There are some video games that have been lost to the annals of spacetime. Some because their cartridges were lost, others because no one downloaded them in time before an online service collapsed, others because the budget didn’t stretch to the end. Others simply never quite worked and were canceled halfway through (to the dismay of all gamers). The one we bring you today falls into the latter category, a version of ‘Zelda‘ that would have changed everything.
Very clean, nothing like Zelda
The first lost game of ‘The Legend of Zelda’ is from… 1995! That’s when a satellite radio station called St.GIGA decided to broadcast a different version of the original game for anyone who had the Satellaview, a device for the Super Nintendo that had more than 100,000 subscribers.
It was a big deal: from August 6th to September 2nd, weekly, subscribers could download the four parts of ‘BS Zelda no Densetsu,’ which was dubbed, and in which an actor, live from St.GIGA’s studio, provided hints about the game and its story. The game was a 16-bit remake that was well-received, but once the service ended, that was the end of it, and for some reason, it has never been re-released. You had to have been there.
At least some people got to enjoy it, which is a better fate than the planned ending of the ‘Oracle of’ trilogy. We all know ‘Oracle of Seasons’ and ‘Oracle of Ages,’ which were released for Game Boy Color in 2001 and were interconnected. But did you know that there was originally a third part, or at least it was planned? Originally, Shigeru Miyamoto suggested that they create three interconnected parts, each symbolizing one part of the Triforce.
This gave rise to ‘Mystical Seed of Power,’ ‘Mystical Seed of Wisdom,’ and ‘Mystical Seed of Courage,’ a trilogy that was quickly scrapped when they realized how difficult it was to connect three games together. Ultimately, Courage was left out, while the other two became the cartridges we already know. The puzzles were going to involve time travel between day and night, but in the end, it was absorbed by ‘Oracle of Ages,’ which originally was going to have color-based puzzles. Hopefully, someday Nintendo will feel like bringing the game as it was originally envisioned. Bring Semillas Back!
