Back in the late 80's there was no internet to go to when you were stuck in a Nintendo game, and there certainly was no internet to go to get the latest news in the video game world. What we had instead was Nintendo Power.

Nintendo Power was the best. It had sections for news, small strategy guides, revealing all sorts of secrets, and each issue even came with its own poster! As a Nintendo and Zelda fan, I loved reading the magazine back then and even today it is a lot of fun looking back at some of the early issues.

With the sheer popularity of the Legend of Zelda series, it's no surprise that the games were often times mentioned within the magazines. Even the very first ever Nintendo Power magazine had a featured section on the 2nd Quest of the original Legend of Zelda.

With all the Nintendo Power love in the air. Here at Zelda Dungeon we are opening up a brand new section entitled, Zelda Publications. In this section, I will be adding portions of various magazines and other publications over the years that were released that had material about the Zelda series. At the launch of this new section, we have the first two issues of Nintendo Power available. Both of which had plenty of Zelda galore. While we do not have the magazines available in their entirety, we have all of the Zelda related pages for your viewing pleasure. Over the next several months, I plan on going through much of the Nintendo Power magazines, and pulling out all the various Zelda previews, guides, interviews, and anything and everything that is Zelda related. So be sure to stay tuned!

Shigeru Miyamoto is at it again, once again speaking about both the Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks and Zelda Wii. Lets first start off with his most recent statement on Spirit Tracks.

[Zelda Spirit Tracks] will be really fun. It's turning out to be rather challenging. Many of our Japanese customers were introduced to the Zelda series with Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks could prove to be kind of hard for them, but I thought we'd show them what Zelda is really made of this time around. So it's turning into quite a unique title.

This sounds great! I know there are a handful of Zelda fans out there who were greatly disappointed that Phantom Hourglass was a bit too easy, so the idea that Spirit Tracks is givings fans who played Phantom Hourglass a hard time, is a great sign of things to come. This wasn’t it though, Miyamoto also spoke briefly concerning Zelda Wii.

I've managed to gather quite a few creative team members for Zelda Spirit Tracks, so I'd like Zelda Wii to also enjoy creative development as much as possible… About MotionPlus. We're implementing it so that players can feel like they themselves are holding the sword. In the previous Zelda (TP Wii) the targeting was based on the IR pointer. This time however, we'll be using MotionPlus for a variety of more convenient targeting systems that will allow for more pleasant gameplay.

Motion Plus is in and the idea of full sword play control makes me drool. It has been talked about for several years, ever since the Nintendo Wii controller was first revealed, but it seems it is going to finally come to fruition with the next Wii Zelda title.

Zelda Wii is still quite a distance away… and while I’m quite interested to see how the motion plus sword play will actually play out, I'm even more excited that it looks Spirit Tracks is going to be pushed a bit further in the difficulty department. If you are as excited about the recent news as I am, be sure to head on over to our Zelda Forums to discuss the latest developments.

The guys over at Destructoid have recently put out a brand new article about the classic Zelda Recipe. Throughout the short article, the author touches on a handful of things that he believes helped keep the Zelda formula fresh, without making any drastic changes. He in particular mentions things from Twilight Princess, such as the Snowpeak Ruins. He talk about how the dungeon was quite unique in comparison to previous dungeons as It wasn’t just some random location tossed somewhere in Hyrule that had very little reasoning for being there. It was actually a mansion with actual characters living their lives there, and its puzzles, locations, and even its boss battle were extremely unique. The author also mentions the Goron Mines from Twilight Princess as a dungeon that doesn’t necessarily reinvent the series, but does give it a fresh feel.

The author goes on to somewhat rant about the poor use of Rupees in the Zelda franchise over the years. Rupees can be found all over the place, in unmarked jars, underneath bushes, after defeating enemies, and in unlocked treasure chests found in random caves and dungeons all throughout Hyrule. Yet… there is often very little use for rupees. Sure you can buy potions, bombs, arrows, or those one off items… but for the most part, you can get by with very little use of rupees. The author believes that the Magic Armor from Twilight Princess helped push the use of rupees forward, but to me I still think they need more drastic changes to the rupee system.

Do you guys think that the Zelda Recipe is in need of any drastic changes? Perhaps you agree with the author of this article, and feel that while the formula has been consistent throughout, the smaller changes seen in Twilight Princess is enough to keep things fresh. Head on over to our Zelda Forums to discuss the classic Zelda Recipe and if you think it needs any major changes.

This commercial for A Link to the Past is entirely in Japanese, but it is hilarious. It's a bunch of Japanese people dancing. Link looks rather feminine during the commercial as well. Princess Zelda is shown in a cage, and is under attack by enemies until Link comes to save the day. Afterwords Zelda joins Link and continues the obnoxious dance. The commercial concludes with a sweet variation of Ganon appearing, of which it is clearly a massive puppet, but cool nonetheless.



This commercial is not quite up to the nerdiness of the two Legend of Zelda american commercials, but certainly on par in strangeness. The commercial has been added to our Zelda Commercials page at the site.

EDIT: Thanks to everybody who joined us life for the stream. It was a success and I'm happy with how the the chat room went. I think most of those who participated had a lot of fun and I hope to do it again. For the record... my life 3heart challenge for the original Legend of Zelda fell a tad bit short. I got to Death Mountain, but after a grand total of 53 deaths and the clock reading 4am, I decided to call it quits and retire there. Perhaps I'll give it a go again in the future.

Come join us LIVE here at Zelda Dungeon later tonight! Several months back, we use to host live video podcasts on a bi-weekly rate. Followed by these podcasts, I would often continue streaming a video, playing various word games with the fans, streaming live video footage of games, and running my own jukebox of some of my favorite songs.

That was several months back and for various reasons, I put the podcast on an extended hiatus. However, I'm looking to possibly make a return with the podcast and today, I'm testing out various new things, one thing in particular being an embedded chatroom from Ustream, as opposed to our own outdated forum shoutbox. The Ustream chat acts similar to an IRC like program and works much more fluently than our forum shoutbox. I wanted to give it a shot on a live stream to see what type of activity we can achieve and how the video/chat will hold up when there is a larger audience.

Thus, tonight, I will be streaming live for several hours starting at roughly 9:00pm Central Time. The stream will include the Mases jukebox, some random discussion with Mases, perhaps a live Pokemon Battle tournament of sorts, and then concluding with me playing and streaming some live NES games, including the original Legend of Zelda. So if you can, please check back at the site at 9:00pm US Central time for some fun and help us test out the new chatroom and stream.

This guide is for the original release of Link's Awakening and was published by Keibunsha. This guide offers some of the officially released artwork from Nintendo, but not much else. The guide only offers 79 actual guide pages and it is not a 100% complete guide. For example, the guide does not provide locations for all secret seashells, but rather, only the 20 that are needed. Additionally, only the first 32 pages of the guide are in color, with the rest being in black and white. Page 3 of the guide does offer a short storyline portion, but it is in Japanese of course.

This guide is far inferior to some of the other released Japanese and English released guides and there is little reason to try to get your hands on this one, outside of it being a collector's item for hardcore Zelda fans. It is a bit rare to get your hands on as well, as it doesn't seem like this particular guide was widely available.

Legend of Zelda Strategy Guides
Link's Awakening Keibunsha Japanese Guide

I have a couple more imported Link's Awakening guides, as well as a handful of other English and imported guides that should be available over the next few weeks.

Our friends at Zelda Reorchestrated have released two new tracks over the last few weeks. The first being the battle theme from Adventure of Link and the other being Nayru's Theme from Oracle of Ages.

Both songs are amazing and I'm glad that they have touched up on two tracks that are from two of the less popular Zelda titles. Most people who know me know that I'm a huge proponent of Oracle of Ages and I think it is one of the best of the series, so I'm personally happy that ZREO has orchestrated one of the great tunes from the game. It really does sound amazing. Be sure to head on over to our Zelda Forums to tell us what you think of their latest two tracks.


Battle (Adventure of Link)


Nayru's Song (Oracle of Ages)

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is often times given the label as the greatest video game of all time, but it was quite a long road for it to get to that level. Part of what made Ocarina of Time such a huge commercial success, was the massive buildup for the game, and much of that started way back in 1995. At Nintendo's video game trade show known as Space World, Nintendo showed a video filled with clips from a bunch of games that were being developed including Super Mario 64, Goldeneye, and what was known at the time as simply Zelda64. The clip for Zelda was spliced up, but all together it ran at under 12 seconds and here it is. The silent video below is the first glimpse of what would eventually become known as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.


Link is shown battling with a shiny metallic knight and the Link resembles that of the Link from the original Legend of Zelda and Adventure of Link. Ocarina of Time was originally being built on the same engine that Super Mario 64 used, as can somewhat be seen in the video, but was later modified so much that the end result was far different than this original demo.

This video has been added to a new section at the site, Zelda Trailers and Demos. I will be uploading videos and adding more to this page over the coming weeks. Be sure to head on over to our Zelda Forums to discuss this interesting clip.

The official European Box Artwork for Spirit Tracks has been revealed and it is pictured to your left. I personally think it is much more colorful and exciting than the North American Box Artwork that was revealed several weeks back. I have added a larger version of the box to our Spirit Tracks Image Gallery.

Princess Zelda is pictured right there on the box artwork. Since she was also found within the original trailer, I think it is safe to say that the days of Tetra are over, and Princess Zelda should once again play a more prominent role.

Do you like the cover art? Is it better than the North American version. Head on over to our Zelda Forums to discuss this latest release.

It appears our European friends are getting another Spirit Tracks bundle. About a week back we reported on a bundle that included a tin box and recycled figurines from Phantom Hourglass. This bundle however, includes more figurines of Link and a Phantom, but they are brand new for Spirit Tracks. One of them is pictured to your right. The website with the information can be viewed by clicking here, but unfortunately, it is not in English.

For some more pictures of this bundle, click here. You will also notice that the figurines come with a mini booklet or pamphlet with some writing. We're not sure at the moment if this is going to be a European exclusive, but if I had to guess, it sure does look that way.

Spirit Tracks is due out on December 7th in the US and December 11th over in Europe.