The fourth episode of the Hero of Hyrule is now available and this one shows off Ganon and his minions jamming to the Death Mountain theme. If you ever wanted to see a Legend of Zelda Guitar Hero, then this is the closest thing to it. I’ve really enjoyed the Hero of Hyrule series up until now, but I personally think this is the weakest of the episodes thus far. It’s still alright though and probably worth checking out. You can watch all four of the episodes in the series after the jump.
For the past several months they have been hard at work creating, tearing down, and recreating an exact 1:1 scale replica of Ocarina of Time’s Hyrule. Yesterday we featured the live stream video showing off a project being created by our great friends over at GenGame.net. In the live stream they showed off the culmination of months worth of hard work and even let fans join the server with them to check it out for themselves.
Today they have announced that the official alpha map is now available for anyone to join. Make the jump inside for their quote on what Hyrulecraft exactly is.
YouTuber xMatthew13 is in the process of making a Legend of Zelda Fan Film titled The Legend of the Hero of Time. Like many of these undertakings, I’m not sure how far along the film will actually get… but thus far a video has released highlighting the backstory of the film. The team does have a Facebook page and you can head on over and find out some more information. Go ahead and make the jump to check out the nicely done backstory video. Additionally, I was browsing through the YouTubers videos and found a rather funny home video titled The Birth of a Zelda Fan.
DeviantART user, MINGLES, has recently started up a LEGO Cuusoo project for The Legend of Zelda. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to anyone what LEGO is, but Cuusoo is a section of LEGO’s website where people can submit ideas for official LEGO products, and if they gain 10,000 supporters, they will be reviewed for potential as an actual LEGO product. LEGO is a great toy for kids and even sometimes adults, and it would be incredibly cool to see Zelda LEGO sets and elements.
If you have a Facebook account or Cuusoo account (or don’t mind making one), you can visit The Legend of Zelda’s Cuusoo Project and show your support, and we can make this happen!
A few days ago we reported on a Super Smash Bros Melee Deathmatch, involving the four Legend of Zelda based characters in Super Smash Bros Melee. Our friends over at ChrisCrossMedia have since released a new video in similar light of the first one, this one putting up the four Links against one another. This pits all four versions of Adult Link against each other, each wearing their own tunic. Overall it is another fun video and the folks at ChrisCrossMedia give some fun commentary in the process. Additionally, they have released a few other of these challenge videos, playing more Smash Bros, as well as some Soul Calibur and Link’s Crossbow Training. Be sure to head on over to the ChrisCrossMedia to check them all out. In the meantime, go ahead and make the jump to see this particular video embed.
So I often times get asked, what is my favorite Legend of Zelda fan website? (Not counting Zelda Dungeon of course). Well, that answer is quite easy for me and it is History of Hyrule. After several long years of being mostly offline, History of Hyrule is finally back online and it has so many goodies for you to discover. You first might be asking, so what does History of Hyrule do that Zelda Dungeon doesn’t? Well, the easy answer to that is they have a massive collection of rare Manga, Comics, 4Koma, Doujinshi, and other rare publications. Some of which have been translated or are in the process of being translated to English for you to read. An example of what they have is the First Issue of the Legend of Zelda Valiant Comic.
If you just browse through their website, there is so much for you to find. There are so many sweet publications, many of which I’ve contributed from my personal collection. One of favorite books that I’ve contributed is this Japanese Comic from the original Legend of Zelda. While it’s fully in Japanese and hasn’t been translated yet, it has some amazing colorful artwork. This particular comic is incredibly rare and I’ve only ever seen one auction of this item in all my years collecting Zelda publications. Let’s just say it was quite costly to purchase as well… You can see a sample page of this comic after the jump.
Our friends over at ChrisCrossMedia have recently put out a video from Super Smash Bros. Melee. In this video, they have a 4player free-for-fall matchup with all 4players being computer based players. So what’s so special about this? Well, the four players involved are Young Link, Adult Link, Ganondorf, and Princess Zelda. A Super Smash Bros. Death match! I actually found the matchup to be quite exciting and the commentary was pretty good as well. Go ahead and make the jump to see the video embed.
WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes is a huge Legend of Zelda fan and he recently shared his thoughts on what his fondest memory of Zelda series is. Cody Rhodes is known to be a huge Zelda fan and at one point during his wrestling career, he even wore boots that had the triforce symbol on them, as you can see in the image to the left.
His fondest memory is one that really is quite hilarious. Despite the fact that he is a huge Legend of Zelda fan, he couldn’t properly name Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. However, his fondest memory does come from this title. The video was posted over at the official Nintendo YouTube Channel and you can find it embedded below after the jump.
You may remember the Flipnote Studio contest Nintendo held for the release of Four Swords Adventures Anniversary Edition last month. Well, the results are in, and the winners have been posted on the Japanese site. And let me tell you, they are pretty impressive videos.
I like the mix of videos here. Some, like the one in the top left corner, just look awesome and have some really cool visuals. My favorites are probably the humorous ones, especially the one by Teru that has Tingle, Zelda, and every imaginable part of the series popping out of cut grass. Just as enjoyable was the flipnote by M. W which features The Wind Waker’s Link saddling up on a pig after admiring another Link’s equestrian and archery skills.
Random Encounters Entertainment made a music video of Ganondorf singing and dancing. Basically it’s “a day in the life of Ganondorf” put to music. The Youtube caption reads:
Ganondorf’s having a raucous kegger and YOU’RE NOT INVITED.
Jump inside to read my thoughts after you check out the video.
Many of you may remember that a while back someone came forward with what he claimed to be a Majora’s Mask cartridge that was haunted by the spirit of a drowned boy named BEN. Since the initial writings and videos from Youtube user Jadusable, we’ve learned that it was faked.
What we never reported on though, was that the writer, who had decided to break character, was creating an elaborate alternate reality game, or ARG. The game began with tons of clues from the writings and videos about BEN, and since then he has been dropping ciphered text and binary to give out hints and clues to solve the puzzles he presents.
The folks over at Zeldathon are currently in the middle of their Zelda Marathon, conveniently titled, the Zeldathon. They have been playing live since this Tuesday, but I neglected to post about it given our own streams on Tuesday and Saturday conflicted with their stream. [These Zelda streams are seriously taking over the internet with how frequent they pop up]. Nevertheless, since there is still a couple days left for their stream, I’d figure I’d give it a post. They have played through Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, The Minish Cap, A Link to the Past, and they are currently playing through Link’s Awakening, with Majora’s Mask soon to follow. These aren’t speed runs of the games, but rather, just laid back casual playthroughs with audio commentary. It’s a bit of fun and should be plenty to hold you over until our stream this Saturday. You can get involved in the text chat over at Zeldathon, or you can simply view the text chat after the jump here at Zelda Dungeon.
Matt Cummings, who goes by the deviantART name of EiffelArt has created some brilliant boss fan artwork from the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Matt has drawn some amazing artwork of Link battling every single major boss in the game (except for Aghanim). The artwork really brings out the imagination of the artist as it really transforms 2-D sprite based bosses, into fully realized three dimensional pieces of artwork. In the large picture above, you get a preview of some of the bosses. However, there are significantly larger version of each individual piece, and you can find these over at Matt’s devinatART account.
New episodes of the Legend of Neil are being released every two weeks. However, to give us our Neil-fix, during weeks with no new episode, they are releasing ‘mini-episodes’, blooper reals, and other interesting short videos. In the most recent short video, we get a look at an Elf having some fun with a Like-Like. I have to say that the Like-Like in the show is done quite well. It looks pretty sweet, moves around nicely, and is very rich and colorful. I really couldn’t have imagined a fan show doing such a strange enemy such as a Like-Like so well. I also like how they somewhat mock the Like-Like’s as pretty much being completely harmless… except if there is a shield involved. Nevertheless, it’s a fun little video and of course there has to be a sexual reference at the end, but all in all, I found it enjoyable. What did you guys think? Let us know by posting in the comments below.
Our friends over at ZeldaPower have recently updated their website with a 40-page Spirit Tracks Sheet Music book. The new page includes a listing of all 22 Songs that are available in the sheet music book. The sheet music is meant for piano players out there, but for those of you who are well versed enough in music, you can surely translate this music for various other musical instruments. The book was originally in Japanese and the folks at ZeldaPower are working on translating some of the song titles as well. It is definitely worth checking out if you enjoy playing Zelda tunes on your instruments.
In addition to just this new book, ZeldaPower has some other Zelda sheet music available at their website including a full download of the 192-page Best Collection, which has music from A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and the Wind Waker. Additionally, ZeldaPower has a 200-page Wind Waker Sheet Music download available. Plenty of goodies to keep any musical Zelda fan satisfied.
Our friends over at LegendZelda.net recently posted an article about how the Zelda series has moved away from its exploratory beginnings, namely the massive overworld exploration that takes place in the very first Legend of Zelda. The article’s focus is on how much exploration is needed to actually progress in the old game, but in more recent titles you have the assistance of a helper and a more linear progression of events.
“This dimension of exploration added an imperceivable depth to the game, and thus enhances its realism. You were thrown into a world which needs saving. You have no ideas, no answers, not even a weapon. Has any true hero ever gone out on an epic quest to redeem the land, knowing exactly what to do and when to do it? Of course not. Imagine yourself in such a situation. You would be utterly clueless as to the means to reach your end. Thus, you would resign yourself to explore.”
As a child during the time when there were only 2D Zelda games, I can relate to the annoyance the author feels towards the new games and some of the people who advocate for the linear gameplay, but by no means do I think the first Zelda is a model to go by. As far as 2D games go, I don’t think that Nintendo had it figured out until A Link to the Past. You can see where walls can be bombed and you are given some help from the fortune teller and from Sahasrahla; in the first game you almost have to bomb every square or burn every bush to find items, and the cryptic directions of the first Legend of Zelda’s old man are hard to follow. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an improvement no doubt. For the most part I agree that new titles can look to the past for answers, but I don’t think that the original Legend of Zelda is the game to emulate.
What do you all think? Do you like having helper characters? Would you get mad if you missed out on a weapon? Let us know in the comments.
In the latest episode of the Legend of Neil, Link gets captured by a group of Lynels, loses his magical shield to a Like-Like, get’s into a dance-off with a Lynel, and then learns the news that his fairy children have been kidnapped. I actually think this is one of the weaker episodes thus far this season but still enjoyable nevertheless. If you are somebody who hasn’t seen a Neil episode yet, this probably isn’t the best place to start. You can check out the very first episode to see where it all started. New episodes are airing every two weeks and we will be posting all of them here at Zelda Dungeon as they get released.
One of our former staff members, Brandikins, author of some of our guides and our Link’s Awakening walkthrough, made a video of himself playing his own Ocarina of Time. Impressively, he doesn’t play just one song, but rather most of ocarina songs from both Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and one from The Wind Waker. Indeed, the songs sound great despite the occasional high pitched noise, which is a fault of the mic and not the player anyways.
The folks over at Game Podunk have put together a list of 25 things Link would say about himself. While most of the things are just silly things that you pass over, there are a few hilarious ones in there. Listed below are a few of my favorites.
15. It must suck to wait thousands of years in a room barely big enough to fit in only to be defeated by a kid in a little green hat.
17. I was finally arrested last month for breaking people’s pots and stealing their heart.
23. I only need 1 more heart piece to get my 19th full heart. Wait. That makes a lot less sense when I say it out loud.
There are a couple of other ones, especially a few goodies from A Link to the Past that I found funny. You can take a look at the full list over at Game Podunk. Be sure to let us know what you think by posting in the comments below. Read more…
Debug roms are used to test games prior to their release and often times they will contain information, locations, enemies, or techniques that were removed in the final version of the game. Awhile back the Ocarina of Time Debug Rom had been released and it allowed many players to go through some of the Beta areas that were never seen in the final version of the game. Well, now we can do this for Majora’s Mask! In order to play the game, you’ll need to have the Project64 Emulator, and you can download the rom over at Zelda64.net. Thanks to Cendamos for getting this out there and thanks to the folks over at Zelda Chronicles for bringing this to our attention.
You can see some actual footage of the rom in motion by heading on over to Zelda Chronicles or simply by clicking read more here at Zelda Dungeon. Speaking of Zelda Chronicles, they recently put out their second video update, highlighting all the Zelda news in the past month. So be sure to check that out to catch up on all the happenings of the last month. Read more…
Over the last couple days, Stallion Free over at the NeoGAF forums has been posting screenshots of his playthrough of The Wind Waker. So you may ask, what’s so special about ordinary screenshots? Well, these aren’t ordinary screenshots! Stallion Free is playing The Wind Waker on a Nintendo Wii emulator and is up-scaling the game to high definition! The screenshots look absolutely gorgeous and you really have to see them for yourself to admire the quality.
There is a small thumbnail image to the right of one of the screenshots, but if you click read more, you can see several amazing, high quality screenshots. Even those were too large to fit on the site, so you can click those images to get the full sized HD images. You can also take a look at our image gallery where you can find Stallion Free’s entire gallery of Wind Waker screenshots.
So April Fools day has come and gone and as usual there were several jokes around the Zelda community to laugh about. Nothing as elaborate as IGN’s Zelda Movie Trailer from years ago, but listed below are some of the jokes that were interesting.
Over at Zelda Universe, this years joke was that Eiji Aonuma had been fired from Nintendo after showing up to work drunk and harassing other employees. In his rage after hearing of his firing, Eiji Aonuma erased all physical and digital copies of Zelda Wii, including all documentation, setting Nintendo years back in time.
Elsewhere in the community, the folks over at LegendofZelda.com shut down their site and claimed that it was sold off to other Zelda websites in the community. One of the purchasers of the site was us here at Zelda Dungeon!
It’s not too often that CNN is the source of Zelda news, but it is even more rare to see a blind gamer with the ability to make his way through the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. A recent report at CNN shows that Jordan Verner, a blind gamer from Ontario Canada has done just that.
With the help of three die hard Zelda fans guiding him literally every step of the way, Jordan was able to take down Ganondorf and complete the game. These fans typed up each and every one of the moves needed to complete a certain quest and sent the text documents over to Jordan. Through a computer program that would read the text, Jordan was able to follow the detailed directions and make his way through the game. All in all it took over two years for Jordan to complete the quest and it is quite an accomplishment indeed.
Even as a guide writer myself, I think it is just unbelievable the amount of time that these three fans took to type up such detailed, step by step instructions for a game that were so detailed that somebody who couldn’t even see the screen was able to complete the game. You can check out the full video report over at CNN Video.
Our good friends over at Hyrule.net have relaunched the Hyrule.net Radio. The station plays Zelda songs all day long with a mixture of classic tunes, orchestrations, and a whole bunch of fan remixes and renditions. There really is quite the variety of music that appears on the station and it is constantly cycling through new Zelda songs.
In order to listen, all you need is a music program such as iTunes. Just head on over to the Hyrule.net Radio page and underneath the banner of what is playing there is a button link that says Listen Live, Click Here. This will pop up a screen with three links of pls files. Just click one of them and choose open, and this will open up the radio and start playing in iTunes or Real Player, or any compatible music playing program.
If you are a listener of the radio, be sure to let them know what you think. What you like about it or perhaps some suggestions for change. Feel free to post any comments about the radio in the area below. Read more…
The folks over at airship over water have put together a lengthy retro review of the Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask. The author goes into some great detail discussing many of the things that have made Majora’s Mask garner quite a cult following over the years. In fact, many Zelda fans today consider it to be by far the greatest of the Zelda games, mostly because of its rather deep, metaphorical storyline. Listed below are some of the pros and cons that the author of the article gave about the game.
THE BAD -
*If you’re not very fond of sidequests and working with a very story driven game, you likely won’t enjoy Majora’s Mask.
*Not counting the sidequests, the game is not nearly as long (or physically spread out) as Ocarina of Time.
*Not counting the mask transformations, you can only play as Young Link (which some have a problem with). Read more…
Over the last three months there has been dozens of Spirit Tracks reviews and the vast majority of them have been positive. However, now that the game has had time to settle in the minds of gamers, we can almost start looking back at Spirit Tracks in the past tense, rather than as a current game. Richard Poskozim of The Lantern has put together a recent review of Spirit Tracks and unlike most reviewers, he spends a heck of a lot more time focusing on the weaker points in Spirit Tracks, rather than its strong points. Below is a quick excerpt of his article.
Sadly, Link’s shiny new “spirit train” quickly becomes the game’s major frustration, easily trumping simplistic puzzles and ridiculous character design. Every traversable area of the game is only accessible by the tracks, and for the most part nothing happens on the not-so-scenic treks from one side of the huge world map to the other. There’s just enough annoying little enemies to blow away with a cannon to keep players from leaving their DSes on and getting a drink while they wait, but not nearly enough to keep things entertaining.
For me, I really did enjoy Spirit Tracks at release, but now that things have settled, there are numerous things that really bug me and I pointed some of them out in a video blog several weeks back. In general, I feel the dungeons and the music were just amazing, but much of the rest of the game fell short. It has its bright spots, but I think it has settled to where I think its placement on my favorite Zelda list is on par with that of its predecessor, Phantom Hourglass, if not lower.
What do you guys think of the review. Was it a fair look at Spirit Tracks? Did you enjoy the things that the writer was frustrated with? Where does Spirit Tracks fit on your lists of favorite Zelda titles? Read more…
Every once in awhile, you see some sort of Zelda review or Zelda article that just makes you shake your head, thinking, what the heck is the author even talking about? Well, today we have another one of these, but this time in the form of a retrospective review of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Rob Lefebvre of Anchor Web created the piece and a segment of his review can be seen below.
But as Link traverses the kingdom, there really doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it. Sure, it has a bit of a darker tone, but everybody is employed. Before Link was sealed, there were people complaining they were out of work, but now everyone has some job serving Ganondorf; even some lonely stableman in the middle of nowhere has a paying job. Ganondorf really hasn’t done anything despicably evil.
Are you feeling a bit lonely today on Valentine’s Day? Imagine how the characters in the video game world must feel. While we control them with the press of a button or the swing of a Wiimote, they too want to get out of the house and meet their special person for Valentine’s Day. Luckily there is a dating service made just for them!
The guys at GameSpy have put together a Videogame Character Dating Site, in which it shows some of our favorite video game characters. Who is the first one on the list? Well, our beloved Link! You’d think that with the dozens of female characters that seem to be attracted to Link, he wouldn’t have to go through the process of using a dating website, but apparently he does. Listed below is the about me portion of Link’s profile. NOTE: It’s a bit pg-13ish, so skip along if you don’t want to read up on this.
“I’m a whimsical kid who loves music, adventures and horseback riding. A typical date with me might start with a boat ride down a waterfall as I serenade you with song. After that I’ll make the moon appear as I sneak into your Gerudo Fortress and splash you with my Lon Lon Milk”
NOTE: Movie moved until after the jump. Read More to view it.
While it seemed unclear as to whether or not there was going to be a third season to the highly acclaimed Legend of Neil, we can now say that the 3rd has been scripted. In a recent interview with two of the writers, including Tony Janning who plays the character of Neil/Link, it was confirmed that Season 3 has been scripted. However, the only downside is that season 3 will almost certainly be the final season in the series.
The interview also talks about how the original project came to be and the speed bumps that it went through to get to where it is at now. You can check out the full season 1 and season 2 at the Legend of Neil website.
EDIT: Thanks to Kirstyn Burtt for posting this below in the comments, but you can now also check out the Behind the Scenes production of the interview along with some fun-filled images. Read more…
Awhile back at the site I posted a video of Jonathon Mann singing a Legend of Zelda song. For those who don’t know, Jonathon Mann is the founder of the Rock Cookie Bottom in which he writes a song and posts it online everyday. Some songs have to do with Love or Politics, but he occasionally brings out the video game fan in him. In fact, prior to this project, he had his own video blog by the name of Game Jew.
He recently re-released the Zelda song, this time in acoustic form. It’s still amazing but one thing I found to be rather cool. Is while he edited the video, the clips from the game are from chapter 1 of the the Zelda Dungeon video walkthrough for the original Legend of Zelda. It was great to see one of my favorite youtubers use my own video in his song. How awesome is that! It’s a great song and you should definitely take a listen.
Jump inside to view the embedded video. Read more…
If there was a live action Zelda movie officially released, who would you want to see in it? We recently got to see the low budget fan film The Hero of Time, in which the cast was filled with no-name actors. All the way back almost two years ago we got a fake Zelda movie trailer from IGN, in which the cast was filled with more unknown actors. What if it wasn’t? What if we could make our own dream cast of Movie stars to fill the role of the Zelda characters?
The guys over at 8daysageek have done just that. The man you see pictured to the right is Jamie Campbell Bower, and that is their choice to play Link. Listed below is their full roundup of their dream Zelda cast.
The guys over at The Kartel have put together a list of their top 10 games from the 90′s that have aged quite well. Most of the games are from the Super Nintendo era and we even got one Zelda title on the list; A Link to the Past. This is what they had to say about the Zelda classic.
This game perfected the dungeon-adventure-RPG formula. Taking lessons learned from its previous iterations and adding in new features and abilities to keep things fresh. This entry into the series saw the birth of many features now commonplace in the franchise. The introduction of a “Dark World”, Link could travel to at any point added new depth to puzzle solving along with the design of multi-level dungeons.
New items like the Master Sword, Heart Pieces, the Hook Shot, Pegasus Boots, and the ever popular Spin Attack technique all came from this game. The staples of the franchise today can find their roots in a Link to the Past, which not only created them, but implemented them in unique ways that are still copied and used in the latest Zelda games.
The below video was created via the power of computer animation. Alan Warner Grieve created the video using Twilight Princess character models as well as models from World of Warcraft. Quoted below is what Alan wrote concerning this project of his.
At the end of my postgraduate studies, I was required to create a short film that demonstrated “sophisticated, original and articulate animation”. Game models were taken from “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” and “World of Warcraft”, rigged using TSM2 and animated in Autodesk Maya.
Jump inside to view the embedded video. Read more…
Noah over at The Hidden Triforce has put together a short article discussing several enemies of the Zelda series that have since been lost over the years. In particular he looks at five enemies that once played a more vital role, but are now just another enemy in the grouping.
Where has Goriya even gone? This ugly but ever so lovable enemy has not been seen since A Link to the Past. Goriya got his start as a Boomerang throwing foe in The Legend of Zelda and repeated this performance for The Adventure of Link. Goriya even made several appearances in the notoriously good Legend of Zelda cartoons. InA Link to the Past he was weakened and made to just mimic Link’s moves. Bring Goriya back. Zelda Wii could use a Boomerang touting enemy.
I personally would like to see the Lynel’s from the original Legend of Zelda make a return. We saw them in A Link to the Past, Oracle of Seasons, and Oracle of Ages, but they have since disappeared. I always thought that they were some of the more challenging overworld enemies and it is a shame that such a cool looking and difficult enemy has disappeared.
So what enemies out there do you think should return to the Zelda series? What older enemies do you think should play a more vital role in the games? Post your comments below! Read more…