With the latest inflow of Recreation Boy, Recreation Boy Coloration, and Recreation Boy Advance video games to Nintendo’s on-line subscription service, it’s simpler than it’s ever been to play many of the mainline Zelda video games. We right here at Polygon have been blazing by the collection’ basic catalog within the lead-up to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in Might. It’s a pleasure to play the video games again to again and watch the collection evolve in microcosm between every subsequent entry.
In 2023, Polygon is embarking on a Zeldathon. Be part of us on our journey by The Legend of Zelda collection, from the unique 1986 recreation to the discharge of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and past.
However typically, it’s simply as a lot enjoyable, if no more so, to play the video games that had been impressed by Zelda — to see how completely different studios interpreted the pillars of Nintendo’s action-adventure franchise.
As a result of, actually: What makes a Zelda recreation a Zelda recreation? Is it the characters? Is it the puzzle-based dungeons? Is it assortment of cool new instruments, which you’ll must grasp as a way to take down the subsequent boss? For every new Zelda recreation that strengthened these pillars, simply as many got here alongside to refute them. (I personally am a fan of Majora’s Masks, maybe probably the most subversive chapter within the “let’s shake issues up” line of pondering.) It’s this malleability that has led to such a various vary of “Zelda-like” video games.
So, in case you, like us, are as soon as once more exhausting the variety of Zelda video games you will have but to replay within the lead-up to Breath of the Wild’s direct sequel, we’ve compiled an inventory of our favourite options that embody the time period “Zelda-like.” Some concentrate on puzzles; others embrace time manipulation; one offers us the strongest glimpse but at a Zelda recreation completely targeted on fight. We saved the standards obscure as a result of, nicely, the standards had been obscure to start with. And that’s why it’s so enjoyable. —Mike Mahardy
Eastward
The Legend of Zelda’s affect on Eastward is obvious the second you load up the sport; its gameplay and elegance oozes Zelda proper right down to the guts meter denoting your hit factors. From Chinese language developer Pixpil, Eastward is a 2021 role-playing recreation that takes the participant, nicely, eastward right into a mysterious post-apocalyptic world with a gruff man named John and a magical child named Sam. The world’s puzzles require the participant to make use of each John and Sam in numerous methods; John’s obtained a frying pan good for whacking enemies, whereas Sam’s magical powers stun enemies. They’re controllable concurrently, utilizing a controller’s set off to deliver one or the opposite to the entrance. Half Earthbound and half Zelda, Eastward is a must-play for anybody excited by pixel-art RPGs. —Nicole Carpenter
Eastward is out there on Mac, Nintendo Swap, Home windows PC, and Xbox One.
Dying’s Door
If Eastward is Earthbound meets The Legend of Zelda, then Dying’s Door is a combination of Darkish Souls and Zelda. Dying’s Door has the top-down exploration of many Zelda video games, the place gamers gather upgrades and instruments whereas transferring by puzzles and dungeons, however pairs that with a darkish world and difficult boss battles extra akin to Darkish Souls. It’s a few crow, named Crow, who’s a reaper of souls — their journey takes them from the forms of the afterlife into the world the place souls reside. It’s a easy recreation that does every thing close to completely, a kinder “onerous” recreation with a problem degree that ramps up as the sport continues. —Nicole Carpenter
Dying’s Door is out there on Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Collection X.
Okami HD
Okami has develop into identified for its ostensible similarity to Twilight Princess, the Zelda title that options Hyperlink in lupine type. However the similarities lengthen past this superficial character comparability — to the extent that followers take into account it top-of-the-line unofficial Zelda video games. It’s speckled with puzzles, and clearing areas provides to the protagonist’s toolkit: a collection of Celestial Brush powers that allow you to modify the setting round you. The sport appears to have Zelda in its DNA, even in its smallest moments, which I’ve unpacked in one other piece:
Like in Zelda video games, dungeons had elemental themes: I used levers to decrease the waterline in a cursed pirate ship, and hearth powers in a lava-themed dungeon. Although Okami’s puzzles are much less open-ended than these of Breath of the Wild — it’s fairly apparent which brushstrokes you employ to resolve issues — I used to be nonetheless wowed by the powers I amassed, and the way they let me modify the world.
—Nicole Clark
Okami HD is out there on Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 4, Home windows PC, and Xbox One.
No one Saves the World
Drinkbox Studios’ top-down dungeon crawler is Zelda for a brand new era, from its zany overworld encounters to the procedurally generated grottoes beneath. Its mix-and-match development permits gamers to veer off within the course of their most popular play model whereas nonetheless holding out the choice of seeing and unlocking every thing. Most significantly, No one is ready in a once-cheerful fairyland value saving, whose kooky mission-giving NPCs at all times summon a minimum of a dry chuckle. —Owen Good
No one Saves the World is out there on Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Collection X.
Tunic
Tunic stars a tiny fox that wields a sword and a defend, clearly a nod to The Legend of Zelda’s hero Hyperlink — the fox even wears a inexperienced tunic. Stuffed with puzzles and secrets and techniques, Tunic is a recreation that makes use of nostalgia for video games and franchises like The Legend of Zelda, largely by its important guide, which is constructed proper into the sport. When Tunic begins, the guide is incomplete, which suggests there’s tons of data lacking. The participant has to navigate Tunic’s world utilizing this incomplete info to seek out extra pages, unlocking new methods to resolve puzzles. It’s the secrets and techniques and mysteries of the world, which typically imply asking buddies for assist, that make Tunic particular — the combating itself isn’t the draw. It seems like enjoying a Zelda recreation as a child, one the place I may discuss secrets and techniques and techniques with my buddies. —Nicole Carpenter
Tunic is out there on Mac, Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Collection X.
Unsighted
Unsighted takes numerous basic Zelda components and makes them new due to a novel (and actually disturbing) twist. You play as an automata that requires a gem substance to reside. Sadly this substance is more and more scarce — as such, everybody’s lives (together with yours) are on the clock. When the clock runs out, you develop into unsighted, and liable to assault buddies and lovers. The sport wears its basic Zelda influences on its sleeve, with a full three layers of map bounded off by areas that require versatile and artistic drawback fixing to beat. The protagonist’s equipment grows after finishing every area, with novel traversal instruments and weapons that vary from a large prime that lets you journey over excessive wires to shuriken that set issues on hearth or flip water into ice. —Nicole Clark
Unsighted is out there on Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 4, Home windows PC, and Xbox One.
Fez
For those who’ve performed Fez, or a minimum of keep in mind when it was introduced, the sensation you had when the 2D panorama rotated and revealed the opposite aspect of the cliff or cave or platform so that you can climb. First revealed in 2012 (most not too long ago in 2021 for Nintendo Swap), Fez is worthy of the Zelda-like mantle in how the participant discovers and adjustments the enjoying house and works to unlock the secrets and techniques inside. —OG
Fez is out there on Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 4, and Home windows PC.
Outer Wilds
2021 might have been the 12 months of time-loop video video games, however none of them approached the brilliance of 2019’s Outer Wilds. Set in a miniature galaxy in a lonely neck of some forgotten universe, developer Mobius Digital’s puzzle- and exploration-based journey recreation is as a lot about fixing mysteries about particular characters as it’s about understanding the intricacies of whole planets. The catch? The whole world ends each 22 minutes, sending you again to your house on Timber Fireside, armed solely with the information you gained in the course of the earlier loop. Outer Wilds is a real non secular successor to Majora’s Masks, wherein time is an intricate gameplay system, but additionally the specter looming over each character caught in its net. —Mike Mahardy
Outer Wilds is out there on Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Collection X.
Chicory: A Colourful Story
In Chicory: A Colourful Story you fill the world with colour, one brush stroke at a time. You develop into a “wielder” by chance — the final wielder, Chicory, crumbled beneath stress, locking herself in her room. It’s as much as you to make the world stunning as soon as extra. The sport makes sharp commentary on inventive stress, worthiness, and neighborhood assist. It’s additionally an unimaginable Zelda-style top-down puzzle recreation, with the paintbrush enabling you to do outlandish issues — like journey by vines and rivers or climb up partitions. It was one in every of our recreation of the 12 months contenders in 2021, and even now the sport is a standout. —Nicole Clark
Chicory: A Colourful Story is out there on Mac, Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Home windows PC.
Hyper Gentle Drifter
One other top-down journey masterpiece, Hyper Gentle Drifter is an open-ended journey that, like The Legend of Zelda, subtly directs the participant to degree up and develop into extra highly effective earlier than taking over the subsequent boss or the large unhealthy. Coronary heart Machine’s world, explicitly impressed by The Legend of Zelda: A Hyperlink to the Previous, is well worth the exploration, and the invention that awaits will enthrall you. —OG
Hyper Gentle Drifter is out there on iOS, Nintendo Swap, PlayStation 4, Home windows PC, and Xbox One.
Elden Ring
What’s left to say about Elden Ring? Quite a bit, I feel. It’s as vast as it’s deep, as humorous as it’s melancholic, and as punishing as it’s empowering. And with new DLC on the way in which, I believe many people will probably be making a return to The Lands Between, every time that could be.
And whereas it’s straightforward sufficient to match it to Breath of the Wild — or a minimum of, developer FromSoftware’s take on Breath of the Wild — Elden Ring owes simply as a lot to the Zelda recreation that began all of it in 1986. Elden Ring’s creators refuse to carry your hand as you discover a foreboding, mysterious, typically attractive wilderness, its dungeons, and a snaking underworld that lies beneath it. Boss fights are as intense as they’re terrifying, and discovering a boss’s weak point may imply venturing the opposite aspect of the map to seek out its Achilles’ heel. Like Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring might look new, however its concepts date again to a recreation a few younger boy spelunking within the Japanese countryside. It simply took us many years to catch as much as that daydream. —Mike Mahardy
Elden Ring is out there on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Collection X.