The World Of Zelda Fan Games: Are They Worth Your Time?

Anyone who’s ever spent a considerable amount of their time scouring the internet for good quality fan-made work related to The Legend of Zelda series – gorgeous fan art and video tributes – would surely have occasionally pondered and even searched out the other end of the spectrum… something a little more ambitious, and a lot harder to find. Whether you’ve looked or not, rest assured, the existence of Zelda fan games is as real as the development of other fan projects related to other franchises such as Metroid and Mario. Having the ability to utilise one’s skills in programming, mapping, spriting, modelling, audio composition and project planning in the context of your favourite video game is an exciting prospect for some fans, and even with extremely limited resources, team members, time, budget and future profit, a number of aspiring game developers strive to the very end to keep their fan projects alive.

Albeit, many of these independent game developers also fail miserably. Some, worse than others. The most common scenario follows the young, hopeful game developer who envisions the perfect Zelda game, downloads a game-developing application, such as Blender or Game Maker, fiddles around to their heart’s content and composes something entirely unprofessional, only to abandon the project within the next few months. The alternative in this case is the completion of a less-than-average fan game, which exist in extraordinary numbers across the world wide internets, offering little enjoyment and serving no purpose apart from ultimately granting fan games with their poor status in the creative world. Having passion to create is one thing, but who’s got that kind of time and expertise to create something truly remarkable? And in complete knowledge that the end-project will indefinitely be unprofitable? No one would want to bother with fan games! That’s just crazy!

Well, welcome to planet Earth. Some people here are crazy. But crazy people happen to create some truly amazing work. And honestly, some of the Zelda fan games around the internet are nothing short of mind-blowing, capable of rivalling even Nintendo’s ideas and efforts. One of the fan games that springs to mind, and perhaps the most notable and famous of all Zelda fan games, is The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer. Watch the following trailer, and judge it for yourself…

If, after watching this trailer, you think that The Shadowgazer looks brilliant, then congratulations. You are correct. Unfortunately, however, you will never have the opportunity to play it. Keep in mind that this is The Legend of Zelda. Even the 2D games in the series are enormous in scale, requiring lengthy development times for a team of competent developers… let alone, just one developer. The Shadowgazer was being developed for a few years by a single man who goes by the alias of King Mob, and he has since discontinued it to pursue more profitable projects. The sad fact of the matter is that the development of fan games is very illegal. They infringe on the intellectual property rights of the original developers… essentially, it’s plagiarism, fraud, stealing, wrong, bad – among many other intelligible kinds of legal mumbo-jumbo. The developer will not make much money from developing a fan game.

Even if the fan game developer had no intention whatsoever of forcing players to pay to play – or even donate to show their interest in the project development – Nintendo would eventually have to pull their super mushroom-enhanced lawyers from their cryogenic sleep in the Sacred Realm, and stomp down on the project. Probably at the most inconvenient time. And don’t say “it won’t happen”, because it has been known to happen to many large-scale projects, including but not limited to the 3D Chrono Trigger remake which was torn up by Square-Enix just as development was nearing its finish, and Daniel Barras’ infamous Ocarina of Time 2D, which may not have had any hope to begin with… the guys over at Zelda Fan Game Central will tell you all about that. Companies will intervene like this when the existence of fan games – when they become largely widespread – can hinder the overall image of a franchise. As such, Nintendo will protect the quality of their franchises by targeting fan games and squashing them good. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and every dog has its day… so is it even worth making fan games?

Well, sure it’s worth it. We live in a day-and-age where artists, creators and designers have the freedom to create whatever they want, by whatever means, to express themselves. Game design, in my humble opinion, is no different – who are we to question artistic practice? Even if it is technically “stealing”… though perhaps fan game developers prefer the term “appropriation”… blargh, arguments about “what is art?” – we can sit here all day and argue about it until our fingers bleed all over our keyboards, and I’m sure we can all agree that nobody wants to go down that path. The real question is, are fan games worth your time? The answer to that – is yes; well, at least, the good ones are.

And of course, it would be awfully rude of me to not direct you to the good, quality Zelda fan games I’ve found over the years, some completed, some not, so without further ado…

So what’s your opinion on fan games? Are you strongly against them? Are they worth your time? Would you ever consider starting your own? Are you interested in following them? Perhaps you’re more interested in Mario fan games? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.