The Zelda Game You Could ONLY Play Once A Week!? (Zelda History)

[Music] if you're a zelda fan chances are you've binged one or two of the games there's no shame in it we've all done it at one point or another you know a few hours here a few hours there it's a great way of de-stressing but what if i told you there used to be a zelda game you could only play for 16 minutes a day and only once a week sound weird enough well that's just the beginning my name is the bread pirate but everyone calls me bread i respond to every comment and i make lots of zelda content exactly like this today we're talking about the legend of zelda bs edition all right all right get your brain out of the gutter for a second i know what you're thinking and no it does not stand for baloney stew the bs stands for broadcast satellite long before the days of the nintendo switch docking port the japanese nes aka the super famicon had a docking port of its own an attachment called the satella view amusingly the citella view was larger than the super famicon itself yet it served a revolutionary purpose the satella view could download information from space without boring everybody by going into the science of it or explaining how nintendo was able to rent a satellite network let's cut to the chase this was the first time nintendo gave people the ability to download games onto their consoles in fact this was a full 11 years before the wii shop channel became a thing something else unique about the citeleview aka bs system was its main menu it was a game in and of itself after you typed your name and selected a gender you were plopped into an earthbound looking town called the town whose name was stolen each of the buildings acted as menu options and you could even buy items with in-game currency that would customize your character this town this town right here this is how you accessed the bs legend of zelda games and yes that was plural games with an s a grand total of four of them released in this order bs the legend of zelda map one bs the legend of zelda map ii a link to the past and bs the legend of zelda ancient stone tablets however a link to the past will not be discussed in this video it was a copy and paste of the original game from the super nes except now it was downloadable from space for the super famicon not very interesting the bs legend of zelda maps are where things start getting juicy these maps are a remake of the original legend of zelda for the nes made with the help of its satellite company nintendo remade the entirety of the game with updated graphics resynthesized music new dungeons and quality of life improvements such as the ability to quick swap items without going into your main menu it's also interesting to note you did not play as link in this game instead you played as an avatar of the player either a boy or girl depending on who you chose in the main menu of the town whose name was stolen people really seemed to love this remake in fact it was so lovable that they made a sequel to it the legend of zelda bs map two it's another recreation of the original legend of zelda but this time with a new overworld and new dungeons it was still the same basic game but rearranged a little bit that way exploration stayed fresh many zelda fans go as far as to title these two games as the third quest and the fourth quest of the original legend of zelda obviously named after the original quest quest 1 which is the legend of zelda and quest 2 which was the harder game mode you could unlock if you named your character zelda in the original game but that's just an observation from the fans the coolest part about these games was the live nature of them because this attella view could directly stream information to the player nintendo could cause world events to happen as you were playing for instance stunning all enemies on screen giving you unlimited bombs or making dungeon enemies appear in the overworld some events were helpful and some were meant to challenge the player there was even live voice acting the old man that you find in the first cave would regularly speak to you telepathically giving you tips and warnings actually now that i think about it that made this the first nintendo produced zelda game with voice acting overall it was an impressive game especially for 1995 but we haven't even started talking about the fourth bs legend of zelda game bs the legend of zelda ancient stone tablets the sequel to a link to the past that you never knew about similar to the previous two games or should i say maps ancient stone tablets featured an avatar of the player instead of link but this time there was lore behind it explained through voice acting in the land of hyrule it's been six years since ganon was defeated but zelda has been plagued with nightmares that tell her about a dark force that is returning it is the job of the player to collect eight stone tablets which contain clues for finding a secret weapon which can fend off this returning evil look i'm not saying this game has the best storyline or anything but it's still flipping cool that they made a direct sequel to a link to the past even gameplay-wise this was super ambitious depending on how long you played the game certain side quests would become available characters would move around the map and rain would occur at random times making npcs go inside their houses hence this was the first time nintendo used a clock to control the way npcs worked in a zelda game and it wasn't until majora's mask came out three years later that a system like this returned oh and in case it wasn't clear this game had voice acting too it highly fascinates me and i love diving into these games i might make a video about this in the future but we'll have to wait and see about that everything about these games just seems so perfect it's as if there's no problems or issues with them guys this is 1995. of course there's a catch multiple of them in fact first off these games were only released in japan minus a link to the past the super famicon was the japanese version of the super nes hence none of these games were compatible with consoles outside of japan furthermore nintendo didn't bother acquiring satellite transmissions in other places around the world for a short time nintendo considered teaming up with microsoft to localize the game in north america but this plan fell through probably because of expenses involved and the lack of interest from american consumers speaking of expenses there were a lot of those a lot uh on top of buying a super famicon and a satella view you had to either buy a bs tuner or rent one for six months that's the thing that decrypts the radio signals on top of that you also had to pay a monthly fee to access the signal and yes these prices are adjusted for modern day inflation so buying a bs rig in 1995 is the equivalent of 732 dollars in 2021 and that's not counting the fees for the bs tuner or the unknown monthly fees required for accessing nintendo's satellite network or the optional extra rewritable slotted cartridges you could store your games on cheesy luizy it's a miracle anybody bought this thing hey do you remember a minute ago when i said nintendo rented a satellite network they did this by investing stocks in a company called saint giga which is short for satellite digital audio broadcasting company ltd wait wait never mind we don't get it either it's a company credited as being the first digital radio satellite company in the world so most of the profits that they made were done via their 24-hour jazz broadcast or at least it was before they teamed up with nintendo in 1995. unfortunately this is what leads us to our biggest problem with the bs zelda games because saint giga insisted on being a primarily music-based company there was only a three-hour time span when you could download games to play a time that varied at different points in the company's history the rest of the timeslots were taken up by jazz poetry and hippie nature sounds seriously i can't make this up and still yet in the case of the zelda series one to three hours is a misleading time frame remember how these games are voice acted well those voice actors were acting live as in none of it was pre-recorded that you were hearing on the screen each of the voice actors were only hired once a week to say these lines for this video game and only for an hour at a time hence players only had 60 minutes to play their live streamed games and only once a week it's alright though things got worse it took seven minutes to download your game each week and three minutes at the end which were used to save your game and give you a high score and these breaks in the gameplay happened during your 60 minutes effectively this meant that each player had 50 minutes to play the game not 60. but at least your progress between each week was saved stuff you did in week 1 such as completing a dungeon or collecting items would be saved until week 2 and week 2 to week three and then week three to week four which was the final week of each of the games excuse me sir what would happen if i missed a chapter excellent question in order to figure that out i contacted bs experts duke serkel and khan the exact same people who founded the bs zelda homepage back in 1999 and to this day aren't maintaining it the answer i got was not the answer i expected different games handle this in different ways in the first bs zelda game you would have to try and collect the triforce pieces from the previous week or weeks that you missed within the remaining time not necessarily by the end of the current broadcast unless it was the final broadcast so yeah you were pretty much hung out to dry and be expected to pick up the slack by the time ancient stone tablets was made nintendo must have realized that this was far too harsh on players and they came up with a better system in ancient stone tablets it's not possible to access dungeons from previous broadcasts instead you will find a thief blocking the entrance when spoken to the thief will say that in ransacking the dungeon he's found a lot of junk he has no need for and will hand the player the key items from the dungeon a heart piece a stone tablet and say the bow for dungeon 1 and the hammer for dungeon 3. you get the idea end quote but if you missed something from outside of the dungeon like a heart piece hidden in a cave somewhere then you were not given any help if you wanted that heart piece then you had to backtrack and waste time in doing so and yes it was possible to play each of these games and never see the ending because you were too slow at playing the game but on the off chance you did complete the game there was a really cool reward for that at the end of each game session during those 3 minutes when the game was saving you were given a score for your performance more rupees and hearts and items collected meant more points and at the bottom of the screen you were given a code that could then be submitted to saint giga if you got the most points for that week then you would get mailed back a prize no one knows what the prizes were since they were documented so poorly but they existed probably thankfully all three of these games were rebroadcasted at later dates so if you missed the game this month then you might still be able to play it next month or even next year granted the games were still only available once a week but at least you had multiple chances to play it well you did but then in 1998 that changed and not for the better in 1998 saint giga was in crippling debt and nintendo tried helping after outlining a plan to reduce spending they sent it over to giga and giga promptly refused then in august saint giga failed to meet a deadline to apply for a broadcasting license which apparently indeed this was the last straw for nintendo and in 1999 they halted all production of satellite games thus all three bs legend of zelda games were never broadcasted again so what happened to the bs zelda games nobody knows for sure it's likely that nintendo has the bs zelda games hidden in their attic at nintendo hq but they have yet to re-release them some people have a hope that the games will return for the 35th anniversary of the legend of zelda series that's a far-flung hope but it's a hope nonetheless in my opinion nintendo hasn't completely forgotten about the games in 2011 hyrule historia was published and it mentions the bs zelda games twice granted nintendo didn't directly write hyrule historia but they did authorize it proving that they are aware of the game's existences my personal theory is that nintendo has always wanted to have the chance to resell these games but they haven't been able to do it because the games are structured so weirdly thankfully there's still one way to play the bs zelda games all you have to do is search up bs zelda home page and this collection of links will show you how to end um i'm sorry that was weird as i was saying if you go to bs zelda homepage the same one which is maintained by duke circle and khan you can find the files you need to laminate the games dang it why can't i say this word you fool did you try speaking the forbidden word how did you get in here wait how long have you been in that closet do you have any idea what you've done the eyes of nintendo are everywhere they're gonna shut down our channel now i just wanted to play games [Music] seriously guys the games are on the website if you'd like to play them they even have versions of the game which remove the clock and allow you to play at your own pace it might be a bit confusing to navigate the website at first but trust me the games are there and i can't express how thankful i am to the people who run this website for preserving the history around one of the most interesting zelda games to ever exist but wait a minute what's what's that on the website oh it's a subscribe button how'd you get there you fuzzy pickle you remember we respond to every comment yes every single one until i see you next time have fun storming the castle [Music]

Channel: The Bread Pirate

Views: 757,476

Keywords: legend of zelda, zelda, zelda theory, bs zelda, the legend of zelda bs, bs the legend of zelda, zelda bs, zelda history, ancient stone tablets, legend, breath of the wild, the legend of zelda, satellaview, nintendo, snes, st giga, bs-x, ancient, stone, tablets, bs, a link to the past, The Bread Pirate, broadcast, once a week, retro, comedy, Zelda 35th, zelda 35th anniversary, roo

Id: IBAVBQoByyo

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021