The Legend of Zelda series inspires tons of indie games every year. They just usually don’t take inspiration from the bad ones. That’s exactly what we’re getting with Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore, a new indie that draws inspiration from Zelda’s infamous Philips CD-i era.
During Limited Run Games’ third annual showcase, Seedy Eye Software and Limited Run revealed Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore, an “animated adventure” game inspired by Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon that will release later this year. If you don’t know about Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, they are two infamously terrible The Legend of Zelda games that were officially licensed by Nintendo for the Philips CD-i. These side-scrolling adventure games played terribly and featured ugly full-motion video animated cutscenes with terrible voice acting. You’ve probably seen some memes featuring the characters and animation from these games. Because of how bad they are, these titles aren’t really ones most developers look to for inspiration.
The developers of Arzette did, though.
Its reveal trailer establishes that the titular Princess goes on a quest to defeat an evil being named Daimur. It’s a 2D action platformer that looks like those two CD-i Zelda games, albeit one that looks a bit more fun to play. Its similarities to The Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamelon become inescapable during cutscenes, as the characters, animation, and voice acting all look like they came straight out of those games.
In general, the Limited Runs Games Showcase this reveal was at was a wild one, with remasters for classic Jurassic Park games, Gex, Clock Tower, Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties, Tomba!, and more announced. While we see odes to bad movies with films like The Disaster Artist and Ed Wood, we don’t see that nearly as often with bad games.
That should make Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore enjoyable and terrible (in a good way) when it launches on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Steam in 2023.
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