Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon | The Completionist

Nintendo is a company that has always put meticulous attention to detail at the very forefront of everything they do their games are known for being inventive creative and stylistically dazzling even back in the 80s when video games were still figuring themselves out that being said everyone has skeletons in their closet sources of cringe that inspires a little bit of shame and embarrassment Nintendo's is most likely the set of Zelda games that came out for the Philips CDI system which have little input from Nintendo and famously lacked everything that makes a Zelda game great we'll see if they're as bad as people say when I complete Zelda the wand of gamilon so the holidays are here guys happy holidays I guess and I'm excited to say that we are doing a fire sale over at the Yeti the any.com / the completionist diticom / super beer bros we are getting rid of all of our stock there most designs pour on sale massive discounts including things like hats hoodies and mugs so please if you want to get in on that we're doing this fire sale from now into the beginning of December so if you want to get on that go to the ad comm slash the completionist or the edicom slash super beer bros the more you buy the more you save fire sale whoa it's hot it's so hot I can't even wear it get it off me buy it hey everyone and welcome back to the brand new episode of the completionist anyone who's been a longtime fan of the channel knows that I have a fascination with games of all types good bad in the penetrable a I love finding out for myself if an amazing game is worth completing or if a bad game is as terrible as the internet says that it is welcome back to zelve a month and ever since I think Mario is missing here a while back a couple of you who blow me up my comments asking me to look at the CDI zelda games I've always been weirdly curious about these games mainly how and why do they exist and are they actually any good are they best left the 1993 era like snoop dogg or can we bring them to the current climate like snoop lion I think anyone really likes the name snoop lion do they I think he's went back to snoop dogg either way today we are completing zelda the one of gamilon yes [Music] the wand of gamilon occupies a strange place in videogame history Nintendo signed off on it but it lacks almost any of the polish gamers have come to expect of a Nintendo game it's another one of those weird and intent of experiments that pays off in some ways but in many other ways it absolutely does not it is impossible to talk about this game without mentioning what the heck the Philips CDI is most people probably haven't even heard of it I had really not until I started researching for wand of gamilon the device is basically a computer without any of the main things that make a computer useful like a mouse or a keyboard or monitor or even processing power CDI stands for compact disc interactive and basically allow the system to play audio CDs and a few other specialty formatted CDs it was marketed mainly as a tool for educational games and I use that term loosely picture a barely functional Sony PlayStation with no backing and you've gotten idea here's where things get very weird Nintendo bizarrely agreed to license out the Legend of Zelda name to Philips because Nintendo briefly considered a Philips CDI add-on for the Super Nintendo system my buddy normed the gaming historian has an awesome video about how Nintendo developed an ad on floppy disk device for the Famicom because they were convinced that floppies were the future while it clearly seems like the wrong call now it makes sense the Nintendo was considering some kind of disk add-on for the SNES you've probably heard the rumors of how Sony and Nintendo were working together to make an SNES CD kind of system essentially confirming / not confirming the existence of a Sony Nintendo PlayStation this Philips CDI deal is actually a part of that saga Nintendo decided to partner with Philips instead of Sony which led to Sony developing the PlayStation after that Nintendo decided to pass on Philips - and scrapped Nintendo CD Projekt entirely but not before agreeing to let them make some Zelda games with seemingly no strings attached you know how a Batman Begins Batman basically lets rachel gould die by saying i won't kill you but i don't save you either something like that that's kind of how Nintendo let Philips develop these games there was practically no input or oversight from Nintendo to developers animation magic and very little development time at all there were three games with Zelda characters release for the CDI note that I'm avoiding saying three Zelda games released for the CDI because these games barely resemble what we recognize as a Zelda game I'm not saying Nintendo was trying to bury the games for the CDI but let's just say there were an awful lot of shovels lying around there aren't thousands of videos on YouTube of people dumping on these games and that kind of seems to be their legacy what strangest to me is that Zelda wand of gamilon linked faces of evil and Zelda's adventure all came out after a Link to the Past one of the greatest games of all time Nintendo sort of swept these games under the rug and continued my fame never really existed but I still want to see everything this game has to offer completing wand of gamilon should be a pretty straight four experience since there aren't any alternate endings or deep dark secrets to be found more so than the Zelda games we all know and love this one is very much story driven pretty much all I have to do to complete this game is to make it to the very end in order to do that I'll be going from area to area finding several key items that move the plot forward I'm taking a little comfort from the fact that at the end of the day it's all about defeating Ganon and having a little happily ever after a moment to myself what makes me nervous is this game's reputation it is supposed to be atrociously difficult the controls are legendarily terrible the cutscenes agonizing the puzzles obscure I've played nearly every other Zelda game but one of gamilon is so far removed from the cores healthy experience then it might be more difficult than I imagined but hey I'll persevere because I have never let a bad game get me down or lost my sanity because of how absurd completing a terrible game is definitely never done those things [Music] Zelda the wand of gamelon is infamous for its presentation it's shocking how rough the complete package is everything is devoid of any Nintendo charm and any interesting experiments if the game tries to do gets lost in the mess I had heard some rumors about bad cutscenes and maybe seen a couple of gameplay screenshots but nothing compares to seeing how absolutely bonkers everything looks all together the game begins when the king harkinian sets off to aid the duke of gamilon who is under attack by our old buddy Ganon the King tells Zelda that she hasn't heard from him within a month to send link as backup a month goes by with no word so link sets off but after even more time passes with no word from the King or link Zelda decides to take matters into her own hands to rescue everyone and stop ganden herself seeing the story laid out like that doesn't sound so bad it's a princess empowerment story for Zelda who is an awesome character who doesn't have much agency in the older titles but the execution is just abysmal most of the story is told through FMV cutscenes which are hilariously shockingly awful just pick what you want I'll handle the rubies from the voice acting to the animation itself it feels like everything was made in ms paint and then brought to life the tone is wildly inconsistent throughout on the one hand you've got 90s latitude link and on the other the legitimately terrifying cutscenes that show bad guys melting into piles of goo with pulsating hearts even the gameplay reflects some of this inconsistency it's a grand adventure where the player is blocked at every turn by locked doors or the need to collect extremely specific items I think one of the most disappointing things is how divorced from anything other related the entire universe of one of gamilon it's the player isn't even exploring Hyrule where the heck is gamma long so many questions and all I get is confusion when I try and answer them the game is divided into an overworld and actual levels the overall looks kind of like a generic fantasy world map there are mountains towns desert castles all the things you'd expect in the D&D campaign but once again this ain't D&D where's Mike Helia the Lost Woods it's baffling to me this game came out long after a Link to the Past and drew absolutely no inspiration from it it's possible Nintendo put a stop on that but if that was the case then while it the devs have access to the characters at all which leads me to the cutscenes yes they are more insane and incoherent than you can possibly imagine the way the characters move the way their eyes pierced into my very soul the sounds of their voices whatever I see I shower devour everything is just so so wrong my jaw actually dropped hearing links say I'm so hungry I could eat an octorok there's an easy joke to be made here about how this is why you never hear League talk in Zelda games but it goes so much deeper than that every little thing in these cutscenes seemed flagrantly designed to make self a fans upset the Triforce has always been kind of a MacGuffin in the Zelda canon it's often portrayed as something that's inside of Zelda link or Ganon this metaphysical magical artifact in this game it's whatever the developers want it to be Impa uses the Triforce of wisdom as Google Maps to see what's on the other side of the world and the thing basically looks like a little blue floating pyramid you would see in geometry class the King says that the Triforce of courage will protect him when he goes on his journey but there's absolutely no indication of what he's talking about and clear doesn't work since he gets captured anyways characters are invented out of nowhere whenever the script needs someone new to hand out or request a new item a prime example of someone like a greedy shopkeeper or an Antonio Banderas looking wayfarer type guy I can't get over the fact that intend to let it come out like this there are some things that kind of work the actual gameplay levels have an interesting look to them sort of a painted quality that's a nice artistic choice but that clashes with the character models which are just plain ugly nothing ties together neatly in any way you might be thinking hey at least maybe the music might be good because Elda games are renowned for their music and surely the extra power of the CDI would lead to a memorable score you my friend thought wrong it's weird 9 these beats all the way throughout baby nothing mystical or memorable about it look at the end of the day the more I look at this game the more flabbergasted and confused I become it's a Zelda game in name only and the more I look at the details the more enraged I get didn't even call rupees rupees they call a rubies studies Zelda really what is happening here what have I gotten myself into [Music] you know despite the abysmal presentation that showcases next to nothing unique about the Zelda universe and cutscenes that will live forever and infamy at least this game has an atrocious gameplay throughout sorry that's what I call a bait-and-switch you thought I was gonna say something positive but the gameplay didn't show who you are wrong sucker at this game will not cater to you this game borrows a little gameplay from Zelda 2 The Adventure of Link but introduces its own unique terribleness routes the player controls Zelda along a 2d plane and one of the few positive moves that the game makes it's fun to see Zelda depicted has a sword waving shield Epting warrior even if it can be disempowering to get absolutely bodied by any enemy whatsoever basically Zelda explores levels until she finds an obstacle if she can't overcome then finds the item that lets her progress this is indeed a Zelda trope but the way it's implemented in wand of gamilon is not nearly as fluid as other Zelda games a shopkeeper will scream at you to find more rubies so you can buy bombs or a mysterious homeless blacksmith will obliquely mention eating a hate stone with no direction of what to do it's all of the worst gameplay parts of Castlevania 2 with all of the roughness of my little cousins coloring book it's often difficult to tell where a platformer ends when Zelda is running around on a level everything kind of runs together and as a result is extremely hard to tell how to get to things that are climbing in other better Zelda games there are often indicators of how to interact with the world walls they can be bombed to have cracks in them locked doors have giant great big keyholes and the player character can pick up items by simply walking over them not so much so in the one of gamilon whereas Zelda stumbles into a pitch you can't climb out of and won't know that a door is locked until she physically walks up and it Blair's locked at her rubies must be slashed with your sword before they're officially collected everything is defined by an enormous and confusing lack of feedback like when I try to reach out to the Department of Water and Power to find out why my shower isn't working you know how it in most other video games the player character it gets a moment to recover after being hit by an enemy Super Mario goes to small Mario but gets like three seconds of invincibility allowing him to run through King Koopa to get to an axe on the other side of the bridge right in the wand of gamilon there are zero invincibility frames this means that the lowliest enemy can absolutely destroy Zelda in seconds by literally walking into her it makes progression frustrating to say the least there's sort of a crude checkpoint system in that if you die in a room you can restart in that same room a couple of times die too often though and you're kicked back to the overworld where you can keep beating your head against the same wall or try and explore a different area thinking about it that's another interesting thing about the one of game along it please more like an adventure game than anything else the player can go from town to town pretty easily but will eventually find their progress blocked until they find a key item it's a very loose structure and I guess it works in theory but the execution is rough around the edges just like every sprite that appears on screen the roughness doesn't just apply to the graphics though combat in this game is like trying to run my fingers through Wallace's fur after he's been rolling around in the mud sticky messy and ultimately very sad Zelda does have a shield and a sword but until you upgrade the Sword of shoot beams you have to deal with extremely spotty hit detection in general especially trying to block things Zelda can block almost any oncoming projectile as long as she's standing still but it's a lost cause and she's being attacked from any sort of angle some enemies like to attack on a diagonal and my advice in those situations is to scream oh come on and watch Zelda get mowed down by a freaking pterodactyl interestingly there are boss characters that show up even iron knuckle makes an appearance in one of the few actual references to the Zelda universe in this strange alt world Zelda game however Zelda doesn't really bite them the boss fights are basically won in cutscenes by Zelda using a magic item to really destroy them in weirdly graphic ways I'll never forget the way that suit of armour with lips explodes into a goddamn flock of goddamn crows completing this game almost drove me up a flippin wall it's archaic in a way that feels cruel again I'm just shocked that this game was kind of a follow-up to a Link to the Past it feels like a massive step backwards because trying to collect key items means that Zelda has to basically find and talk to every NPC multiple times until they finally tell her exactly what they need to do to move forward I wish people would do that in real life I've had enough trial and error but in the game like this it just feels flat-out annoying the terrible combat in obtuse puzzle-solving nearly had me in tears the more hours I play into this game I clawed my way through to witness every terrifying cutscene all the way to get insta mize and I really have to say after seeing everything this game has to offer it is not worth it seeing Bane switch again get bopped on [Music] there's just nothing here no magic armor no secret dungeon there are no upgrades to the magic meter nor was there a magic meter to begin with this is one of those games that once you make it through that's all there was to it I can hear the Kings derisive laughter now and I feel like a fool completing this game didn't make me punch a hole on my screen or rekha me emotionally or anything like that but it did leave me with an extensive list of questions here we go why make these subpar Zelda games in the first place why release them after making sure every detail of believes to pass and even Link's Awakening for Gameboy was perfect and memorable years before the CDI was set to release these games why give link the most annoying character voice of all why would Nintendo bother licensing out official Zelda characters and then not bother to see what the developers were churning out why does the Kings laughs follow me wherever I go why do enemies in the very first area of the game pose a bigger threat than Ganon himself wisely trapped in a mirror and what will happen if I throw a mirror on the ground in my office why is the Triforce of wisdom a softball sized rotating viagra bill the more I think about it the more and founded I am I wish I had answers to some or even any of these questions what I do have is a headache from trying to determine how to navigate groundwater look of the world and a slight anxiety attack every time I see Zelda's vacant deadpan stare during a cutscene when I completed Zelda the one of gamilon there were 67 deaths one Triforce of wisdom used to spy on more people than the FBI one magic blanket that turns enemies into dust zero hyrule landmarks visited three my lovingly difficult hours played and one Gerard who really wanted to say excuse me princess every five seconds even though I know that it isn't even from this game sue me video game development is an extremely strange business and the 90s was pretty much the Wild West for developers trying to get on in tendo's good side ultimately though zelda the one of gamilon best left forgotten and definitely now worth suffering all the way through to the end unless you're like me and need to hear that laughs to feel complete again she jeremy a little once told me to my face and to the public that a delayed game is eventually good but a rushed game is forever bad i don't know what he had to say about this game which was rushed to completion and basically had zero input from him or any of the higher-ups at nintendo it's a strange poorly designed fever dream of a Zelda game and I wish I can save Zelda's first solo outing was a bigger success than it was so with that of my guys I get this game my completionist rating of donate it don't it that's all something for today guys so please as always let me know about today's episode somewhere on the internet if you like the show do me a favor leave a comment on why you want to see uses 0 while I'll never be here on the show while you're at it hit that like button hit that subscribe button hit the bell to get all notifications we do Wednesdays and Saturdays check on back we just hit a million subs hopefully yay you guys are the best 1 million subscriber special next week have a good weekend see then bye bye

Channel: The Completionist

Views: 666,659

Keywords: Zelda, zelda cdi games, zelda: the wand of gamelon, Zelda: Wand of Gamelon, Zelda wand of gamelon, legend of zelda, bad zelda games, zelda month, peanutbuttergamer, pbg, the legend of zelda, nintendo, phillips cdi, game review, completionist, the completionist, link, cdi, the legend of zelda series, zelda review, wand of gamelon review, zelda wand of gamelon gameplay, zelda wand of gamelon review

Id: MTy9MJZRPCg

Length: 21min 25sec (1285 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 10 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/I_Wanna_Be_Numbuh_T]

Oh... Oh, dear....

[u/trainercatlady]

that background music. I can't help but sing along with it

or the remix

[u/Safety_Dancer]

Why though?

[u/byniri_returns]

"Man with the way Jirard reacted to completing it, he must've had to put hours upon hours into i- "

3 hours played

Oh wow.... it had that impression on him in only THREE HOURS