05
Gaspra the Astronomer: And so it was that Ganon, Lord of Darkness, had taken over Tolemac. He had stolen the treasured celestial signs and captured Link!
Gaspra the Astronomer: And so I've found this champion of strength and courage. It is you, Princess Zelda. (...) Go now, my princess; restore the celestial signs and rescue Link.
Shurmak: I am Shurmak your guide. I have known you since you were a child. (...) Go now to the one who has a bed but never sleeps, where by its side the red willow weeps and to its mouth that never speaks.
Llort: I said this is my cave. Mine! This is the Shrine of Rock and I am Llort! Go away! Take nothing! It's all mine!
Gaspra the Astrologer: Congratulations, Zelda. You have prevailed. Hurry now; you must travel to a place of festi`val. Rumor tells it is found in the great forest to the north. And remember, all is not what it seems.
Shurmak: Look beyond illusion to conquer the evil Pasquinade. Deception is all around you.
Thabul the Mystic: Something you seek is not of this world, but above it. Defeat the woman of the air. It is to the east you must go.
Gaspra the Astrologer: Your quest continues to the northwest, to a place of burial where destiny can be challenged.
Gaspra the Astrologer: Hurry, now! Waters of healing and renewal await you. Remember, to look for the great sea island to the south.
Shurmak: A strong spirit leads the way to the troubled waters that lie ahead. Stay above water and you will conquer the evil Agwanda.
Gaspra the Astrologer: I hear tell of a vast fortress of strength and power. Go forward bravely, and you will be victorious.
Gaspra the Astrologer: You're drawing close, but your journey will carry you far to the northwest where many say there's a rumble in the earth and a glow of fire.
For thirty suns my husband and I ran the great locksmith forge for Warbane. Then Ganon came and pressed Warbane into service for his own evil plan. The forge was closed. Warbane built a fortified retreat of his own, somewhere off in the Forest of Canvula to the north.
Gaspra the Astrologer: Princess Zelda, you've succeeded! The victory has brought peace and light back to Tolemac. Your courage and strength will not be forgotten. For now, your work is done. Off you go to celebrate Link's return. But first, remember, lessons of the heart, mercy, and human kindness prevail above all else. Farewell, young princess!
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