Daily Debate: How Well Would A “The Legend of Zelda 99” Work?
Posted on October 01 2023 by Rod Lloyd
During last month’s Direct event, Nintendo made the surprise announcement of F-Zero 99, an online multiplayer take on the classic SNES racer. F-Zero 99 is just the latest in a series of battle-royale retro remixes released on Nintendo platforms, which also includes Tetris 99, Pac-Man 99, and Super Mario Bros. 35. With some of Nintendo’s most well-known franchises joining the 99 party, it provoked the thought in me that we could, one day, see The Legend of Zelda doing the same.
A hypothetical The Legend of Zelda 99 certainly seems harder to pull off than more approachable, pick-up-and-play titles like F-Zero, Super Mario, and Pac-Man. Where the start and finish lines in those games are fairly well defined, The Legend of Zelda provides a more nonlinear experience with its map and level design. If 99 Links are allowed to run around and go almost everywhere in Hyrule from the start, it’d be difficult to determine winners and losers as one would in the other games mentioned above.
To me, the best approach for developers of a The Legend of Zelda 99 would be to drop players not in the overworld, but in the dungeons themselves, starting with Level 1 (Eagle) before then moving to each subsequent dungeon, with slow or sloppy players being eliminated periodically. Missing out on the overworld would be a bummer though. The developers could thus also consider setting gameplay milestones throughout the entire game, with, for example, the last 11 players to finish each dungeon being eliminated. See how the Zelda Dungeon Marathon runs its Minish Cap battle royales for an idea of what I’m talking about.
So what do you think? Does a The Legend of Zelda 99 have potential? What would developers have to do to make it fun? Let us know in the comments below!
Rod Lloyd is the Editor-In-Chief at Zelda Dungeon, overseeing the news and feature content for the site. Rod is considered the veteran of the writing team, having started writing for Zelda Informer in 2014 as a Junior Editor. After ZD and ZI officially merged in 2017, he stepped into the Managing Editor role and has helped steer the ship ever since. He stepped up to lead the writing team as Editor-In-Chief in 2023.
You can reach Rod at: rod.lloyd@zeldadungeon.net
