Videogame Cinema: The Legend of Zelda

Want to feel old? The Legend of Zelda turned 40 this year. Even if you aren’t old enough to turn to dust on reading that, it’s still something that’s hard to believe. But what is even harder to believe, at least for me, is that in those 40 years there haven’t been any major adaptations of it.

Mind you this is one of those facts that is both surprising and unsurprising at the same time. Unsurprising because, well it’s Nintendo. Nintendo is incredibly protective of its IP’s. They guard their franchises like dragons guard their gold, and after the absolute train wreck that was the live-action Super Mario Bros movie they never allowed anyone to touch their properties for movies again. Especially not for Zelda.

Because while Mario is their biggest brand, Zelda is their most prestige. The Zelda series is one of the most respected in all of gaming. I mean this thing practically invented the formula for the action-adventure genre. Every single game in that genre, whether it be 2D or 3D, has some Zelda in it’s DNA. I mean how often do you see a game being compared to Zelda? Quite a lot I’d imagine.

Even after 40 years they still find ways to keep it fresh, exciting and interesting. The Wilds duology has basically reinvented the scale and structure of modern action adventures, just like Ocarina of Time did all the way back in 1998. I will admit that I’m not the biggest fan of Zelda, but even I respect the hell out of what it has done for videogames at large.

So we know why Nintendo might be cagey about letting anyone else touch the series. I mean Nintendo are already overly protective of their brand, and Zelda is one of their most beloved IP. Nintendo won’t let anyone else touch it without any strong supervision. Especially given what happened when they didn’t do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvJpiCjVrw0

I mean that shit is hilarious, but it was not a good look for them. All that being said, it isn’t like they’re so protective they won’t allow other studios to handle their properties. Even in other mediums. Just look at the various anime based on Nintendo games. You have Pokémon obviously, but there’s also the Kirby and F-Zero anime that came out in the 2000’s. Not a lot admittedly, but it still shows Nintendo weren’t completely averse to adapting their games into other mediums.

But why not do the same for Zelda. Fucking F-Zero, a racing game with barely any story, got an anime series, but Zelda didn’t. The series with the actual lore and story is the one you decide NOT to make a series out of. I don’t understand Nintendo sometimes.

It isn’t even like Nintendo are ashamed of any of those adaptations either. They’ve re-released them all on various platforms over the years, and hell the F-Zero anime even got a game adaptation based on it in the tradition of Street Fighter the Movie the Game. So clearly they were happy enough with the results.

Mind you, those series aren’t nearly as important to Nintendo as Zelda is. I can imagine their standards for that series are far, far higher. In fact, there was a movie pitch for an animated Zelda movie years ago by the studio that did the Astro Boy movie and Nintendo turned it down. Probably because it was from the people who did the Astro Boy movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTmK1pu4ZjU

So for the past 40 years there have been no major Zelda adaptations. We are getting a live-action movie from Sony of all companies soon, but that’s because modern Nintendo are more open to this kind of thing. It’s amazing how much a billion-dollar blockbuster can change one’s perspective. Old-school Nintendo wouldn’t even humour that shit.

Except for one lone instance. In 1989, Nintendo would allow for The Legend of Zelda to be adapted into its very own animated series. Kind of. See there was a Zelda cartoon, but it never aired as its own show. It instead aired as part of The Super Mario Bros Super Show.

Let’s back up a bit. Back when DIC was developing Super Show their original plan was different. It was originally meant to be the Super Mario Power Hour, a variety show featuring the live action Mario Bros segments along with a rotating selection of cartoons. If you read my review on Super Show, you’d know I pointed out how weird it was that the show had two intros, and this is the reason why it had those. It was a holdover from that initial concept.

The Mario and Zelda cartoons were obviously planned for it, but they were also going to include cartoons based on Double Dragon, Metroid, Castlevania, and California Games of all things. The idea never went past the initial concepting phase, and these other cartoons were scrapped. Although the idea of a show combining a bunch of videogames would be used for another show called Captain N.

The Mario and Zelda segments were the only ones that survived the switchover to the redubbed Super Mario Bros Super Show. Both segments would air as part of the show, with the Mario cartoon airing on Mondays through Thursdays, and Zelda airing on Fridays.

It may seem weird to have a Zelda cartoon within a Mario show, but the two franchises were very heavily connected back then. They even had a breakfast cereal together. No really, look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-91fLiEqB1c

Hey, if the two are close enough to share a cereal, they’re close enough to share a show.

You may be wondering then why I didn’t look at this segment last time when I reviewed Super Show. Well it just didn’t feel right reviewing a Zelda cartoon in the middle of a bunch of Mario cartoons. It would just end up sticking out like a sore thumb. But also because in modern times the Zelda show is released separately from Super Show. Having its own set of DVDs and even the WildBrain YouTube page has a separate playlist for it.

It just seemed better to give the Zelda cartoon its own separate review. Especially since it is the only major Zelda adaptation we’ve ever gotten, at least so far. So let’s finally dive into things, and like last time, we start with the intro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUNR7QxtAOU

I’ll say this, it already looks better than the Mario cartoon in Super Show. The intro establishes the basic premise, introduces us to our main heroes and villains, and it has plenty of action to get us excited. Although a lot of it is taken from clips from the show itself, which I’m not a fan of. I hate it when cartoon intros are just clips from the show. It just feels lazy. Granted the cartoon wasn’t released standalone so I can’t be too hard on it for that.

It’s not a bad opening, until that one moment. You know exactly which one I’m talking about. “Excuse me princess”, one of the stupidest catchphrases to come out of an 80’s cartoon. Really, if you know anything about this show in the modern day it’s probably this singular line. It’s basically become a meme among Nintendo fans at this point.

I don’t even think the line is that bad. It’s cringe worthy for sure, but it’s so bad that it reaches some weird, inverted nirvana where it suddenly becomes good again. Even in the show itself it’s not that bad, at least at first. Initially it actually makes sense in the context of how it’s used, but then they overuse it and that’s when it starts becoming annoying.

I don’t think it’s the line itself that’s the issue though. It’s the fact a frigging Zelda cartoon has a catchphrase in the first place. I mean just look at the Zelda series as a whole. Does it really seem like the kind of series that should have characters spouting catchphrases that would be booed off of the set of a sitcom. It just doesn’t fit.

Look, Zelda as a franchise carries with it a certain amount of prestige. And keep in mind that I am not just talking about Zelda in the modern day where there’s multiple games in the running for greatest of all time. Even in the year of our lord 1989 when this cartoon first aired, even back then Zelda was seen as a more serious title. And if you don’t believe me just look at the cover for the first game.

Look at it. Sleek, evocative and bold, and yet understated at the same time. They have the look of a classic of fantasy literature. If that wasn’t enough for you it also had gold-coloured cartridges. It doesn’t get more prestigious than that.

All that is to say that you can’t just give Link a goofy sitcom catchphrase and expect to get away with it. There’s a much bigger expectation for Zelda; it’s a more serious fantasy world. It’s gaming’s equivalent of Lord of the Rings. Even with all the weird and goofy shit the games have like Tingle, the Happy Mask Salesman or the entirety of Link’s Awakening, that reputation hasn’t fully subsided. People take Zelda very seriously. Remember the initial reactions to Wind Waker’s art style.

So already we have a major issue. While the intro promises the high fantasy action we’re looking for, it also promises goofy slapstick comedy and sitcom style catchphrases. Neither of which gel with what people want Zelda to be.

But what is the show exactly. Well unlike the Mario cartoons which were primarily slapstick comedies, The Legend of Zelda is an action show. It has a more grounded and consistent story than the Mario cartoon segments in Super Show did. Being set in Hyrule and focusing on the adventures of Link and Zelda as they protect the land from Ganon as he tries to steal the Triforce of Wisdom to take over the land.

It’s nothing all that complex, but it’s an 80’s cartoon made by DIC that’s based on a videogame. I’m not exactly expecting Avatar the Last Airbender levels of writing here. All I want is for it to somewhat resemble the videogame and be entertaining. Which it kind of is. Key words being kind of.

The story is similar to the one in the videogame although it does make some changes. One big difference being Zelda is a more active participant rather than being a damsel in distress, although several episodes do involve her being kidnapped or otherwise being put in danger. So it’s close enough to the games story to be familiar but does try to expand on it in its own ways.

Some of this actually ends up working quite well for the show. I like seeing a more action girl version of Zelda. Hell, people were asking for something like that in the games for years until we finally got it in Echoes of Wisdom and Hyrule Warriors. So the cartoons kind of beat Nintendo to the punch on that one.

It also has a dedicated fairy character in Spryte, based on the fairies you could run into the game. While the character herself has issues, and I will cover those in due time, the idea behind her makes sense given how prominent fairies are in the series. Even the games would introduce their own take on that with Ocarina of Time to similarly mixed results.

You get the idea. The show takes elements from the games and expands on them in a way that works for a tv show. But not everything from the games made it in. Like the Triforce of Courage is just completely absent from this. I’m guessing they either didn’t have time to implement it, since it only debuted a year prior to the cartoon in Zelda 2. It wasn’t even mentioned in the first game at all.

Although this does make me wonder why the Triforce was called the Triforce in the first place. It makes sense now since we know there are three pieces of it, Power, Courage and Wisdom. But that wasn’t the case in the first game. There they only had two pieces, so why was it called the Triforce. Was it because they shaped like a triangle? Was the only reason it was named that. Things really were simple back then weren’t they.

I also think the reason they didn’t use the Triforce of Courage was to simplify things a little bit. it’s an adaptation and they need to streamline things for the medium it’s adapting the show too. Having only two Triforce pieces, one good and one evil, works better for the kind of episodic action show this is. Having a third might have been overcomplicating things a bit.

I mean the story is Ganon trying to steal the Triforce. If there’s only one piece he wants then it’s easier to create stakes. If there’s a second he has to steal then that means he needs to steal both, meaning the villain schemes need to be more elaborate. Alternatively you could have the Wisdom piece as the most important one but that requires more explanations for why that’s the case, and you see what I’m getting at. It just gets a little to complicated with three pieces. For the kinds of stories the show tells, having two pieces just works much better.

But aside from the Triforce of Courage, most of the elements from the games made it into the show. It’s got all the familiar enemies, items and characters from the games that fans should recognise. Ok the game didn’t have many characters to begin with. It only had Link, Zelda and Ganon, but they’re all here so I guess I can’t complain. No Impa though. I know she wasn’t in the game, but she was mentioned in the manual and even wound up being a reoccurring character. Even the CDI games had her. I find her absence here to be odd at least in hindsight.

Even a lot of the music is taken from the game too. Just like the Mario cartoons it reuses a lot of the songs and sound effects from the games. it doesn’t use it as much since there wasn’t as much to pull from, and there is a lot more original music mixed in. It’s decent music for what it is though and at least sounds like the kind of music you would hear in the games anyway.

So as far as resembling the games goes it does a good job. At least for most of it. in terms of representing the world of the games it’s great. A lot of it is original since this is based on the first game where there wasn’t much to pull from. It was just a bunch of forests lakes and mountains. It would get pretty boring if it was just that.

So they had to invent a bunch of stuff. It’s mostly basic fantasy fare like unicorns, wizards, and underworlds. With the underworld also serving as a representation of the dungeons from the game. Zelda was a series that took a lot of inspiration from classic fantasy, so this all gels well with the world of the games. Even if a lot of it is a little standard.

One thing I like about the show though is that it tries to explain some of the more esoteric parts of the game. For example, Link’s inventory. It’s a running joke with fans in how Link is able to carry all the stuff he’s able to. Because in the games his item inventory gets ridiculous. But the show actually explains how he’s able to carry everything. He has a magic satchel that just shrinks the items down when you put them in it. I’m surprised the games never had this idea, it works well for the setting.

It even explains how respawning enemies work. In the show Ganon has a massive Jar of Evil that he summons his monsters from. Whenever Link zaps a monster it returns to the Jar and Ganon can summon them again. Really it’s just there to have a way for Link to defeat enemies without killing them. Instead of slicing them up, he just zaps them with his sword. This was likely done to appease the TV censors. It was a kids show in the 80’s after all. It’s not like they had a lot of freedom in what they could do. But hey, shooting energy from the sword was part of the games, so at least there is a basis for it.

I like the world they created for the show. It’s not the most original setting, but it has some creative ideas that fit the fantastical world of Zelda. For how little the game had for them to work with I think they did a decent enough job. Mind you not everything it does work. Some parts are just weird.

One strange aspect created for the show is that the Triforce actually talks. Both pieces are shown to be capable of speech and I don’t know why. They’re just magical triangles; it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I guess they did it so the Triforce of Wisdom could actually dispense some words of wisdom. And by wisdom I mean it just speaks in rhyme. Because if you want to make a character seem wise but you aren’t intelligent enough to write them that way, just have them rhyme. It’s like the hacks ultimate cheat for writing smart characters, or objects in this case.

But the real problem is with the characters. This is the part of the show that seems to put people off the most. They don’t really feel like the characters from the games. Granted it’s not like there was much characterisation in the games at the time but even based on what little there was the cast don’t feel like themselves.

Link probably got it the worst. His entire motivation in the show is to simply get with Zelda. No seriously, that’s his entire reason for being a hero. He just wants to get laid. He’s less a brave hero than he is a horny teenager. I’m not against the idea of him being a teenager since he was portrayed as that in the games, but him only being interested in getting into Zelda’s panties isn’t the angle I would have taken.

It wouldn’t be so bad if his relationship with Zelda was properly established. It flip flops more than a coked up Zora. One moment she’s totally into him and the next she acts like the tsundere in an average harem anime. She’s either a playful girlfriend one minute or a bitch queen the next. It makes it hard to get a read on not just the relationship, but on Zelda as a character. Seriously I can’t describe what her character is like because it changes episode to episode.

But I just hate this relationship shit in general. This kind of will they won’t they storyline has always irritated me. At best it’s just a way to string the audience along until the inevitable end game, at worst it just blue balls them with a set-up relationship that never plays out for one reason or another. I know some people love this kind of thing, but I can’t stand it.

This isn’t the worst example of this since the whole thing is played for comedy, and there isn’t really much of a storyline anyway, it’s pretty episodic, but I do not like how they handled Zelda and Link. The bickering got on my nerves very quickly. This is where the catchphrase comes from which should tell you everything, and the running gag of Link failing to get a kiss got old fast. It’s kind of funny at first, but like every running gag they overuse to the point of annoyance, it gets overused to the point of annoyance.

Although if I may be extra fair here I’m also not watching the show as originally intended. This was a show released weekly so there would be a seven day buffer between episodes. Watching the show that way I can imagine a lot of this wouldn’t be as bad, but binge watching it like I did does make the cracks in the Darknuts a lot more noticeable.

Although here’s something I realised while watching this. So, Zelda and Link are portrayed as an item in this, I think. I’m not entirely convinced they should count as a couple in this since as I said it’s not very consistent. But assuming they are that would make this one of only three instances where Link and Zelda are actually confirmed to be together.

No really think about it. Despite being one of gaming’s most well-known power couples, Link and Zelda aren’t actually confirmed to be together in a lot of the games. Even in Zelda 1, Zelda was just the princess you rescued. It’s never actually shown if she and Link hook up in the end. In most of the games their relationship comes across more as them being allies or colleagues than love-interests. Hell in some games Link has another girl he’s clearly more into than Zelda.

The only times these two are actually together is in Skyward Sword, the Wild duology, and the fucking cartoon. So, if you ship these two together, now you know where this originated from. Don’t know to feel about that? Neither do I.

But being a horn dog isn’t the only issue with Link’s characterisation in this. He’s also a bit of a whiny bitch. He’s constantly complaining about something. In the very first episode he even bitches about living in a nice castle since he misses the life of an adventurer. Oh my heart bleeds.

It’s funny though because whenever Link has to do a something adventurous, he fucking complains about that too. He whines all the time, it’s pretty damned pathetic. Zelda comes across as the more assertive of the two and is the one who needs to push Link into doing anything. It’s pretty obvious she wears the pants in the relationship.

Ok, to be fair, Link isn’t shown to be entirely awful. He has his moments where he shows himself as a capable adventurer. He is a capable fighter and he even shows some resourcefulness in using the environment. Reflecting the kind of puzzle solving you often have to do in the games.

But for one of gaming’s great heroes this isn’t the best portrayal. He’s too much of a goofball and his constant skirt chasing doesn’t reflect the stoic, brave adventurer we know in the games. Zelda gets off a little better, but even she comes off as a bitch a lot of the time, and not in a fun way. I found these two to be really annoying. Which is bad since they’re the frigging leads.

As for Ganon, he’s basically just Skeletor. He’s the big bad who lives in an evil lair, talks in generic evil talk, has a weird sounding voice and who constantly gets beaten and vows to return at the end of every episode. He’s pretty much every stock Saturday morning cartoon villain ever, but I can’t say I expected much. It’s not like Ganon had as much presence in the first game and he wouldn’t be that fleshed out as a villain until long after the cartoon ended.

The big issue with Ganon is that he’s not very intimidating. He’s a bit too much of a clown to take him seriously, which works for someone like Bowser who was always meant to be a goofier villain. But for someone like Ganon I don’t think it works quite as well. This is supposed to be an action show, and those work better when the villains are an actual serious threat.

The best example of how goofy Ganon can get is in how he teleports. I guess because he did it in the games, they have Ganon teleport around a lot of the time even if he’s only moving a few feet to the left. He teleports around like an ADHD riddled kid on a sugar rush, it’s fucking hilarious. And no, it’s never explained why he doesn’t just teleport to the Triforce and grab it. He just doesn’t do it for some reason. Teleportation is bullshit.

So our main trio is a bit of a bust. I don’t find them unlikable or anything, they just get on my nerves a lot of the time. But for as annoying as the characters are written, I will say they are voiced well. The script doesn’t exactly give the actors much to work with, but I think they did a fine enough job with what they had.

Link is voiced by Jonathan Potts, an actor who has done a shit load of work. Seriously he has over a hundred credits to his name ranging from live action roles to voice work in cartoons and anime. The man is definitely prolific. He does a good job at playing Link as a young hot-headed hero. He does say the catchphrase a little annoyingly, but I think we can blame that on the line and not the actor.

Mind you it is weird seeing Link talk. Link never talks in the games, ever. Making this the only time Link has had spoken lines. Well this and the CDI games. Make of that what you will.

Zelda is voiced by Cynthia Preston, although she’s credited as Cyndy Preston in the show. Another actor with a lot of credits, but not as many voice over roles. She mainly works in live-action. In fact, Zelda is her only voice over credit.

Despite how inconsistent Zelda and Link’s relationship is, at least they’re played consistently well. I think Preston does a good job of playing Zelda as an assertive adventure girl, without making her too bossy. Despite the script making Zelda a haughty cow at times, Preston does keep the character likable enough.

Ganon meanwhile is voiced by Len Carlson. Who was primarily a voice actor, who would often be cast in the villain role. So playing Ganon is right in his wheelhouse. Unfortunately they do this thing where they add vocal effects around his voice and I’m not a fan of that. it’s not too heavy though and I do think Carlson did a good job. You can tell he was having fun in the role.

That’s it for our main trio, but these are not the only characters in the show. It would get pretty dull if it was only these three, so the show invents a bunch of original characters to pad out the cast. Most are simply one offs designed for the episodes, but there are two that appear in multiple episodes. Technically four if you count the two Triforce pieces since they also talk, but that’s a pretty big stretch.

Since I already mentioned her earlier, let’s talk about Spryte. Although Spryte predates Navi, the first actual fairy character in the game series, they surprisingly have a lot in common. Namely that they are very irritating and I do not like them.

Spryte is voiced by Paulina Gillis, or as she’s known by today Tabitha st Germain. If that name sounds at all familiar to you, it’s likely because of her role in a certain horse-based cartoon that was massively popular in the 2010’s for reasons that continue to confound me. But she’s a voice actor with a long list of credits to her name.

She is not a bad actress, so I have no idea what happened here because fuck me is Spryte’s voice irritating. If you remember the shrieking siren call of “Hello! Watch out! Hey listen!”, just know the show is like that but it happens with far greater frequency.

But it’s not just the voice. Honestly, Germain is just using the same voice she used for Pinkie Pie and she was… ok that character was also annoying as hell, but that was intentional. She was meant to be annoying because it was funny, that was her schtick. Spryte is not meant to be intentionally annoying, and she definitely is not funny.

Spryte’s role in this is the cartoon side kick. You know the irritating little bastards that are there to be comic relief but aren’t funny at all and don’t help out in the slightest. You know the characters everyone hates. Yeah, Spryte is THAT character. She’s not the worst of this kind of character, but she’s pretty standard for the archetype.

But aside from being the useless sidekick, she’s also there to create a love triangle. See, Spryte is in love with Link and jealous of Zelda. Because that’s what this insufferable romance needed, a stupid love triangle. I already don’t like how they handled Link and Zelda’s relationship, so the last thing the show needed was a third wheel. Spryte doesn’t appear in the show too much thankfully, so we don’t have to deal with this much. Thank God for small blessings.

The only other character is King Harkinian. He’s the king of Hyrule which makes a change from the games at the time which didn’t have a king at all. He was mentioned, but the king of Hyrule never became a major presence in the series until Wind Waker, and that was long after this. So credit where it’s due, the cartoon actually shows the king on screen even if he looks out of it most of the time.

Seriously, this guy looks baked 90% of the time. If you’re expecting a strong noble king as depicted in recent games, you clearly don’t know who is making this. The king is portrayed more as an absent-minded old man who exists purely to get put in danger or to provide some comic relief.

If you hadn’t gathered by now the show has a lot of comedy and very little of it works. Aside from the running gag of Link trying and failing to get with Zelda getting old at light speed, most of the show is comprised of cheesy one liners and bad slapstick that’s about as funny as open mic night at the casualty ward.

I know the show is aimed at kids. A lot of younger viewers probably wouldn’t mind the bad jokes. I would know because I put up with a lot of it myself. A lot of the shows I grew up with had cringe inducing comedy and it didn’t bother me in the slightest. You’d be surprised how much a kid can tolerate, I mean just look at the continued success of Teen Titans Go.

So as kids shows go it’s not that bad. I can see why a kid who is a Zelda fan would have liked this back in the day. There are just enough elements from the games that I think fans will get a kick out of watching it. Granted you have to go in knowing the time period it came out in. Again, only two games were out back then and they were simple 8-bit titles. You shouldn’t expect too much out of it.

It even uses the music and sound effects from the games like the Mario cartoons did. There is more original music, since Zelda 1 only had like five songs in its soundtrack, but the original music does sound like stuff you’d hear in the games. So it does end up feeling like the videogame, even if certain parts aren’t exactly what you were expecting.

On the technical side the show holds up well enough. I already talked about the music and the voice acting, but the animation is alright too. It’s a DIC production so you shouldn’t expect anything great, but it is a big improvement over the Mario cartoon in Super Show.

The character animation is still rough, but the art is a lot better. The backgrounds in particular are very nice. It helps the show has a consistent setting, so the artists can create some decent looking backdrops they can reuse rather than the random nonsense Mario had. I like Ganons lair the best, because the bad guys always have the coolest looking places.

I think you get a general idea of what the show is like by now. If I’m being honest though, when the show plays to its strengths it’s not bad. This is an action show, and when it focuses on the action and adventure elements I find it to be enjoyable. Nothing great, but it has some fun fights and exciting set-pieces. I mean it has Link surfing on lava at one point; there was clearly some effort put into this.

I even liked a few of the episodes. Sing for the Unicorn is probably the best in the show in my opinion. It’s the one that feels closest to what a Zelda show should be, having a heavier emphasis on the action and fantasy elements and less on the comedy. It still has comedy but not quite as much, and honestly even that isn’t that bad in this episode.

The worst episodes are the goofier ones. Kiss n’ Tell being the worst of them. In this episode Link gets turned into a frog and spends the entire episode whining about it. It’s as annoying as it sounds and it’s not exactly that creative with its premise. Which is already incredibly overdone to start with.

I think that’s an issue with the show. Even though the storylines aren’t bad, they’re not the most original. A lot of them are standard Saturday morning cartoon fare. The episode Doppelganger involves Ganon using an evil Zelda, and if you’ve seen any evil copycat story in any cartoon you know exactly how it’s going to go. It’s not a bad episode, it’s done decently well, but there’s nothing that special about it.

So even when the show is good, I wouldn’t exactly call it great. At best it’s a perfectly average action show. I don’t think the show is some godawful mess as some claim it to be. Honestly, I think the reason the show gets as much negativity as it does is largely because it’s Zelda and there’s a larger expectation that comes with the name.

But as an adaptation of the early 8-bit titles it’s... fine, I guess. The characterisation is the worst part of it, but it does a decent job of translating the world of Hyrule into animation and it does feel like the games at times. Which is probably the one thing a videogame adaptation should nail above all else.

But at the same time the comedy is bad, and these characters are not exactly the ones I imagined from the games. Even if you were a fan of the series you’d have to forgive a lot of bullshit to get into this. It just doesn’t play to its strengths to be consistently enjoyable.

So would I recommend this show? Not unless you’re curious. It is better than most of the Mario cartoons at the very least, but it’s still not anything that good. If you’re a Zelda fan then it might be worth watching as a curiosity, but that’s about it. it’s an interesting novelty in the context of the wider Zelda franchise, but it’s definitely one of the weakest parts of it. it’s not as bad as the CDI games, but it’s not that far removed from them either.

The biggest tragedy is that THIS is the only Zelda adaptation we ever got. While Super Mario Bros Super Show was decently successful, the Zelda segments were not. Mario would get two sequel shows, but Zelda was stuck with just these thirteen episodes.

Considering how good the games got after this it’s a crying shame we never got another series based on it. An adaptation of A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time would have been awesome if they got the right studio behind it. But alas the only thing we got was this dumb little cartoon.

Hopefully the upcoming movie is good or at least successful enough that Nintendo allows it to have more adaptations. Only time will tell I suppose, but with Sony involved I’m not exactly keeping my hopes up. They haven’t exactly done great with their own games. I can’t imagine they’d do better with a competitors. I’m hoping for the best, but I’m expecting the worst.

But this cartoon wasn’t the only time Link and Zelda appeared in animated form. There was another show that featured them albeit as a guest appearance, but I think I’ll save that for next time. I wasn’t planning on this but… trilogy? Trilogy.