Item - The Legend of Zelda

[Rating: 0/10]
[Recommended? NO]

I always have regarded - and always will regard - a good number of titles in Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series as all-time classics; a few rank within my personal list of the greatest video games ever made. Without any doubt, the development of the series - during its early years, at least - spawned some rather outrageous spin-off works of often questionable taste. The eponymous "The Legend of Zelda" adventure, a sixteen-page excursion from the 1990s that is of ashamedly poor quality, is one of the strangest interactive cash-in materials that have ever been produced; seeing as to how it somehow manages to rank inferior to the generally awful Nintendo Adventure Books released around the same time, it's no surprise that nothing of this kind was ever attempted again (as far as records indicate). The artwork is exceedingly awful and the adventure itself, ranging from the use of panel space to the introduction/handling/consideration of characters, danger elements, interactive quality and plot advances... I don't think there are words that can adequately relay how disappointing it all is. I don't think any gamebooks do justice to the beloved protagonist Link; he either acts or looks completely, and I mean COMPLETELY, out of character and out of line with everything those familiar in the slightest with the games would know him to be like. The dialogue - and WHY there is dialogue from a supposed-to-be-mute protagonist, I'll never know - is among the most embarrassing I've read in my entire life, and to make matters worse, the disgustingly ludicrous artwork doesn't try at all to match Link's expressions to the text/scenario. But I need to reiterate one point: the writing is truly awful, yes; the artwork is, to put it nicely, irredeemably bad to the worst degree imaginable, so much so that I sincerely hope that those who worked on this quit writing/drawing for the rest of time. (Note: This little work only exists, as far as I know, in archival projects; existing copies are exceedingly rare - and, I might add, for VERY good reason.)

If there was a Razzie equivalent for the worst interactive work published in a given calendar year, I have no doubt in the slightest that, should this little adventure have qualified, the absolute awfulness of this puzzling sixteen-page project of pure pain would've swept the awards with flying colors. Sometimes there are things which disappear into relative obscurity only to be appreciated later on for their merits; other times, works should just stay buried forever. This is the latter case - and you can take my word for it: avoid this work at all costs, unless you sincerely wish to get a taste of how low cash-ins can stoop in the world of interactive literature (and therefore better come to terms with how it is works like this that have forever tarnished the legacy of the potential of the format in the eyes of many). ^^

(Mysteriously disappears into the shadows.)

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