Played Some Wand of Gamelon

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Well, I always claim that I've played and completed all Zelda games in existence, but this is only true, if you don't count the Philips CD-i Zelda games. They don't count, though. While Philips held some character licenses that led to the games, Nintendo doesn't officially acknowledge them as part of the "The Legend of Zelda" series. Not even Hyrule Historia mentions them and for good reasons.

I do own a copy of Link: The Faces of Evil, but I never had a CD-i to play the game and I never had any real interest in it anyway. I just got it for cheap on ebay and thought it was worth a "lol".

Anyway, this weekend I visited a retro gaming "exhibition" in my town, where there was one lonely Philips CD-i waiting to be played with a copy of Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon inserted. Of course I had to try this.

And it's as bad as they say. The system didn't have a real controller, but more like a remote with a large D-Pad and buttons in the left and right upper corners. It was designed for one hand, which played badly. The left button lets you attack with the sword, which at the same time also lets you pick up Rupees and talk to people. The right button opens the menu, but it's also a hidden interaction for doors and entryways, which took me forever to realize.

The worst part is the fighting, however. If you thought that Four Swords has a short and unforgiving recovery time, you haven't played this game. Enemies running through you will kill you, because you lose half a heart per frame or so. Even on full health this game can kill you in the blink of an eye.

Sadly, I couldn't experience the best part, which is the sound and music, because the TV was muted and I couldn't turn it up again. But I liked the overworld map, which seemed quite creative and intriguing. I didn't get far, however, because I started somewhere early in the game and it was entirely unclear what I had to. And of course I couldn't play it forever.

I've seen quite a lot of the games at Zeldathon, but I forgot most of it already. It's mostly the (unintentionally) funny moments that stick with you here. It was still interesting to experience it for myself for once and maybe I'll get another shot at these games in the future. I wouldn't want to try Zelda's Adventure, however, because it's so terribly slow between screens.