Arzette: The Jewel of Faramoreis a newly announced game that takes inspiration from two of the worst, most heavily ridiculedZeldagames of all time,Link: The Faces of EvilandZelda: The Wand of Gamelon.Arzetteis a 2D side-scrolling platformer funded and published byLimited Run Games, a company based out of Raleigh, North Carolina, whose primary focus is the preservation of video games on physical format by selling limited runs of classic and obscure games primarily through its website.
Limited Run recently held its 2023 Summer Games Showcase, an event wherein the publisher announced several new projects mostly centered around its game preservation efforts. It announced collected editions ofJurassic Parkvideo games released in the 1990sas well as a physical release of theGextrilogy.
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In addition toreaffirming Limited Run’s commitment to game preservationduring its 2023 Summer Games Showcase, Limited Run also announced a new game being published under its banner, although it might not look like a new game, which is the point.Arzette: The Jewel of Faramoreis a spiritual successor to theZeldaCD-i games that have become infamous for being the most tonally incongruousZeldagames ever made. On top of that, they are often considered some of the worst video games ever made.
Arzette: The Jewel of Faramoreaims to take a formula established by two universally pannedZeldagames and turn it into a game people might want to play. Based on the trailer,Arzettefaithfully sticks totheZeldaCD-i aesthetic, right down to the hand-painted backgrounds, early-1990s platformer mechanics and an absurd full-motion animated style of cinematic that’s a dead ringer for the art style of the CD-iZeldagames. Only this time, under Limited Run, it’s all being done intentionally, to honor the legacy of a notorious set of games, and with tongue firmly in cheek.
Back in the 1990s, Philips Interactive Media publishedZeldagames for its ill-fated gaming console, the CD-i. The games wereLink: The Faces of Evil,Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, andZelda’s Adventure. The first two were primarily 2D side-scrolling platformers interspersed with laughably bad animated cinematics that have become legendary among gamers for all the wrong reasons. Neither game was developed by Nintendo, and therefore is not part of the properZeldacanon. They are anomalies that Nintendo has all but disavowed.Arzetteis being developed by a one-man development team known as thedopster, who made a name for himselfby remastering the infamous CD-iZeldagames in 2020.
Arzette: The Jewel of Faramorewill be available later in 2023 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
