Got Art & Artifacts

Yesterday I received the new Art & Artifacts ("Hyrule Graphics" in Japan) book published by Dark Horse. As you can see, I didn't go for the Limited Edition, mostly because I wasn't a big fan of the Master Sword design and the standard edition just looks so much better right next to Hyrule Historia, because Dark Horse used the same design for both books. Even the backs match precisely, so they go very nicely together in any shelf:

If Dark Horse also releases Hyrule Encyclopedia in the same style, it will become a nice collection.

The book itself isn't as big of a must-have like Hyrule Historia, but it's still nice a nice addition and with a total of 428 pages almost twice as thick as its green, older brother, where both books complement each other. Other than the official timeline and the Skyward Sword manga, Hyrule Historia was essentially a collection of concept art. Now Art & Artifacts offers a collection of all the official artworks that were released alongside all the games. This includes cover arts, character designs, item images and illustrations. Some bigger illustrations go over two pages and fill them out completely. For Breath of the Wild there's even a foldout triple page to display the large free climbing view from last E3.

There's also a pixel art section at the end, which seems like a nice idea, however, it only covers the first three games. And then there's the big interview section with some of the designers. These interviews and their reveals have been all over the Nintendo news for the last couple of weeks/months, but it's still interesting to read it all for yourself.

Overall this book is a nice way to go through the entire Zelda series again on a visual basis. It's perfect for reflecting over 30 years of the franchise in one evening, especially looking at all the character art brings back quite some memories. It's also nice, if you want to show anyone, how diverse the Zelda series really is. There are so many different art styles and character designs in this book, it's amazing.