Zelda's Adventure

 I carved out a good 30 minutes to play Zelda's Adventure today for the first time. I found the kitsch of the title charming, but it will be a good while before I pick up the controller again to play this one.

However, the game is something of a hallmark release for the Philips CD-i due to being a Zelda title - and an infamous one at that. It's also has the top commanding CD-i game price on ebay - regularly selling for north of $700.

Other than ebay prices, what makes Z.A. feel different from the CDi releases of Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon is the lack of goofy cartoon cutscenes in exchange for live performance ones.

The title was released in Europe and Europe only. The closest thing to a USA release is a Red Label Demonstration Disc bearing a USA serial number of 310-690-229-2 - which is not uncommon on ebay. We're currently looking to acquire a dump of this version, or I'll just buy one eventually.

Z.A. was never released in USA, but here's the promo created in preparation for a planned release.

The game received two proper releases in Europe, both of which feature gameplay in English Language Only.

  • One was released with an 810 0147 serial number, a barcode of 8712581001476, and a booklet and back insert art in English, French, German, and Dutch languages.
  • The other has a serial of 810 0157, with a barcode of 8712581001575, and a booklet and back insert art in English, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese languages.
The two European dumps match. With gameplay being English only, this is not a surprise. They both share the "8100147" serial in their mastering ring code.

Both share the same cover art:
If you see this cover, it's a European release. Even if it's listed on ebay.com from a US seller.



Additionally, here's a Euro pre-production version (dumped and part of the Non-Redump set):





FAKE ALERT!
Fake versions are very popular on ebay. There have been NO REALY WHITE LABEL VARIANTS EVER SPOTTED! All the white labels that have shown up on ebay are CD-Rs and have all the tell-tale signs of being fake.

at