You’ve probably seen the memes. The twisted, rubbery faces of the King of Hyrule and the weirdly expressive Ganon have been internet fodder for decades. But honestly, Link: The Faces of Evil is more than just a source of YouTube Poop material. It is a fascinating, disastrous, and weirdly ambitious relic of the 1990s. It represents a moment in time when Nintendo, usually protective of its characters like a mama bear, basically handed the keys to the Zelda kingdom to a third party.
The result was something that shouldn't exist.
Released in 1993 for the Philips CD-i, this game is part of a "unholy trinity" of Zelda titles that Nintendo fans usually try to pretend never happened. It wasn't developed by Nintendo. It wasn't produced by Shigeru Miyamoto. Instead, it was the brainchild of Animation Magic, a developer based in Massachusetts with a team in Russia. Imagine that. A Russian-American team in the early '90s trying to figure out how to make a Zelda game on a machine that was never really meant to be a gaming console. It's a recipe for chaos.
The game is a side-scrolling action-adventure. That's mistake number one for many purists who wanted the top-down exploration of the NES and SNES eras. But Link: The Faces of Evil isn't just bad because of the perspective. It’s bad because of the friction. Every jump feels like you’re fighting the physics engine, and every attack feels like a suggestion rather than a command. Yet, it’s strangely captivating.
How Nintendo Lost Control of Zelda
To understand why Link: The Faces of Evil exists, you have to look at the corporate drama of the late 1980s. Nintendo was working with Sony to create a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo. This project was famously known as the "Play Station." At the last minute, Nintendo’s president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, realized the contract gave Sony too much control over the software. He pulled the plug. In a move that would change gaming history, he ditched Sony and signed a deal with Philips.
The Philips deal eventually fell through too. Nintendo decided they didn't want a CD-ROM drive after all. But there was a catch in the contract. Philips still held the rights to use five Nintendo characters for their own hardware, the Philips CD-i.
Philips didn't have a massive budget. They didn't have Nintendo's internal expertise. They just had the IP and a dream of selling "multimedia" machines. They commissioned Animation Magic to develop two games simultaneously: Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon.
The budget? Reportedly around $600,000 for both. For context, modern AAA games cost hundreds of millions. Even in 1993, that was a shoestring budget for two ambitious titles. Dale DeSharone, the lead developer, had to make magic happen with almost nothing. He hired a team of Russian animators to create the cutscenes that would eventually become the laughingstock of the gaming world.
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These animators were incredibly talented, but they weren't used to gaming. They were used to traditional cell animation. They used the high storage capacity of the CD-ROM to cram in as much "FMV" (Full Motion Video) as possible. Back then, FMV was the future. Everyone thought that if a game looked like a cartoon, it was "next-gen." They didn't realize that if the cartoon looked like a fever dream, people might be a little put off.
The Gameplay Reality: Is It Actually Playable?
If you sit down to play Link: The Faces of Evil today, you need a lot of patience. And probably a specific controller. The CD-i controllers were notorious for being terrible. Some looked like TV remotes. Others were infrared "sticks" that lagged. Trying to perform a precise jump onto a floating platform in the "Faces" of Koridai using a TV remote is a form of digital masochism.
The game is divided into various stages accessible from a map. You go into a "face," fight your way through 2D levels, and try to find items to progress. It’s very much a "Metroidvania" before that term was widely used. You need the lantern to see in the dark. You need the rope to climb. You need specific items to kill specific bosses.
The Combat Loop
- Stiff movement: Link moves like he’s walking through waist-deep molasses.
- Hit detection: It’s a gamble. Sometimes your sword hits; sometimes it passes through enemies like a ghost.
- Item management: Using the inventory is clunky, often requiring you to pause or navigate slow menus.
- The Shield: In a weird twist, your shield only works when you are standing still and not attacking. It's counter-intuitive for anyone who grew up on A Link to the Past.
The "Faces" themselves are the highlight. They are giant, stone structures carved into the landscape, each representing a different boss. They are visually striking, even if the actual level design inside them is often repetitive. You spend a lot of time "farming" for rubies (yes, they called them rubies, not rupees) to buy lamp oil or bombs. It’s a grind. A slow, weird, beautifully ugly grind.
The Legacy of the Memes
We can’t talk about Link: The Faces of Evil without talking about the cutscenes. They are the primary reason the game is remembered. The animation style is... unique. Characters have exaggerated facial expressions that move in ways the human face shouldn't. The voice acting is equally bizarre.
"Gee, it's bored around here!"
"I wonder what's for dinner?"
These lines have been burned into the collective consciousness of the internet. Morshu, the shopkeeper who "doesn't give credit," has become a mascot for a certain corner of the web.
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But here’s the thing: for 1993, seeing full-screen, voiced animation in a home console game was actually impressive. We compare it to Disney movies or modern CGI, but compared to the static sprites of the SNES, it felt like a leap forward. It was just a leap in a very strange direction. The Russian animators at Animation Magic flew over to the US to record the voice actors and then went back to Russia to sync the animation. The cultural disconnect and the technical limitations of the CD-i format resulted in that jittery, unsettling style we now recognize instantly.
Despite the mockery, there is a genuine soul in the game. It’s not a cynical cash grab. It’s a group of people trying to do something impossible with no money and no support from the original creators. There’s an earnestness to the weirdness.
Technical Nuances of the CD-i
The CD-i wasn't a game console. It was a "Multi Media Player." It was meant to compete with the VCR and the PC. This meant it didn't have dedicated sprite hardware like the SNES. It struggled to move images across the screen quickly.
When you play Link: The Faces of Evil, you’ll notice that the backgrounds are often highly detailed static images. This was a workaround. The hardware could display a beautiful "painting" in the background, but it couldn't handle too many moving objects on top of it. This is why the enemies often move in simple patterns or just hover in place.
The game also suffered from the CD-i's slow read speeds. Loading screens were a constant companion. Even entering a new room could trigger a brief pause. For a Zelda game, which is supposed to feel like a seamless adventure, this was a death knell for immersion.
Expert Nuance: Was it a "True" Zelda?
Purists argue that because Nintendo didn't make it, it isn't canon. Nintendo themselves have basically scrubbed these games from their official timeline. You won’t find Morshu in Breath of the Wild. You won’t see the "Faces of Evil" mentioned in Hyrule Historia.
However, some scholars of gaming history point out that the CD-i games were the first to give Link a voice. They were the first to use cinematic cutscenes to tell a Zelda story. In a way, they were a prototype for the cinematic direction the series would eventually take with Ocarina of Time. They also dared to make Zelda the protagonist in The Wand of Gamelon, something Nintendo took decades to officially embrace in a mainline title like Echoes of Wisdom.
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The game is a failure, yes. But it’s an important failure. It taught Nintendo the value of their brand. It taught them that letting other people play with their toys could lead to a reputational nightmare. It’s the reason Nintendo became so notoriously litigious and protective of their IP for the next thirty years.
How to Experience Link: The Faces of Evil Today
If you want to play it now, you have a few options. Finding a working Philips CD-i and an original disc is an expensive hobby. The discs are prone to "disc rot," and the consoles are notoriously finicky.
- Emulation: This is the most common way. Projects like MAME have improved CD-i support significantly, though it’s still not perfect.
- Fan Re-makes: There are incredible fan projects that have rebuilt the game from scratch for modern PCs. These versions fix the controls, remove the loading times, and make the game actually fun to play while keeping the original "aesthetic."
- YouTube: Honestly, for 90% of people, watching a long-play or a documentary is the best way to "play" this game. You get the flavor without the frustration of the controls.
Link: The Faces of Evil is a ghost of a different era. It’s a reminder of a time when the gaming industry was the Wild West, and companies were still figuring out what a "multimedia" future looked like. It’s ugly, it’s clunky, and it’s unintentionally hilarious. But it’s also a piece of history that deserves more than just being a punchline.
Practical Steps for Retro Collectors
If you are hunting for this game, check the inner ring of the CD for signs of bronzing or pinholes. Because these were produced during the early days of CD technology, the protective layers often fail. Never pay "mint" prices without seeing the disc under a bright light. Also, look for the "Gamepad" controller (the 22ER9017); it’s the only way to make the game feel even remotely like a traditional Zelda experience.
The most important thing to remember is that this game is a product of its constraints. It wasn't meant to be "bad." It was meant to be a flagship for a new type of technology that the world just wasn't ready for—and that wasn't quite ready for the world.
Stop viewing it as a failed Zelda game and start viewing it as a successful piece of outsider art. Once you do that, the "Faces of Evil" don't look quite so scary anymore. They just look like a very weird, very expensive mistake that we are lucky enough to still talk about thirty years later.