Nintendo has been trying so hard to ignore its collaboration with the ill-fated Philips CDi that became a joke amongst fans who love it for being so bad, especially its cutscenes. However, fate has decided to be particularly funny with this desire. This has been a weird year for the Philips CDi. First up, we have Hotel Mario’s beta cutscenes leaking, bringing new life to the game, alongside all the memes and jokes fans make about it. Next up we have the iconic CDi character Morshu from The Legend Of Zelda: The Faces Of Evil being used in the Minnesota Twins game to help enforce the rules. And now, we have the release of Arzette: The Jewel Of Faramore, a tribute to Nintendo’s failed experimental period. And unlike those failures, Arzette: The Jewel Of Faramore was able to succeed and be a fun tribute to these disastrous games.
Ten years ago, in the land of Faramore, Daimur threatened the land as the traitorous Duke Nodelki aided him, only to be beaten back and trapped into a book by Princess Arzette, her father King Rahklin, his trusty advisor Wogram, and their wimpy sidekick Dail. Using a magic jewel to seal the book shut, the king had the jewel break into five pieces to scatter across the land. However, the punished Duke Nodelki frees him from his book, and Daimur creates a legion of loyal servants to help use the jewel shards to gain power to threaten the peace of Faramore. Now all by herself, Arzette sets out to stop Daimur’s plans.
First things first, this game could be played on a CD-i, and you would easily consider it as part of the era. Anyone well versed in the genre of YouTube videos that mixes old videos and new media in wildly different portrayals for the sake of laughs, commonly called YouTube Poops, may even be able to pick up some similarities in character designs and even voices. That’s because the same people behind the old CD-i games came back to create this tribute to that era that the internet declared was so bad it warped all the back to being good, especially with how often they used those cutscenes for YouTube Poops. The game is a homage to a joke within the gaming landscape and it’s proud of it. You can tell just from how the cutscenes look and how the music sounds, with the songs being composed of old synthesizers, just like the CD-i had. It perfectly nails the feeling of the CD-i games while still being nice to look at and listen to.
And that’s not the only tribute to the past the game has. The entire backstory is recapping The Faces Of Evil, the king smokes just like how the king from the old CD-I game was portrayed as a heavy chain smoker, and the achievements all have quotes referencing old quotes said from not only the Zelda CD-I games but also Mario’s own ill-fated game, Hotel Mario. One of the possible challenges in the bonus stages is having to close all the doors, just like in Hotel Mario. The old artists from the original CD-i games came back to help create art for this game as can be seen in the cutscenes being as weird as they were before, and even the voices of Link and Zelda from the CD-i lend their voices here as well. And that’s just a select handful of tributes it has. It doesn’t just wear its influences on its sleeves, it stops you in the middle of the road and gives you an hour-long history lesson on its outfit.
That said, it can fall apart if the game isn’t good, and end up showing us just why Nintendo was right to abandon these games. Here, the game decides to not only have its cake but somehow eat it too. The game does leave behind the more heinous elements of the CD-i games nobody liked, such as the limited lives per stage, needing to crouch before opening up your inventory and needing full health to use the smart gun, a very useful tool for traversing the land and clearing blocks of certain color. However, it still does have them; it’s just in an unlockable difficulty mode that is gained after beating the game. This is the best of both worlds; keeping the actual gameplay as good as modern games, yet still letting those who are masochistic enough to rough it out a challenge to look forward to after beating the game.
The gameplay that is saved here is basically what the Zelda CD-i games would’ve if they were good. In a mixture of an open world/stage progression game, your goal is to find the tools you need in each stage to unlock more and more stages until you reach Daimur at the end of the final level. At the start, you’re just stuck with a sword and only a handful of stages. As you progress, you get to do quests to help out the citizens in the land, with them giving you tools you’ll need to help progress and unlock new paths. To unlock whole new stages, you’ll need to activate beacons, which are located at the end of a select handful of stages. There are also five bosses you will need to look out for to kill them for the jewel shards of Faramore. It all adds up to you being able to have a lot to do within each stage and provides a good reason for why you may want to backtrack to some stages. The combat is also satisfying to pull off, with more than enough unique tools to move around and attack enemies with.
You never end up feeling like you’re completely lost. The game tells you which stages still have stuff for you to do in them, giving you hints on just where to go and look around for your next story path. With enemies going down with little explosions, just like the CD-i games, it helps traversing the land feel fun and exciting, especially when you get more tools to help you move around more easily. There are also bonus stages for you to watch out for, with them being good ways for you to earn extra rubies to use in the shop to help you fill up on resources to use for your smart gun or other tools, like bombs to blow up cracked walls, rope to escape levels, or lamp oil to keep your lamp lit up on dark places. There are also hidden coins that can be used to challenge the rat man in the city to races around the world, giving you a powerful reward should you complete all his races, giving you the incentive to try and not only complete his races but collect all the coins to unlock it.
Alongside improving the gameplay by ensuring that the scratches of the original games were buffed out, the story was also improved upon. The dialogue and characters are still humorously written, keeping the cheesy fun of the CD-i alive and well. A couple of jokes were able to land and elicit a couple of laughs, especially when you find the one cutscene that can’t be skipped here. However, it not only has some dark moments here, but it manages to weave them in better than it had any right to. It’s not going to be the next Lord Of The Rings, but with how cartoonish the cutscenes were to be faithful to the source material, the path that the story takes is surprising, but one that works in the end. No spoilers of course, but by the time the third beacon is activated, you will see the game start to show off more of its hand. It’s not that deep, but the themes of power and tradition the games have to show off were not only a welcomed surprise but one that was able to land and help elevate the game.
That said, the game still does have some issues that it couldn’t get rid of. Some of the rewards later on for completing side-quests can feel superfluous with how rare they can be used. Especially since the shop has its side quest that lets you cut the prices in half for yourself, meaning that if you’re able to keep getting rubies, at worst you could just do some grinding for money to get a refill for your already accommodating inventory space. On the topic of side-quests, for the rock-collecting one, the game gives no hints that you need to hit the falling rocks that normally damage you with your sword to collect them. Considering how brutal the timing can be to get it, one can easily be forgiven for trying to, seeing it fail, and thinking you have to get the rocks another way.
As previously hinted at, on the fairer difficulties, the game can feel too forgiving and easy with how much resources you can collect, but then again, that’s what the harder difficulties are for, even if it causes the balance to swing the other way instead. Hero Mode, the mode that you unlock after beating normal mode, will be the most balanced option for anyone who wants a challenge but isn’t that eager to eat dirt. Plus, while some may see the love for the Philips CD-i as admirable, others could easily see this as the game trying too hard, but when one of the biggest criticisms of the game is that it tries too hard to appeal, you can see the effort here.
Arzette: The Jewel Of Faramore is the type of game that shouldn’t be this good, and yet, here it is, being a great short 4-6 hour experience for only $20. The inside jokes are fun and all, but it’s still able to stand proudly on its own two feet. The gameplay is just as fun as any other Metroidvania released today, and the story isn’t afraid to take surprising twists and turns. And for those that are in the loop, all the references and shout-outs to Nintendo’s CD-i games only add to the experience. For anyone who has any passing interest in this game, give it a check. Its lighthearted nature, reverence for the past, and fun gameplay are what true gamers strive for!
