Shantae but good (actually this time)

Very cool how beyond just the cutscene style and spritework this retains a lot of the weird quirks of the zelda cdi games. Yknow, the objects you can never tell if are in the background or foreground, enemies needing different projectiles to kill, picking stuff up/talking to people with your sword, the shitty darkrooms, the weird jump feel, all while managing to play like an actual platformer instead of like a DVD menu. Multiple instances where I mistook a door I needed to go in to progress for a background detail, but god are those backgrounds a treat to look at, perfectly in line with how the originals look so cool. Plays alright, nothing really to write home about as far as metroidvania stuff goes, I do like how its segmented into a bunch of smaller levels rather than one sprawling map so you're never really lost for long. Probably couldve used more enemy variety but they're fine as an ends to a mean.

My biggest gripe's with the animation. Yeah, its funny and charming and does a good job replicating the original, but it just feels kinda off, like they got real close to that weird ass animation the ogs have but didn't get all the way. You watch those original faces of evil cutscenes and those weird fuckers never sit still, always bending and turning in random directions while they spout their nonsense. Arzette's animation often feels kinda stiff by comparison, doesn't have the same distinctly Soviet feel that the old ones have. Hardly a bad effort but I just think it couldve been a little better. Do like how little it feels like its winking to the audience about how goofy it is, good on them for playing it straight. I did clap and do they soyface when they said "Dinner" and "It burns", obviously.

also the hotel mario homage was cool but as far as im aware there's no reference to i.m. meen which they were fake for

I think it's really sweet that this whole game is just genuinely appreciative of the CDi games and the resulting YTP scene. It never punches down on its own source material or even defaults to some irony-poisoned take on the matter; it's just a continuation of games that, despite all reason, managed to resonate with people in their own weird way.

Gameplay wise this definitely shows in how the elevator pitch is pretty much just "CDi Zelda but playable". It's a rather short game that, crazily enough, isn't pushing any narrative boundaries, but the extra gameplay polish makes the quest hunting really palatable. One of my friends got into speedrunning it with some sequence breaks and has the world record so I'd say the world design has to be doing something right.

I know the main draw for most people is the meme factor, so I'd say it lands pretty well. Arzette is the distilled mythos of the CDi girlboss Zelda and her reactions to whatever arbitrary characters show up next are pretty good. The story isn't winning any awards, although Arzette's dad dying gives off some "overly verbose YTP lore" vibes which was fun. I don't think any of these people are going to end up iconic enough to where I'll see them singing Stronger than You next month but they were fine on their own. Really the only things that felt off were the blatantly sauceless Morshu and the one random Castlevania reference. Also I swear a Bubsy line snuck in somewhere.

Overall, I think it's a very cute game that provides a chance to reminisce on some old shitposty memories. Not really anything more than that, but I figure that was obvious from the get-go.

Had a good time with this game. Zelda CD-I but made good. They do their best to emulate the cutscenes, which is obviously one of the main draws. They do a good enough job emulating the style where it matters most although it's clearly not the same. You can tell when cutscenes were made by different artists. It doesn't matter much but the few cutscenes that are obviously traced 3d models were really distracting. References to CD-I and other video games were eye rollers at times.

The gameplay is inoffensive enough that I wasn't getting bored. Going for 100% will have you revisiting stages many times which isn't optimal, but they're short enough that it's not a major waste. Only a few secrets were a bit more troublesome to find. Sucks that all achievements requires multiple playthroughs.

Arzette is a really, really good game. It's an homage rather than a parody and I'm happy it exists this way. It shows us in an alternate timeline, the Zelda CD-I games could have been great & that there was something special about them

Put aside how they "ruin" the characters, add just a little polish & you can see how charming they could be. Make the levels more intuitive to navigate and you can see that the levels were always beautiful. And if the CD-I soundtrack just added... Actually, that was the one thing that always slapped about the CD-I games, but Arzette's OST rocks, too!

But even on its own merits the game still succeeds. It's almost like a mini-metoridvania with a level selector rather than an interconnected world, but you still get that same gameplay loop of starting out weak, getting the hang of the game, and by the end you're crushing every enemy on your path to the end.

Arzette is a short game, but well worth every ruby you spend on it. If I had to sum it up in one word it is, unironically, good.

I am surprised at how legitimately good this is. But it reminds me more of Shantae than Zelda CD-i. But thank you for retaining the creepy charm of Faces & Gamelon while making the writing stronger, to the point that Arzette makes quite a transformation through the game.

I would suggest going for 100%, because of how cool the unlocks for finishing everything are. Easy recommend. I can only hope this is sourced in future YTPs, as most people have said.

Also, as much as I don't like Limited Run, they made a replica CD-i controller that works on PC and Switch. And god bless them for doing that, that's brilliant.

bought and installed within the first minute of availability, which idk i will ever do for a game again, so feel free to take my autism with a grain of salt. but this is an exceedingly, endlessly lovable piece of art, one which reaffirms just about everything ive grown to believe about art in the first place. the source material , once uncomplicatedly loathed, has been slowly chipped away at by years of collective intimacy...sentences heard as groups of syllables, individual frames of animation immortalized, control quirks forced to be grappled with, npc requests and locations forced to be stored away in memory. this is to say nothing of the dedication it took to create an entire fan remaster, which leads directly into arzette via its lead developer. the result is a combination of nostalgic warmth, a grasp of what is compelling and memorable and striking about those games, and a melancholy stare at the parts that could have been better...a melancholy that could only be sated Through creation.

arzette will be described by many people as "the cdi zeldas but good." having enjoyed the remasters of those games, its more the final step in a process of escalation towards "the cdi zeldas, but there is less in the way of the good." the ultra-memorable quirk and expressiveness of the animation and voice acting are more widely acknowledged as boons now, but arzette also runs with the gorgeous background art, the lush and memorable music, and the miniature zelda experience via an interlocking spread of bite sized metroidvania maps. since its no longer on the cdi, individual screens are much meatier, which does make it slightly longer to recheck places (and rechecking places is what youre doing a Lot in all of these games, but especially this one with its more complex item progression), but it also allows for much more deliberate and satisfying level and encounter design. tricks from the cdi games have their most unpleasant edges sanded off, yet still retain their character. its by any measure an improvement on its inspirations, yet it never once feels judgemental or callous...instead it feels freed and joyus, the result of passion and time and effort and improved technology, chipping away at a dream created almost accidentally by people working with a bad console under tight time pressure.

and more then anything, even with some fun and dry meta jokes, i may not play a game more full of shamelessly earnest love this year. its close proximity with its source material allows it to share a bunch of discoveries its made that its so bubblingly excited about...yet its also an individual and distinctive piece of art carrying with it all the best sensibilities of contemporary metamodern media engagement, a plea to look closely at things that are dismissed and create beauty out of them. its most singular advancements are not its polishing up of rough gameplay ideas, but are in its disarmingly heartfelt and kind story and general tone. i know many people are cynical about pastiche, esp in a world where the same ideas are endlessly recycled over and over...but art should be about the free exchange of ideas, putting them out in the world for other people to respond to, feel about, and create on top of. it certainly cant be dismissed out of hand if it produces results like this even occasionally. hot moose man.

A charming love letter to a niche genre while standing on it’s own

This game pays homage to the Phillips CDi Zelda games, using alot of the original talent that worked on them and mimicking it’s design so well that it feels like it could have been made for the original console at the time. The love and soul that went into making this game can be felt and it makes the experience a joy on that alone. It’s a simple enough game to play in a single sitting and honestly recommended since there’s a lot to memorize with its metroidvania style of progression. You’ll be backtracking a lot thorough levels, combing every wall and surface to get any secrets; it’s a fairly easy game to 100% without a guide, just a keen eye.

My only gripe with the game is that the cutscenes did not match to the humor of its inspiration, animations/characters didn’t leave as much of an impact except for a small handful of scenes. Some scenes felt like attempts to be parodied of the CDi games but they just made me go “I wish I was watching the original cutscenes instead.” The animation quality wasn’t consistent between each other, but that did add another layer of charm that the game gave off.

As someone who loved the creative style of the CDI Zelda games, I’m honestly just surprised and happy this game exists.
It looks great, the cutscenes are still charming, it feels good to play, and there are lots of extra side quests and collectibles even with the shorter main campaign. There’s definitely some jank with the vague progression, instakill pits, and enemy swarming in the late game, but maybe that’s just committing to the bit. I still enjoyed Arzette and I hope this team does more with it in the future.

Wow just…..WOW! If I had a nickel for every time a 10/10 silly indie game was released around the beginning of the year and just so happened to use Microsoft paint in its art direction, id have two nickles. Which isnt alot but its weird it happened twice right? Well I definitely aint complaining! Here we go!


The Good
- Great level design
- Vibrant visuals
- Excellent Music
- Humorous Dialogue
- Levels weren't too long, so backtracking was never a chore
- Lively characters that took over every cutscene they were in.
- Vibrant cutscenes that gave me flashbacks to when I would mindlessly watch YTPs all day long.
- A great love letter to the Phillips CDI. More than just the obvious inspiration from the Zelda CDI games.


The Meh
- The backtracking can be frustrating at times if you dont know where youre going.
- If youre not in on the joke, a lot of what this game throws at you will feel hallow.
- Bosses wernet the best, but if youre aware of how the Zelda CDI games handled, bosses you get why that is.

The Bad
- N/A


Conclusion
If you would have told me that an indie game that served as a spiritual sucessor to the Zelda CDI games would be one of the best video games ive ever played anytime before February 14, 2024, I would have told you to get your head examined. The amount of charm and dedication to the past really elevates the experience in a way I've never seen before. Taking something that has been considered a laughing stock for the past 30+ years and turning it into a fun, silly, and refreshing experience that I wont forget anytime soon.

I had SUCH a good time with Arzette, and found the entire premise insanely charming. I've never played the Zelda CD-i games, but I've watched people play through them, so there's probably (definitely) things that were referenced that went over my head, but the many I did catch never failed to put a smile on my face. The entire game is clearly filled to the brim with love for their reference: getting the original voice actors, finding humor from the original plot, and the obvious amount of time put into their reminiscent art/animations. I liked all the obvious love "Seedy Eye" has for the "CD-i", rather than choosing to make the game point and maliciously laugh at it, which wouldn't have been half as fun. My biggest complaint is that the game is too short! I finished it all on my 4-hour bus trip, though it made it a short + fun ride. Honestly, the Zelda CD-i games were also very short, so it's fitting. I highly recommend Arzette: The Jewels of Faramore to fans of older games, indie platformers, and/or youtube poops, you'll have a blast.

3.5/5

I don't think anyone could have expected for the CD-I Zelda's of all things to get some kind of Indie retro revivial and I for one was genuinely surprised at how much fun I had with it.

I has this worry going in that the "Haha lol it's a CD-I" game concept would lose its charm and I'd be left with a kinda meh game or that this homage would be done in bad faith and be really cynical. But no has a genuine appreciation for its inspiration and manages to combine that with some really fun mechanics to give it its own unique feel amongst the countless Indie 2D Metroidvania Platformers.

Really enjoyed myself with this and from how the game ends... I am extremely excited about a potential sequel

What a lovely time this was, you don't often get to play a game where it's styled entirely after the old Philips CDi games. It's like the Cuphead of its generation in where we haven't seen someone try to replicate something like it. Still for 20 dollars you're getting a fairly good 2D Adventure Game, it plays exactly what its referencing and quite honestly just the animation quality alone is enough of a reason for you to pick it up. The only reason its not a 5/5 for me is simply because of how easy it is to get lost, and that can have you end up wasting a few minutes searching for what to do next breaking the games overall pacing, other than that I mean it runs well, looks well, and plays well.
Definitely something you should look into if you're ever curious.