Topic: Zelda On Phillips CDI

[RockmanX]

I've seen on some websites that Zelda games, 3 I think appeared on a console that was not Nintendo's.  I can't seem to gather much information on them.  So I was wondering if anyone knows anything about them.  Are they even real?  Were they pseudo 3D like past Zelda's?  Were they any good?

[Gibdo Master]

You should go here to read some fairly detailed articles about the games. It's from loz.zeldalegends.net which is one of the best Zelda sites out there. Every article and review I've read about these games says they are absolutely horrible.

[RickPowers]

They were the textbook definition of ATROCIOUS.  

[theaveng]

So why were they made?  What made Nintendo put Zelda on a non-Nintendo system?

[Gibdo Master]

Click on the links in my first post. It's very complicated and hard to explain as you'll find out after you read the article. Here it is again: link to article about Zelda and the CDi.

[Joey]

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So why were they made? What made Nintendo put Zelda on a non-Nintendo system?

I think the people that made the system payed a lot money to use the Zelda licnece and wanted to use it so the games would sell. I am sure Nintendo would not try that again unless they were confident that the developers would do the game justice.


As for the person who said the games was bad, did you know that EGM gave all three of them joint position in the list of the 20 worst games of all time? The only game that did worse was the Atari ET gane.

[Gibdo Master]

No, Philips didn't pay to make those Zelda games. Please click here on this highlighted text to read an article that explains the whole thing!

[Grey Ninja]

Guys, just click on the link to learn about the story if you don't know it already.  There's no need to speculate.

The 3 Zelda games were simply god-awful, and make me shiver just to think about them.  They are 2D, but barely.  They have horrible FMV, horrible voice acting, and the in-game graphics are simply terrible.  Hit detection is next to zero, and the games aren't very fun.

[theaveng]

It's not really that complicated.  (1) Nintendo hired Philips to design a CD-ROM for the Super Nintendo.  (2) In exchange, Nintendo granted a license to Philips to use Zelda on the Philips console (CDI).

According to that link, the main flaw with the games is that they are side-scrolling platformers (like Adventure of Link), and people don't like that style.

[Gibdo Master]

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Originally posted by: theaveng
It's not really that complicated.  (1) Nintendo hired Philips to design a CD-ROM for the Super Nintendo.  (2) In exchange, Nintendo granted a license to Philips to use Zelda on the Philips console (CDI).

Okay, sure if you are just giving that little slice of the whole thing then it's not that complicated. If you want to understand the whole thing though then it is complicated. Also Grey Ninja was a little more accurate as to why those games were bad. I would like to add that they also had horrible controls as well. This was partially due to the fact that the CDi controller only had a D-pad and two other buttons. That means that you had to hit both buttons at the same time to pause the game and go to the sub-screen. I've read that since the controls weren't very responsive it was a real pain in the ass to do that.

[theaveng]

I find the other stuff to be trivial and unimportant to answering the question, "Why is Zelda on Philips' CDI?"  All you need to know is that Nintendo hired Philips to create a CD-ROM for S-NES, and that as part of that deal, Philips was granted license to use Zelda on their CDI console.  The other stuff is not needed for answering the key question.