Arzette, Spiritual Successor to the Zelda CD-i games, announced at LRG3

​

Gee, it sure is boring around here. But don’t fret, because we’ve got a brand new adventure to look forward to. Developed by the cleverly titled Seedy Eye Software and published by Limited Run Games, Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is an action-platformer inspired by the legacy of the two infamous 90’s Zelda games on the Philips CD-i.

1993’s Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon for the Philips CD-i are often regarded as the black sheep of the series due to their negative reception and odd origins; Nintendo themselves have never acknowledged these games, let alone the company's partnership with Philips. The oddly animated cutscenes from these titles has led to many online parodies and spoofs that date back to the early days of YouTube. Although they couldn’t land a spot in Hyrule Historia, the CD-i games have definitely cemented themselves in internet history.

Arzette will feature all of the charm from the CD-i titles - such as the oddly animated cutscenes and similar type of gameplay - while taking place in a completely new fantasy world. The talented team includes developer Seth “Dopply” Fulkerson, composer Jake “Button Masher” Silverman (best known for being part of the award-winning 8-Bit Big Band), and designer John Linneman. Additionally, several people who were involved with the original Zelda CD-i games will be lending their talents to this new game. These include Faces of Evil artist Rob Dunlavey, and even the voice talents of Jeffrey Rath and Bonniejean Wilbur, who voiced Link and Zelda respectively in the CD-i games.

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is coming to consoles and PC later this year. You can watch the trailer for yourself below:

LRG3 as whole featured a stellar lineup of announcements, including (but not limited to) Arzette, a re-release of Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties, a physical release of Castlevania Advance Collection collection, the return of the original Gex trilogy, an enhanced port of the horror game Clock Tower that will be developed by WayForward, and Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution (the lost sequel to the original Shantae game). The full LRG3 presentation can be viewed here.

Author’s Note: I can’t believe my eyes. A true continuation of the games whose silly cutscenes really captivated me as a kid. It's surprising to see Zelda CD-i return in a way. I’m hoping that Arzette will have just as legendary of a presence online as Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon did. I’m pretty broke right now, though - I’ll have to buy it when I’m a little richer.

Credits:
Writing: Janx_uwu
Editing: @Sari
Thumbnail Graphic: @Zerp
Social Media: @Zerp

 

They even got the original voices back somehow.

They must have come back to get a little

MMMMMMMMM

Richer

 

"hey you know those games that everyone hated and were regarded as unplayable and are only remember for all the mickey that was taken? let's do that"

i just can't fathom the absurdity

 

"hey you know those games that everyone hated and were regarded as unplayable and are only remember for all the mickey that was taken? let's do that"

i just can't fathom the absurdity

Because it's funny.

That, and the games were remade via a fan a year or so ago to be actually playable without making you want to die, and the person who did that is the main dev behind the project from what I've heard.



As someone who grew up in the early 90's/mid 2000's, is it silly? Absolutely, but this pulls at my heartstrings like not much else lately. It's entirely nostalgia talking I admit, but as an early internet kid, Youtube poops unironically played a big role in my online time, and Zelda CD-i was the face of them, so seeing them paid tribute in a game that parodies them? Yeah, that's cool.


This game is entirely for people like me, who spent an ungodly amount of time watching Youtube poops where Link Buys a PS3 or something dumb like that, and they know exactly who they're marketing to.

 

Because it's funny.

That, and the games were remade via a fan a year or so ago to be actually playable without making you want to die, and the person who did that is the main dev behind the project from what I've heard.



As someone who grew up in the early 90's/mid 2000's, is it silly? Absolutely, but this pulls at my heartstrings like not much else lately. It's entirely nostalgia talking I admit, but as an early internet kid, Youtube poops unironically played a big role in my online time, and Zelda CD-i was the face of them, so seeing them paid tribute in a game that parodies them? Yeah, that's cool.


This game is entirely for people like me, who spent an ungodly amount of time watching Youtube poops where Link Buys a PS3 or something dumb like that, and they know exactly who they're marketing to.

I don’t really see what the era you grew up in has to do with this. I grew up in that era and the thing that was triggering my nostalgia was the game with the murdered mafia men as platforms

 

"hey you know those games that everyone hated and were regarded as unplayable and are only remember for all the mickey that was taken? let's do that"

i just can't fathom the absurdity

As has been mentioned, the guy working on Arzette has previously made remastered versions of Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon which made the gameplay somewhat bearable. I didn't play those, but from the footage in the trailer, Arzette's gameplay reminds me a lot of Shovel Knight which I really love.

If nothing else, the guy making this game's music is a Grammy-winner so you'll at least have to give the soundtrack a chance.

 

I don’t really see what the era you grew up in has to do with this. I grew up in that era and the thing that was triggering my nostalgia was the game with the murdered mafia men as platforms

Because by this point, I'm an old fart. So to see a company make a game that specifically targets a piece of my childhood nostalgia and pay tribute to it?

As the kids say, that's "kino".

 

They should make a sequel with a boy in green clothing with the exact same moveset! Im just saying!
BTW that makes me think why the heck did philip make 2 zelda games and 1 Link game i guess they wanted to use playable zelda as a selling point?
Nah but this series doesnt really need another protagonist especially cause arzette? Is Basically ZElda, Ganondorf and link as a unholy chimera and thats absolute Perfection!

 

They should name the protagonist something other than “Arzette” to revive the “everyone thinks link is named Zelda” meme

 

They should name the protagonist something other than “Arzette” to revive the “everyone thinks link is named Zelda” meme

Yeah but the cdi games are named after their protagonists!

 

If nothing else, the guy making this game's music is a Grammy-winner so you'll at least have to give the soundtrack a chance.

not unless it's yoko shimomura i don't

Because by this point, I'm an old fart. So to see a company make a game that specifically targets a piece of my childhood nostalgia and pay tribute to it?

As the kids say, that's "kino".

ok that i can understand as it's happened to me

 

This looks pretty good, I like some nice 2d platformers, and this looks to scratch my itch, this clearly is made off passion

 

honestly if nintendo cd-i games got rereleased it would still print money but nintendo is still paranoid about it even bringing back morshu to zelda games or adding him to smash would be a big deal
think about the amount of fan creation that was made for the cd-i games

 

honestly if nintendo cd-i games got rereleased it would still print money but nintendo is still paranoid about it even bringing back morshu to zelda games or adding him to smash would be a big deal
think about the amount of fan creation that was made for the cd-i games

I don't even think Nintendo owns the rights to those games, at least not fully. They gave Philips the rights to use some of their characters, but that's it. If anything, Philips still probably owns the majority stake to those games, and all the original characters they introduced.


It's a legal mess of a game that neither side probably see any value in going through with. It'd make mid to late 20/early 30 year old fans like myself happy, but those games are really unplayable trash that really would not sell.

 

I wonder if they'll reference other CD-i, ahem "classics". Though to be fair, referencing the Flowers of Robert Maplethorpe might give the game a hard M-rating

 

I wonder if they'll reference other CD-i, ahem "classics". Though to be fair, referencing the Flowers of Robert Maplethorpe might give the game a hard M-rating

Arzette does have minigames based on Hotel Mario! And given the team's passion for CD-i stuff, I'd be surprised if it stops there.

 

honestly if nintendo cd-i games got rereleased it would still print money but nintendo is still paranoid about it even bringing back morshu to zelda games or adding him to smash would be a big deal
think about the amount of fan creation that was made for the cd-i games

ok but the games are owned by Philips. Nintendo can’t do any of that

 

ok but the games are owned by Philips. Nintendo can’t do any of that

doesnt stop nintendo for at least asking

 

doesnt stop nintendo for at least asking

But why would they bother? The games are legit terrible. What financial reasons would they have to dig them back up and work on porting them to modern hardware?

People don't like these games because they're good games, they like them because of the funny cutscenes. Playing these games is legit torture, and I severely doubt many if anyone would buy them, especially since you can just, download the version of the game that fixes the gameplay, for free.


These games are part of my childhood as someone who grew up watching Youtube poops and I wouldn't buy them, they're terrible. You'd basically be working out legal jib-jab and hiring on a team of people to port these relics to modern hardware for an extremely niche audience. If I wanna hear Morshu say "MMMMMMMM", I can just fire up Youtube. I don't need to spend 9.99/14.99/19.99 on a game regarded as one of the worst ever made.

 

doesnt stop nintendo for at least asking

They usually dont even include stuff from the oracles and minish cap actually good games with well designed characters why would they go out of their way with games they regret allowing!
(Yes HW had 0 Minishcap and oracle rep 0)

 

Super Mario RPG gets a remake.

CDI Zelda gets a spiritual successor.

I can think of no better time to post this.

The masterpiece of King Harkinian.

 

Not keen on LRG's usual business practice, but this alongside the Gex collection were my favorite announcements they had. Can't deny their taste for weird 90's games.