Download (MP3)
Download (End card acoustic short: OoT Mini Game Theme)
The year was 1993, and after a few years of success for the SNES, Nintendo decided it was time to kick things up a notch. They reached out to Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES to make bigger and better games. However, Sony was not able to handle the magnitude of what Nintendo was asking for. Parting ways, all looked to be in a peril, but then, from the shadows, a hero emerged:
Philips.
While Sony went on to develop the Playstation (which went on to sell a pathetic 12-16 units worldwide or something like that), Philips created what is still accepted by many to be one of the greatest consoles of all time: the Philips CD-i.
Eager to jump on the CD-i bandwagon, Nintendo hastily connected with Philips and threw their 2 biggest IPs right at their faces: Mario and Zelda.
The iconic “Hotel Mario” went on to sell 3 gazillion units, and gamers unanimously agree that future Mario titles have been unable to reach it’s high level of quality since, with the exception of Super Mario Odyssey which some feel came close (but still, ultimately, fell short).
But before that, developer Animation Magic was tasked with creating a game for the Zelda series. Unlike Hotel Mario, the game and world they had imagined was so monstrous in size (comparable only to Breath of the Wild), that the game had to be split into 2 different titles, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, and Link: The Faces of Evil.
Gamers and critics the world over were floored upon playing the titles. SNES N-Force Magazine praised the games for their superb graphics and brilliant sound / voice acting.* Joystick Magazine also considered the graphics to be stunning, and described the animations as “perfect”.*
The soundtracks, composed by Tony Trippi and William Havlicek, have been unmatched in later Zelda titles. Most reviews of recent Zelda games you find these days will usually contain a version of the phrase “the OST still fails to reach the high bar set by the Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil soundtracks” somewhere along the review.
Philips would attempt to capitalize on the wild success of Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil by releasing a third Zelda CDi title, Zelda’s Adventure, but no one cares about that one. You probably didn’t even know it existed.
We’ve covered many songs from many games on this channel, but I hope this attempt at one of the CDi Zelda’s best songs, Firestone Lake from Link: The Faces of Evil, can deliver even half of the justice that the game and soundtrack deserve.
*All of this is true.