It’s hard to talk about Arzette without bringing up the infamous Zelda CDi games The Wand of Gamelon and The Faces of Evil. Both games have gone down in history as some of the worst entries in the series, but it also can’t be denied that they do contain a certain charm buried within them. Typically snippets are shown off for the sake of perpetuating various memes that surround some of the game’s unusual characters, and I have to say that I find the large animated sprites all rather appealing – even if they’re more than a little perculiar.

That reason is probably why Seth Fulkerson, the mastermind behind Seedy Eye Software, took it upon himself to take the foundations of those CDi ‘classics’ and turn them into something enjoyable. What if the controls were better? What if the game had decent hit detection? What if the story was more coherent? The result is Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore and it is, unironically, rather quite good.

Many thanks to the publishers for the review code.

THE LEGEND OF FARAMORE
As the game opens, we’re introduced to the world of Faramore and its dark history. Ten years ago, the evil demon king Daimur was sealed away by the princess Arzette inside the Book of Oakurin using the power of the titular jewel. What was thought to be an eternal prison proved only to be temporary, however, as the traitorous Duke Nodelki worked behind the back of the royal family to help Daimur escape.

Now, with the demon king free once more, and the shattered jewel in the hands of his lieutenants, hope is almost lost: only Arzette is heroid enough to save the day. She’ll have her work cut out, as she will need to light Faramore’s beacons in order to help drive back the darkness, and reassemble the gem is she is to have any hope of dealing with Daimur once and for all.

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Arzette retains the awkward voice acting of the original, but this time intentionally so; they’ve done a great job at ensuring that the performances and dialogue are bad enough to be funny without ever being irritating. Part of this is down to the great voice cast, and even includes a couple of the voice actors from the original game that sharp eared Zelda fans may instantly recognise.

Speaking of returning talent, Rob Dunlavey – one of the artists from the original Zelda CDi games – has also returned to put his craftmanship to this spiritual successor. The dialogue cutscenes are just as garishly colourful and weird as you’d expect, and retain the same level of charm too. Like with the game’s they’re based on, having them play on the top of the comparatively beautiful spritework underneath can feel rather jarring at first, but once you get used to it the whole presentation seems quite endearing. What feels like an aesthetic that requires you to be ‘in on the joke’ to appreciate is actually really well done, and feels quite unique in an age where most retro-throwbacks all seem to have the same 8, 16, or 32 bit look to them.

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The gameplay takes many of its notes from the old CDi games, and as such retains a certain element of simplicity. Arzette has her magical sword that attacks creatures, but will also allow her to interact with objects in the environment and friendly NPCs too. It’s always weird stabbing the librarian in the face just to chat with her, but it’s a stupidly cute mechanic too that feels fitting for the homage that the game is trying to be.

Having your sword make up the bulk of your actions does make gameplay rather simple, as combat – especially in the early game – making is amount to little more than just stabbing monsters as you do some relatively simple platforming. The normal difficulty starts off with a reasonable challenge due to the close range combat and lack of health drops, but the easier difficulty makes things easier enough for anyone who finds themselves struggling. This difficulty though is only really temporary, as you’ll soon obtain additional items – such as a projectile-reflecting shield and a magical gun – that makes things substantially easier, and also works to help make combat slightly more interesting too.

These additional items though are used for far more than action, though, as the game has light sprinklings of ‘metroidvania’ scattered around to help scratch that exploration itch. Despite the deceptively linear stage progression, there’s also usually many paths and hidden areas that may require you to obtain certain items to proceed. There’s nothing amazingly complex here, as the double jump is probably your most exciting upgrade, but it still feels very welcome due to how it is implemented. Rather than being one huge interconnected world, stages are instead short and selected at will, allowing you to blast through each one with relative ease in order to find everything of worth there.

You’ll typically unlock a few different stages to choose from at a time, and more can be unlocked by locating and activating the beacon contained within one of them. You may occasionally need other items in order to proceed, but the most important ones to find are the jewels held by one of the game’s bosses. These fights contain their own cute dialogue cutscenes, and are quite fun despite the game not having a particularly complex control scheme. I rarely died more than once with these fights, as they’re pretty easy, but they’re also all pretty memorable too.

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The main issue with the game really relies in the game’s very short length. Taking only a few hours to beat, it’s a game that goes at an intense pace before reaching its finale. It does feel like you’re going on a grand adventure without having to stretch things out for too long. I think part of that is due to the large number of NPCs and side quests that you can take on in order to help out the rest of the kingdom. Rewards for doing them range from being mildly useful to absolutely useless, but I found it satisfying to do as many as I could. Beating the game does unlock a harder difficulty and boss rush mode, but I doubt either of these will add too much extra playtime to the overall experience.

But then, that’s also part of what I love about the game too. It’s an adventure game that is just so much fun to play through in a single sitting, and I can honestly see myself booting this up at least once a year just to experience it all again once more. It encourages replayability by virtue of just being pure fun, and I really have to admire that.

VERDICT
Once you get over the simplistic gameplay, Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is an extremely compelling game. With a wide range of strange characters, loads of hidden secrets, and some great lore, it’s hard to not fall in love. Whilst I may wish there was a little bit more here, I can’t deny that I adored the short time spent with Arzette and can only hope we see more from her and Daimur in the future.