Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore asks a critical question--What if the CD-i Zeldas didn't suck? Technically, the developer behind Arzettealready explored this in his remake of the CD-i Zeldas, but those remakes revealed that even the underlying bones of Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon had issues. Arzette is an opportunity to take the aesthetic and strengths of these early-90s CD-ROM games and develop a title with more sensible game design, and in that sense it is a success.

I don't know how many people have nostalgia for the CD-i, but even if your only exposure to it is via the 2000s YouTube Poop meme wave, there is something endearing about it. The cutscenes in the CD-i Zelda titles are so unhinged that they still shock me with their very existence. Arzette's cutscenes have all of the elements you'd expect, but they do hit a little differently.

The weird characters, jerky movements and off-the-wall dialogue are all here, but there's a je ne sais quoi that is missing. The humor just doesn't come off as naturally as it did in the original games, even if I did enjoy a lot of the references to smart swords and lethal book-throwing antics. That said, Arzette has a lot of heart, and it is clearly made out of a place of respect for the original titles. It isn't trying to mock them or to be a cheap memeable joke at their expense.

Off the bat, Arzette does a great job of correcting some of the core issues in Animation Magic's Zelda games. Arzette has fantastic 60fps performance, which only stands out because of how terrible the performance is in the original games. It also uses parallax effects to greatly improve the sense of depth in the game's levels, and there aren't really any problems with identifying what is walkable terrain and what is not. There is a much more natural sense of character growth and progression, with a decent pool of items and abilities that expand your combat repertoire.

A lot of the structure is essentially the same as in the CD-i Zeldas. This is an adventure-platformer where you explore a variety of levels, run errands for NPCs and battle monsters. Your main goal is to find the missing shards of the magical Jewel of Faramore in order to defeat the evil Daimur. There is a tinge of Metroidvania, with backtracking being required as new items and abilities let you access new areas in old levels. The bosses are a treat, even if the difficulty level is pretty low throughout, and the final boss is a bit anticlimactic.

Arzette isn't able to avoid inheriting a few of the original games' shortcomings, however. There is a sense of aimlessness that pervades the entire game as you try to find where to go and what to do. There is a key item page in the menu with descriptions that can sometimes point you in the right direction, but I still had situations where I felt a bit lost. This feeds into another flaw with how it structures its backtracking--having to replay old levels repeatedly from their starting point in order to find where you have to go gets old pretty quickly. I'm not sure how to fix it, but backtracking never feels as natural as it does in games with a more interconnected world ala Metroid.

Arzette doesn't really go that far outside of the scope that it presents: CD-i Zelda, but good. It mostly succeeds with that plan of action, but the resulting game is still not anything mind-blowing. Perhaps it would have stood out in the 90s, but today, Arzette feels like quite a basic game. Nostalgia can only carry it so far! I think this is still an enjoyable romp, but if you're unfamiliar with the games that it is based on, you may be left wondering what the big deal is. There are just many more mechanically interesting 2D adventure-platformers out there in the world, from Cave Story to Hollow Knight. Perhaps a future title from Seedy Eye Software can take things further. If you are wondering whether to check out Arzette, just keep in mind that its primary goal is to be a homage to some pretty terrible games. If it still interests you regardless, then you may find some enjoyment here.

I didn't think I would love Arzette quite as much as I did. Modest interest and bought on a whim because of a popular Youtube Poop artist's contributions to a parody mod of the game. I've always been a fan of YTP, as well as "bad" video game curios in general. I was expecting to enjoy it, but it managed to completely grip me and stoke a deeper passion and genuine interest in games like Arzette, like the Wand of Gamelan and Faces of Evil. The latter two games of which ported to modern computers by these very same devs, incidentally.

For the past few years now, I've had a once budding interest in retro computer game oddities, but not quite the world of Philips CD-i games. Slowly warmed up to it through deep dives, through the Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe, and the reviews of friends here with their own personal experiences and nostalgia for the system nudging me closer to not simply playing these games, but really finding the things to love. It's a heartwarming thing to feel thinking about it now, made warmer when I think about the genuine care and attention put into this game.

I'm also someone who's always had a generally hard time playing platformers and collectathons, which I'm not exactly certain if this game quite counts as a collectathon, but the game tracks your completion rate and requires you to repetitively revisit the same stages multiple times after getting stronger and finding more tools to nab all of the collectables. I hate DK 64, have no interest in Banjo Kazooie, and I don't even have particularly strong feelings about 2D Zelda games for that matter. Somehow, some way, the charm of this format started by the CD-i and fixed up for a modern audience with more quality of life has me completely hooked. I feel encouraged by the game to collect everything, not even for completions, sake, but just to keep going back and see what more secrets I could find for myself. A quick and breezy game with a very modest repetition loop, not particularly asking much of you to keep going. You could even beat the game without collecting half of what I did.

Being based on CD-i Zelda, the backgrounds of the game have a very odd and painterly hand drawn and cartoonish style not resembling any of the refined charm something Nintendo would actually produce. Jagged aliased line art, whimsical and off model every frame of animation. Colorful but restrained palettes to emulate the limited colors of old hardware. It's closer to the realm of independent children's entertainment for PCs. And if you wouldn't believe it, the original torchbearers of this style had worked on DOOM clones filled with edutainment teaching you facts about world history and how to learn proper grammar. This aesthetic was something I knew and loved very fondly, something I've been chasing and trying to deep dive into for my own odd sense of inspiration, catharsis, reference for my own work, or even just to have a laugh at how cute, silly and outdated it all looks. I feel at home here.

Speaking of the aesthetics, the Youtube Poop fans will recognize every cutscene in this game is done with reference to Spadinner nonsense, not just because it's copying Faces of Evil and the Wand of Gamelan, but because the devs clearly love internet humor and trying to match the silliness in their own way. Only you can see much more modern sensibilities with characters made to be deliberately cute for instance. One of my favorite parts is when you're at the very end of a really long chain quest involving chains, bringing it to the original person who set you on the quest, giving you the most drawn out cutscene in the entire game, I couldn't help but laugh. The demon girl who loves oil is another great one.

Arzette herself has a lot of personality and I really love her reactions as such a put upon sort of character sick and tired of the contrivances of these sorts of stories. It's old news to make a character like this, but this game itself exists in this mobius loop of earnest love for the flaws of the style, and cheeky fun. She rejects the princess narrative, the prophecy narrative. Girls flirt with her. She does unfunny quips which seem sophisticated in comparison to the game's stand-in for Link who makes some of the most unbearably unfunny comments in the entire game that loop back around to being hilarious. Growing up I would've loved more of these games that were more girl powery in this sort of detached and self aware way. At times it feels like there's just as much Daria in this as Hotel Mario.

I loved the music. With video games I can be very fussy about how it all sounds because I'm a hopeless music nerd who has spent the last half year in an absolute frenzy listening to electronic music to the point where I might be worrying a few people. It's all cheesy and high fantasy MIDI goodness fitting the strong themes of the various levels. Sometimes you just have to appreciate how good rudimentary MIDI/Sequenced music can be. It all contributes deeper to this warm and nostalgic haze the game has me in too.

This is maybe one of the most fluffy and positive reviews I've made on this site.. I haven't exactly been feeling all that great, nor have I been in one of those moods to write out something confessional and personal to the degree I have before. But I really do think this game did something meaningful. Dusted some cobwebs in my emotional space, in my artistic palette, sense of joy, adventure, and appreciation of things overlooked. More than anything, it has made me want to dig deeper into games like this from the past, even if they have much less quality of life to them, more warts and difficulty to play or even find. I'm really thankful for this game finding its way into my life.

Reviewed on Jul 14, 2025

I have no firsthand memory of the Philips CD-i outside of gaming magazines, which referenced its bizarre (yet authorized) Zelda games for an occasional "fun fact" or punchline. As a kid, I found these anecdotes amusing, but also a little disappointing. In 1993, an action-adventure platformer with lush, illustrated backgrounds and animated cut scenes sounded amazing. What a shame they were so terrible!

Playing Arzette today, I felt taken by nostalgia. Not nostalgia for anything I've personally experienced, but nostalgia for what might have been. Because Arzette manages to successfully parody and redeem the core concept of its source material.

The parody part I expected. I laughed aloud multiple times, especially during cut scenes: The animators clearly had a ball mimicking that distinctive CD-i style. (I later learned that some of the CD-i voice cast reprised their roles, which is incredible.)

But I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the game for its own merits. Movement and combat is tight and predictable. Aside from a few faithfully awkward enemy designs, the character sprites and background layers are as lovely as my childhood self would want. The game's music has been stuck in my head all weekend.

Some dislike the backtracking, but I enjoyed it: Levels are modest in length and well segmented. Plenty of hidden secrets warrant repeated exploration as you gain new abilities, and it's easy to save your haul and exit midway through a level. I did occasionally wonder what to do next, but revisiting a stage or two always revealed a path forward.

The CD-i Zelda games are generally regarded as unmitigated failures. But just as Arzette the character triumphs over evil by disregarding the buffoonery of her kingdom's forebears, Arzette the game untangles the legacy of its influences by resolving the sins of their poor execution... an important lesson for game developers, and a glimpse into a better timeline for the CD-i.