Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon is a game released on the Philips CD-i, developed by Animation Magic and published by Philips Media in late 1993. It was released on the same day as Link: The Faces of Evil and is very similar in aspects. The most notable difference is that the player controls Princess Zelda, who must rescue Link.

Plot
King Harkinian announces his plan to aid Duke Onkled when the latter falls under attack by Ganon, so the King orders Zelda to send Link for backup in case he does not return from his mission within a month. A month passes without word from the King, so Zelda sends Link to find him.

When he too goes missing, Zelda ventures off to Gamelon (accompanied by the elderly Impa) to find both Link and the King. During Zelda's time in Gamelon, Impa discovers that King Harkinian has been captured, and that Link has engaged in a battle, the outcome of which is unclear. As she adventures across the island, Zelda meets many friendly characters and battles with many monsters including Gidbo, Iron Knuckle. Along her travels, Zelda battles the sorcerer Wizzrobe to free Lady Alma, who gives Zelda a canteen that she claims Link gave her in exchange for a kiss.

On reaching Duke Onkled's palace, Domodai Palace, it is revealed that Duke Onkled has betrayed the King and is working for Ganon. Zelda storms the palace, kills Hectan, and saves an imprisoned Spaniard named Fari who used to work for the King. Fari reveals the secret entrance to Onkled's chamber, and when they confront him he reveals the entrance to Reesong Palace, where Ganon has taken residence.

Zelda travels to the Shrine of Gamelon to defeating the head-switching chimera Omfak and obtain the Wand needed to defeat Ganon, and she also visits Nokani Forest to obtain the magic lantern needed to clear the darkness around Ganon. Finally at Reesong Palace, Zelda fights Ganon, incapacitates him with the Wand, and rescues her father. Back at Hyrule Castle, Duke Onkled is turned over to the king, begging for mercy. He is arrested and punished by becoming a lowly drudge for the King. Although Link's whereabouts are still unknown, a comment by Lady Alma prompts Zelda to throw her mirror against the wall and as it smashes Link magically materializes, seemingly having been trapped in the mirror.

Gameplay
The gameplay is very similar to the accompanying title, Link: The Faces of Evil. The player controls Princess Zelda, who must find and defeat Ganon and rescue both King Harkinian and Link to become the heroine of Gamelon. When the player begins this quest, three areas are initially available, accessible through Impa's map. The player can access each area on by moving the on-screen cursor over one on the map and then pressing Button One.

At the beginning of the game, Zelda is only equipped with a sword and shield. The sword is used to attack enemies and to fire deadly Power Blasts, and the shield can deflect projectile attacks thrown at the player. The shield is automatically lifted when the player is standing still or crouching. Other helpful tools, such as lamp oil (for lighting a lamp), rope (for climbing) and bombs (which can destroy some obstacles) are available for a price at the General Shop in Sakado. The rubies that the Merchant takes as currency can be obtained by defeating enemies.

Like The Faces of Evil, Zelda's health is also measured by Life Hearts. By running out of Life Hearts the first two times, the player is provided with the option to continue near the point where Zelda's last heart was lost. The player is forced to restart the level if Zelda loses all her Life Hearts a third time.

Development
The Wand of Gamelon shares a nearly identical development story to Link: The Faces of Evil, as both games were developed in tandem by Animation Magic and saw a simultaneous release. Together, they were the first Nintendo-licensed games to be released on the Philips CD-i.

With the relatively low budget of approximately $600,000, Wand of Gamelon was given a little over a year for completion — time which would have to be split between the development of Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil. It was decided by Animation Magic, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based development team led by Dale DeSharone, that the two games would be developed in tandem and would share the same graphics engine to more efficiently use the budget.

The voice of Princess Zelda was provided by Bonnie Jean Wilbur and the voice of Link by Jeffrey Rath, while additional voices were provided by Jeffrey Nelson, Mark Berry, Natalie Brown, Karen Grace, Josie McElroy, Marguerite Scott and Paul Wann.

Reception
At the time of its release, contemporary criticism was largely positive. SNES Force magazine described the animated sequences as "breathtaking" and praised the game's high-resolution graphics and "brilliant" use of sound and speech. Highly anticipated by the French video game press, Joystick magazine's development preview of the title highlighted the fact that this would be the first of the Zelda games to feature true voice acting, and described its plot as highly original and the background graphics as a tableaux of great beaut.] The UK-based CDi Magazine rated the game a 75%, describing it as a "reasonably good game" and praising the puzzles and the animation sequences while criticizing its perfunctory plot and poor controls. In 1994, Edge reported that both Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon had sold a "respectable number of units", but 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 despite their sales figures.

All three Zelda CD-i titles have garnered a largely negative reception among modern critics, with The Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon standing out as the most frequently derided. The magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked Zelda: Wand of Gamelon the sixth worst game of all time, and GameTrailers rated it fifth worst game of all time. The Star Tribune described the game's voice acting as "laughable" and it was also criticized by Zelda Elements as jarring. IGN described the games as "infamous" and "cheesy"; other reviewers called the animated cutscenes "freakish" and "an absolute joke". Wired magazine said that the animation on the first two Zelda games was extremely simple and stilted and that the graphics had several glitches.

Despite the largely negative reception of The Wand of Gamelon, there have been a few positive reviews as well. Both Danny Cowan of 1UP.com and John Szczepaniak praised Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon as among the best games on the CD-i. Szczepaniak in particular suggested that several of the gaming magazines that had rated and reviewed Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil had engaged in hate campaigns having never even played the game. Cowan's and Szczepaniak's praises drew from the games' detailed, well-drawn in-game backgrounds and "pretty decent" gameplay, although both criticized the controls.

While the audio was thought to be "average", and not up to the usual Zelda quality by some reviewers, this has been contested by others who have described it as diverse and high-quality with an adventurous upbeat tempo blending electric guitar, panpipes, marimbas, and other unusual instruments. In a periodical for Retro Gamer magazine, Szczepaniak identified the natural comparison of the games by reviewers to the quality of games in the rest of the Zelda series as an improper comparison to make and suggested 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 these games as "astoundingly good" and rated them together as number ten in its "Perfect Ten Games" for CD-i. While acknowledging that the games lacked canonicity, the games were praised for exhilarating pacing and superb gameplay design and music. The game's background art was also described as ranging from Gigeresque to Monet-esque.