Though we featured a number of Zelda commercials earlier this week, like Vanessa Williams, we've saved the best for last. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, arguably the finest handheld game ever released, had its share of unusual ads, relying on corny rappers and wacky puppetry to sell the ARPG in the US and Japan. In the UK, however, gamers were treated to the slapstick humor of one of Britain's most distinguished comedians.
Posts with tag zelda-week
Promotional Consideration: Drop Dead Zelda
Though we featured a number of Zelda commercials earlier this week, like Vanessa Williams, we've saved the best for last. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, arguably the finest handheld game ever released, had its share of unusual ads, relying on corny rappers and wacky puppetry to sell the ARPG in the US and Japan. In the UK, however, gamers were treated to the slapstick humor of one of Britain's most distinguished comedians.
Zelda Week: Bishop Allen's "Butterfly Nets"
"Still surprised to catch you, every time.
Still surprised to catch you, by and by and by and by."
The New Gamer has put up a downloadable mp3 of the song, as well as an analysis on how its lyrics and mollifying tone unintentionally matches that sense of discovery and wonder one often has when exploring Hyrule. The track's title itself recalls memories of chasing flitting bees and fairies with a bug-catching net in A Link to the Past.
On a somewhat related note, we had the pleasure of meeting Bishop Allen's lead singer, Justin Rice, when the Brooklyn-based indie band was touring with Mates of State a few years ago. He started chatting with us in a public restroom, visibly three sheets to the wind, while we were washing our hands, and somewhere during the conversation, he convinced himself that we were searching for a misplaced friend. We parted ways several minutes later, and he promised to keep an eye out for our off-course comrade. We wonder if he ever found him ...
Zelda Week: Player's Guide artwork
Their use of color and light sources vividly recreate scenes from the early NES, Game Boy, and SNES games better than anything we've ever seen before. We have dropped a few choice images from the books past the break so you can see what we mean -- don't miss out!
DS Daily: GRUMBLE, GRUMBLE ...

The "Enemy Bait" item was required in three of The Legend of Zelda's dungeons, to get past hungry Goriyas like this one. As an aside, that's one of the least intuitive puzzles we can think of, and we have no idea how we ever got through it the first time.
But the Enemy Bait was sold (by the "BUY SOMETHIN' WILL YA?" guy and his friend, the "BOY, THIS IS REALLY EXPENSIVE!" guy) primarily as a means of diverting enemies during a fight. Our question: have any of you ever used Enemy Bait for that purpose? Did you even consider using Enemy Bait in the overworld? Was it useful?
But the Enemy Bait was sold (by the "BUY SOMETHIN' WILL YA?" guy and his friend, the "BOY, THIS IS REALLY EXPENSIVE!" guy) primarily as a means of diverting enemies during a fight. Our question: have any of you ever used Enemy Bait for that purpose? Did you even consider using Enemy Bait in the overworld? Was it useful?
Zelda Week: They may not be Rupees ...

Well, it also helps that this is Zelda Week.
Be sure to hit up past the break for some more creations from DekuPyro.
Friday Video: You must eat swords
Those are provided as background for our Zelda Week Featured Friday Video: a mashup of scenes from Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: Wand of Gamelon called "Swords for Dinner." It takes the unintentional humor found in the original videos' weird, jerky animation and pointless dialogue and makes it into a screamingly hilarious story that is only marginally stranger than whatever was happening in the real videos.
Show and Tell: Zelda week, day five

As for today's edition, we wanted to focus on the biggest and the best -- and that means collections. Some of you had some really nice sets of Zelda gear, and this day's for you. Check out the gallery below to see everything, including half of reader Kimya's collection. Yes, half -- the other half is back home in Spain, but she has a Flickr set she keeps adding things to as well. We said wow.
Zelda Week: Possibly the best gaming cake ever

Unless you do. In which case, we want it.
DS Daily: What's your least favorite Zelda title?

Poll results: Playing favorites
In the midst of our celebration of all things Zelda, we asked you to choose, once and for all, your favorites from the franchise (up to, but not including Phantom Hourglass). It was a hard fight, but as many might have guessed, Ocarina of Time snatched the console title away from A Link to the Past. The handheld fight was a little closer -- skip on past the break to see the results of that wrestling match -- but votes were very much weighed in favor of two of the five titles, whereas votes on the console games were more spread out.
The final results might not have been too surprising when it comes to the winner, but the fact that every single game got at least a few votes certainly is. Now that's the mark of a good franchise!
The final results might not have been too surprising when it comes to the winner, but the fact that every single game got at least a few votes certainly is. Now that's the mark of a good franchise!
Zelda Week: The art of Jainai Jeffries
Show and Tell: Zelda week, day four

Do you have some awesome Zelda gear? Anything from t-shirts to tattoos, to statues and standees, if it features Link, we want to help you show it off. Snap some pics and send 'em to showmeit [at] dsfanboy [dot] com. If we don't get to your stuff this week, we can always show you off in a later edition!
(Some guy at) Blizzard loves Nintendo

Clearly, we approve of this decision. Also, of the completely outrageous and awesome ice sculpture, which looks just about perfect for Zelda week. Maybe we could get one of those for the DS Fanboy offices ....
The cake, of course, featured Nintendo themes, with Mario and Peach perched on the top tier, and all of the tables were named after consoles. But the best part? Even the wedding's music was lifted from classic Nintendo games. Now we're officially jealous.
Check out the full gallery at Joystiq to see what a real gamer wedding looks like. We must say: it's epic.
Zelda Week: Stronger and more braver
The Legend of Zelda: The Light of Courage is Nintendo fandom gone horribly, horribly right. It's a tale of adventure, lazy eyes and mean-spirited pranks against an IGN forum member.
The Light of Courage got its start when someone convinced an IGN poster named JoeCracker that animation company DIC was interested in using his fanfic as the basis for a new animated Zelda series. Then, to really sell the story, some guys, pretending to be Super Mario Bros. Super Show/The Legend of Zelda producer John Grusd, posted a CG "test animation" featuring a scene from JoeCracker's script. You can see that first animation above.
But they didn't stop there. Two more Light of Courage videos were produced, and they are epic. The lulz generated by parts 2 and 3 of The Light of Courage make up for pretty much all the other Zelda fanfic out there. We don't even really know what to say about them, except that they're embedded after the break, and that we hope we don't have to draw you a map to help you get there. And, if you like them, the Light of Courage homepage has higher-quality (sort of) WMV versions of all the videos, and even the promise of a fourth!
Zelda Week: the Zelda games you'll never play

The first, shown above, was a Super Mario All-Stars style remake of The Legend of Zelda, with some pretty significant differences. Most notably, it was serialized. The game was broadcast over the satellite system over four weeks (from 4pm to 7pm daily), and only one section of the game could be played per week.
However, it wasn't just a pretty, frequently-interrupted The Legend of Zelda. In fact, it's something of a "Third Quest." The overworld map was cut in half, and locations and enemies were mixed up. The dungeon maps were also all redrawn (the maps of the six dungeons spell out "St. GIGA", the name of the satellite network), and Link was replaced by a generic boy or girl "from another world." But those are among the least shocking changes made to this game.
Continue reading Zelda Week: the Zelda games you'll never play