Arzette Brings CDi Zelda-Inspired Thrills to Modern Hardware in 2023 - Hardcore Gamer
The Phillips CD-i was an interesting piece of technology that didn’t really do much to garner a killer gaming library – but was historically-significant because Nintendo chose to partner with them and backed out of the PlayStation deal, changing history forever in several ways. Nintendo and Sony split apart and Nintendo wound up going with cartridges while Sony dominated the 32-bit market in the US with the PlayStation and have remained a major force since that point.
Nintendo’s deal with Phillips allowed for some Nintendo-licensed games to hit the CD-i, with some edutainment Mario games hitting alongside a pair of very odd Legend of Zelda titles that blended strange-looking animated sequences with side-scrolling gameplay. The concept was certainly something that could be done well – but the execution for those games wasn’t, but the foundation was there to create something good. Enter Arzette!
Seedy Eye Software is creating something that blends the same style of odd animation alongside Princess Arzette’s side-scrolling hack and slash gameplay. There’s a healthy amount of platforming here and the swordplay looks weighty while the voice work seems to be exactly what it should be given the premise – it’s still better than either CD-i game, but corny enough to work on its own without that context. Daimer is out to take over the world and you have to save the land while working with allies to get items and solve quests and find secret areas too.
The hand-painted backgrounds look beautiful as does the sprite art, while the animated scenes look absolutely bottom-of-the-barrel in the best way. They look EXACTLY how they should look – if they looked any better, they’d look terrible for what this is trying to be. As an answer to
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