Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

Players take control of Link in The Faces of Evil, and of Zelda in The Wand of Gamelon. At the beginning of both games, players have access to only three areas, which are accessed through an in-game map. The two characters only have their swords and shields at this stage. The sword can be used to attack enemies either by stabbing or shooting "Power Blasts", while the shield can deflect attacks. Link's sword in The Faces of Evil is known as his Smart Sword, and will not hurt anyone considered friendly. ==Plot==

Link: The Faces of Evil In Hyrule Castle, a bored Link discusses his desire for a new adventure with King Harkinian. His hopes are immediately fulfilled when a wizard named Gwonam arrives on a magic carpet to announce that Ganon and his minions have invaded and conquered the island nation of Koridai. Gwonam recruits Link to stop Ganon after he shows a written prophecy that states "Only Link can defeat Ganon". Link is then transported to Koridai by Gwonam, who explains that many of Ganon's minions have established the "Faces of Evil", giant mountains and stone structures that bear the resemblance of their commanding minions that act as their bases of operation. Shortly after arriving, Gwonam discovers and informs Link that Ganon has captured Princess Zelda and imprisoned her in his lair. Link ventures through Koridai and conquers all the faces along with defeating their leaders such as the necromancer Goronu; the anthropomorphic jokester pig Harlequin; the fire-breathing armored knight Militron; the gluttonous cyclops Glutko; and the three-eyed anthropomorphic wolf Lupay. At one point during Link's quest, he discovers the sacred Book of Koridai, which he brings to a translator named Aypo, who reveals to him that the book is the only way to defeat Ganon. Link finally confronts Ganon, who offers him the promise of great power with an alliance and the threat of murder. After imprisoning Ganon within the pages of the Book of Koridai, Link rescues a sleeping Zelda and awakens her. Gwonam appears and congratulates Link and while transporting the two back to Hyrule Castle, shows them the liberated and recovering Koridai before he officially declares Link the hero of the island. Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon King Harkinian announces his plan to travel to the Duchy of Gamelon and aid its ruler Duke Onkled, who is supposedly under attack by Ganon's forces, and orders his daughter Princess Zelda to send Link for backup if she does not hear from him within a month. He reassures her that he will be protected by the Triforce of Courage while Zelda's elderly nursemaid, Impa, reassures Zelda that the Triforce of Wisdom promises that Harkinian will return safely. Despite these promises, a month eventually passes without word from Harkinian, so as instructed, Zelda sends Link to find him. When he too fails to return, Zelda ventures off to Gamelon to find both Link and Harkinian, accompanied by Impa. As she ventures across Gamelon, Zelda battles many of Ganon's minions including the mummy Gibdo; the three wicked witches of the Fairy Pool; and the knight Iron Knuckle. During Zelda's quest, Impa discovers that King Harkinian was captured by Ganon and that Link was engaged in a battle, the outcome of which is unclear. Eventually, Zelda rescues a woman named Lady Alma from evil sorcerer Wizrobe and learns that Alma had met Link before, providing her with his canteen. Zelda then travels to Dodomai Palace, where it is revealed that Duke Onkled has betrayed King Harkinian and is collaborating with Ganon. Zelda storms the palace, kills Ganon's henchman, Hektan, and saves a prisoner named Lord Kiro, who had accompanied Harkinian on his trip to Gamelon before he was captured. Kiro then reveals to Zelda the entrance to Onkled's chamber and when they confront him, he reveals the secret entrance to Reesong Palace, where Ganon has taken residence. Zelda travels to the Shrine of Gamelon to battle shapeshifter Omfak and obtain the Wand needed to defeat Ganon, then makes her way to Reesong Palace, where she casts a spell to bind Ganon with chains, before she rescues her father. Back at Hyrule Castle, Lord Kiro turns Duke Onkled over to King Harkinian, who orders him to scrub all the floors in Hyrule as punishment. Although Link's whereabouts are still unknown, a comment by Lady Alma, who is also present at Harkinian's return, prompts Zelda to throw her mirror against the wall; as it smashes, Link magically materializes, seemingly having been trapped in the mirror. The group then has a feast to celebrate Gamelon's return to peace. ==Development==

In 1989, Nintendo signed a deal with Sony to begin development of a CD-ROM-based add-on for the Super NES (see Super NES CD-ROM) that would allow for FMV and larger games. However, Nintendo broke the agreement and instead signed with Philips to make the add-on, which caused Sony to spin off their add-on into its own console called the PlayStation. Witnessing the poor reception of the Sega Mega-CD, Nintendo scrapped the idea of making an add-on entirely. for games on Philips's console, the CD-i, after the partnership's dissolution. Contracting out to independent studios, Philips subsequently used the characters to create three games for the CD-i, with Nintendo taking no part in their development except to give input on the look of the characters Philips insisted that the development studios utilize all aspects of the CD-i's capabilities, including FMV, The Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamelon were the first two Nintendo-licensed games released on the Philips CD-i. They were given the relatively low budget of approximately $600,000, and the development deadline was set at a little over a year – to be split between the two games. The rest of the development team included three programmers (all previous employees of Spinnaker Software), musician Tony Trippi, and freelance writer Jonathan Merritt, who created the scripts and designs. Under DeSharone's direction, development progressed similarly to that of his game Below the Root, which Retro Gamers John Szczepaniak suggested was as a forerunner. Background designs were created by local Cambridge artists. These games marked the first time that Russian outsourcing had been utilized by an American games company – a move that was only possible due to the somewhat thawed political climate after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bonnie Jean Wilbur was cast as Zelda and her husband Paul Wann played various characters, including Gwonam, Aypo, Mayor Cravendish and Harbanno. Mark Berry provided the voices of King Harkinian, Ganon and a Gibdo. Additional voices were provided by Jeffrey Nelson (who is speculated to have voiced Morshu), Natalie Brown, Phil Miller, Chris Flockton, John Mahon, Josie McElroy, Jerry Goodwin, Karen Grace, and Marguerite Scott. Brown, Flockton and Goodwin had previously worked with DeSharone on two Spinnaker Software games the previous year, Alice in Wonderland and Laser Lords. ==Reception==

Contemporary responses At the time of its release, contemporary criticism was mixed for both games. SNES Force magazine described the animated sequences as "breathtaking" and praised the game for its high-resolution graphics and its "brilliant" use of sound and speech. Highly anticipated by the French video game press, Joystick magazine's development preview of The Faces of Evil described it as a veritable arcade-quality game with stunning graphics and "perfect animation". The magazine gave The Wand of Gamelon similar praise, and gave it additional praise for its use of voice acting, its plot and its backgrounds. The same magazine would ultimately give The Faces of Evil a 79% a few months later, giving particularly high marks for music, sound effects and playthrough time. Power Unlimited gave The Wand of Gamelon a 90%, calling it "a beautifully designed and very good sounding platform game, which is unfortunately completely unplayable. The controls are the biggest disadvantage, but the game is also far too difficult. The animations in between are very nice." The magazine also reviewed The Faces of Evil and gave it a 90%, saying: "Nintendo almost never gives others the right to use their characters in games, and the one time they did, they probably shouldn't have done it. Animation Magic made a game with it that was beautiful for the eyes and ears, but was unplayable." Other publications gave more critical reviews. CDi Magazine rated The Faces of Evil 65%, stating that the game was a poor relation to the original Nintendo games and singling out the perfunctory storyline, the lack of graphical features like parallax, and the slow and repetitive gameplay. Another reviewer for the magazine gave The Wand of Gamelon a higher 75% and called it a "reasonably good game" for its puzzles and animated sequences, but criticized its plot and controls. In 1994, Edge reported that as CD-i sales began to suffer, criticism sharpened, and the games were described as low-cost, low-risk ventures that had failed to excite any interest in the platform. Re-evaluation and infamy Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon have been met with negative reviews in retrospect. Wired magazine said that the animation in both games was extremely simple and stilted and that the graphics had several glitches. IGNs Peer Schneider criticized The Wand of Gamelon for not effectively indicating when a platform begins or ends, and also said its controls were "sloppy". Schneider also argued that the decision to star Zelda in The Wand of Gamelon may have been based on the fact that the CD-i's library was directed at women. However, he felt that they failed at this due to Zelda playing the same role as Link. The games' animated cutscenes and voice acting drew particular criticism. The Star Tribune described the voice acting as "laughable", and was also criticized by Zelda Elements as "jarring". other reviewers described them as "freakish" and "pretty decent" gameplay, In a periodical for Retro Gamer magazine, Szczepaniak suggested that the comparison made by reviewers between the quality of the CD-i duology and the rest of the Zelda series was unfair, arguing that when reviewed in their own right, the games were actually excellent. Contrary to what were described as "lies perpetuated about [Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon]", Retro Gamer described the games as "astoundingly good" and rated them together as number ten in its "Perfect Ten Games" for CD-i. While acknowledging that they were non-canonical, the games were praised for exhilarating pacing and superb gameplay design. Electronic Gaming Monthly contributor Seanbaby ranked Zelda: Wand of Gamelon the sixth worst game of all time, while GameTrailers rated it fifth worst game of all time. The Wand of Gamelon appeared in an IGN bracket poll of "The Greatest Legend of Zelda Game" along with ''Zelda's Adventure. It lost in the first set of rounds to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past''. Legacy Unofficial remakes of both games were developed in GameMaker by amateur developer Seth "Dopply" Fulkerson in an effort to teach himself game development. After four years of development, the remakes were released in November 2020 for Linux and Microsoft Windows. The remakes feature the same assets and gameplay as the original releases and add several quality-of-life improvements. In addition to subtitles for cutscenes and a widescreen mode, the remakes add new unlockable content and the ability to choose between the original gameplay style and "Remastered Mode", which makes various gameplay changes to reduce player frustration. To avoid receiving a cease-and-desist notice from Nintendo like many similar fan projects, Fulkerson made the remakes unavailable for download two days after their release. By 2023, Fulkerson was developing a spiritual successor to the games, titled Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore. Arzette features similar gameplay and graphics to Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon, as well as vocal performances by Link and Zelda actors Jeffrey Rath and Bonnie Jean Wilbur. The game was published by Limited Run Games on February 14, 2024, for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows. ==See also==