Zelda Calendars 2021

New year, new calendars. Like the previous two years, I got both the Abrams calendar (on the left) and the Pyramid calendar (on the right). This could change in the upcoming years, however, because the difference in quality between the two keeps increasing.

I've always preferred the Pyramid calendar from a design standpoint, but because they just started doing this two years ago, their motives were a little bit too "vanilla" for my taste. I've seen all those artworks in the Abrams calendars before...

But now, funnily enough, it's the other way around. If you look at the 2020 calendars, four motives from the 2020 Pyramid calendar are now re-appearing in the 2021 Abrams calendar...! Talk about lazy... It's like they just were looking at what the competition is doing and said to themselves, "we can do that, too! Let's just copy that!"

Well, Abrams has expanded their previous focus on the 3D Zelda games to "3D Zelda games + A Link Between Worlds", so there is still not much love for the 2D Zelda games here. I didn't even bother with their new Metroid calendar for 2021, because it's twelve times a Samus render from the Metroid Prime Trilogy games. I'm not even joking, you get one month of Quadraxis and the rest is Prime Samus.

It's like the guys at Abrams have the mindset of "we have to go with the popular 3D games or else no one will buy this". Pyramid on the other hand will offer you artwork from The Legend of Zelda, The Minish Cap, Four Swords Adventures, A Link Between Worlds and the new Link's Awakening remake.

With the latter they are also more up-to-date. Abrams seemingly likes to produce and sell their calendars very early, but because of this they are usually two or even three years behind with what's new in the series. Pyramid doesn't seem to be as bad in that regard, where they got the newest Zelda game covered. Plus, they had a good pick with the Champions for December, where this also works nicely to represent Age of Calamity.

Also, the new design for the months in the Pyramid calendar is absolutely amazing. Check this out:

 

It's a dungeon map! This is probably inspired by the Chamber Dungeon feature from Link's Awakening and I absolutely love this. This looks so cool and you get a different dungeon every month! That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you design a nice Zelda calendar.

I won't even bother showing you the inside of the Abrams calendar, because it's the same uninspired, effortless single-color design as always. And you can see an example on the back above. So, if you only have space or money for a single Zelda calendar, definitely go with the one from Pyramid.