Game Review - originally written by Sliver X

BS Zelda is one of those games that would've never been played outside of Japan if not for emulation.

The game was released for the Bandai-Satellaview (editor's note: don't believe his lies, the B in BS stands for Broadcast, not Bandai, Bandai was not involved), a now defunct japanese add on for the Super Famicom that could download games from a satellite via a modem. BS Zelda was released in a way that certain sections of the game could be downloaded once a week, with a time limit on how long you could play each episode.

A few years ago, a ROM of the game was released on the internet, and a number of people translated it and did various hacks to it, such as removing the time limit, etc. The game itself plays very similarly to the original Legend of Zelda, but anyone who's played the first Zelda will notice a number of differences. The dungeons are altered, the overworld is different, and instead of Link, you play as a little kid in a baseball cap, which I understand was the Satellaview mascot.

If you like the Zelda series in general, you should find this game fun to play.

The first Zelda came out in 1986, making it a pretty outdated agony to play. BS Zelda no Densetsu is a remaster they did with a LOT of QoL that basically made it possible for me to enjoy the first Zelda all the way through. Fuck, you can even play as a woman 😳 that's really cool.

Regarding the gameplay, it's not a boring game, but it is primitive. Even if it has a coat of paint on top, it's still very difficult to pass it blind like-- it's stupid the amount of key items behind totally random walls/sprites, and being that they look the same like copypaste, it's impossible to know unless they tell you or you try everything, because most of them are not even that "it looks suspicious", they just said "uhhhhhhhhh let's make it so you can burn this bush lol" "this stupidly long wall has 1 single tile that if you put a bomb on it, we give you 100 ruppees" and that's something I'm aware a lot of people don't like.


On the other hand, BS Zelda feels very... easy... like... I don't know if it's the graphics or that the controls are not so clunky anymore, but it feels like everything hurts you less and the projectiles are slower... also, the map is much, much smaller lol
personally i prefer more the size of this map, because it seemed too much lol

anyway, BS Zelda is really weird, since it was supposed to be part of a 1 hour broadcast event, in which an old man would narrate things to you and every X amount of time he would help you or make your quest worse, like killing enemies for you or taking away a powerup lol
i just played a version without this, but i watched a video and woah that was cool
also another thing is that this event was like weekly? and like there were 3 maps and 3 objectives

idk it's a weird game but i liked it a lot! and it made me like zelda 1
like, edmund son of a bitch it's awesome everything you took out of zelda and put into Isaac literally everything that's in zelda 1, is in Isaac lol

Não é bem um remake, está mais para um mistod de remix e redux do The Legend of Zelda original. O mapa foi condensado e as dungeons simplificadas, o que não é necessariamente ruim; por mais que eu goste de LoZ, essa versão mais destilada e menos críptica foi bem gostosinha de se jogar. Mas alterações de world e level design não foram as únicas: a progressão do jogo está atrelada a uma série de eventos que têm um tempo determinado para acontecer. É como se a aventura tivesse sido dividida em 4 seções de 1 hora cada. Cada seção te dá acesso a duas dungeons e, em minutos específicos, certos eventos podem acontecer que te dão power-ups temporários, ou fazer um heart container ficar disponível no overworld, ou um novo canto do mapa ficar acessível, dentre outras coisas. Algo bem interessante é que essa divisão em 4 seções de 1 hora cada é, por si só, uma forma de cadenciar a aventura e criar uma certa curva de dificuldade. Fazer as duas primeiras dungeons em 1 hora é tranquilo; já concluir as últimas duas e de quebra ainda matar o Ganon no final me deu um pouco de desespero e quase pensei que não ia dar tempo.

Outro aspecto interessante de BS Zelda, e o mais óbvio, é o uplift audiovisual. É realmente um jogo bem charmoso, preservando o feel do original, mas agora em 16 bits e sei lá quantos canais de som. E aparentemente a transmissão original do Satellaview era ainda mais interessante nesse aspecto, com o uso de uma trilha sonora orquestrada e até narração através do Soundlink. Bem, tem um romhack disponível aí pelas redes que aparentemente reconstrói até isso, mas ainda não testei...

Enfim, se você curte o LoZ original, esse aqui é um prato cheio. Vai fundo.

Fun little remake of the original zelda game. Do be warned though; it isn't a 1:1 remake as the map is a lot smaller and the dungeons are different and simpler. Does the same thing as Ancient stone tablets where you have 4 1-hour sprints to reach certain goals and clear the game. The game isn't as obtuse as the original, but still can have a few moments where it is kind of vague as to where to go, so good luck with that. I'm surprised that this never got a western cart release or conversion or whatever, since there was clearly effort put into making it.