You know, I tried just putting the spoiler tag without hints and it felt rather lonely, so back to the original formula.
1) It's an SNES remake of an NES classic
2) Only available in Japan (Sooooo ... an SFC remake of an FDS game if you want to be technical. )
3) Only available via Broadcast Satellaview
4) Up, left, down, left
BS The Legend of Zelda: Third Quest / Fourth Quest - Nintendo / Nintendo - 1995 / 1996 - Top-Down Action
So, the Legend of Zelda series is easily one of the most loved and popular around, and there are a lot of different titles people happily call their favorite. Some people liked the side-scrolling second title, some stand firmly behind Link's first 3D outing, and some prefer the first SNES entry. Personally, my favorite is the original title, with its more exploration heav --
Wait, first SNES entry?
Yeah, so it turns out that Nintendo actually released LttP/TotG and two additional Zelda games, The Legend of Zelda: The Ancient Stone Tablets (an altered version of Link to the Past with a new story) and BS The Legend of Zelda (a remake of the original title), on the SNES via the Broadcast Satellaview in Japan
Now, if you are like me and loved the original game, this is pretty great news all on its own, but BS Legend of Zelda isn't just a graphical facelift of the original game -- it's actually more like a third (and fourth) quest! Like the original second quest, dungeons have been moved around and redesigned, and additionally a few new mechanics show up as well, such as fairies that give you unlimited bombs for a period of time or tons of monsters spawning randomly, and you even get the option of picking between a male or female main character. Of course, none of these things revolutionize or drastically change the original formula to any meaningful extent, but they do add a pleasant twist to the game.
That said, there is a bit of a catch to the whole thing, which is why I'm recommending the Third and Fourth Quest versions of the game instead of just BS Legend of Zelda itself. You can look up the exact details if you are curious, but in the original version of BS you play as the BS Avatar instead of Link, and the game itself was originally broken up into four timed parts for weekly broadcasts that people effectively 'tuned into' and downloaded, which came complete with streamed voice acting and music -- which is actually all kinds of badass, especially when the Old Man blows up all the enemies on the screen with a random magic spell he finds, and you can check out some videos of here.
(Kapow!)
UNfortunately, however, this means nothing but bad things overall for the game in its vanilla form. First off, minor though it may be, because the Satellaview was never released outside of Japan exceptionally few people will have any connection with its avatars and would much rather control the absent Link. Second, the timer is pushy and events can be permanently missed, which works poorly with a game built around exploration, especially since you cannot hear any hints the game is providing about where things may be located, such as a heart container that washes ashore for a brief time that the Old Man tells you about. This, conveniently, highlights the third big downside: the game was meant to have a lot of information audibly relayed to the player, and it is an entire element of the experience that simply cannot be replicated via the ROM alone.
(Y'know, I can't help but feel I'm missing something halfway across the map right now . . .)
It is for these reasons I recommend one of the many ROM hacks of the game floating around that address these issues, the Third and Fourth Quest hacks being my preferred versions. These patches remove the timer, adjust events previously linked to the timer to be linked to Tri-Force piece count instead, swap the BS avatars to Link and Zelda (Can Zelda save princess Zelda from Ganon at the end? O_oa), and seem to have world events -- like vanishing fairies -- occur largely randomly. I've generally found it to be the best option for playing the game and having it feel like the original LoZ, and there are patches for both world maps released for the game (hence Third and Fourth Quest patches). If you'd like to try out timed versions of the game for that more authentic feel, those also exist as well. I've also heard rumors that, with the discovery of videos containing the original full voice acted script, people were attempting to make a patch that combined the voices back into the game as well, though I haven't heard much about that in a loooooooooooong time and am beyond ever expecting to see that released.
Anyway, there is a lot of information about both this title and Ancient Stone Tablets floating around out there, and if you are a fan of 2D Zelda games you should DEFINITELY check this game out. Despite only existing in its incomplete form it is still an excellent Zelda title, especially if you loved the first game. It's too bad Nintendo never gave this kind of treatment to any other game in the series or revisited this title, because a lot of effort went into it, and, with a little bit of polish from technology not available to them at the time, this could have easily been the definitive version of The Legend of Zelda, not to mention an AMAZING eShop title. Of course, since that will never happen, BS The Legend of Zelda is doomed instead to remain merely . . .
)
an awesome game you should know about
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