First the Backstory:
Now, the update:
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000357064460/
This guy, claims to have a cart (no longer working) of zelda 3 that was one version later than the one the guy on ebay was selling. He compared the two.
http://www.ratedo.com/articles/z3proto.html
FAQs of the supposed cart:
A seller on eBay is purported to have found at a flea market (for $20) a very early copy of The Legend of Zelda III for the original NES. Dubbed The Legend of Zelda III: The Triforce Saga on a rather crude label (pictured), this beta (version 0.6.24) seems kind of shady.
It is possible (and likely) that a Zelda III was being planned in 1990, but the seller has given very little promise to the game. In his words, I have no time to play around with these things, Im a really busy guy who does not have at his disposal an NES to test it out. Still, he promises to compensate, if it is not legitimate, for an item of equal or greater value than the winning bid.
So far the bid is at $182.50, and the auction runs until Saturday, October 22nd, at around 2:30 EDT. It is hard to trust eBay auctions of the sort these days, but a cartridge like this would indeed be a rare find; can anyone shed some light on the (il)legitimacy of this auction?
Now, the update:
http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000357064460/
Remember that dubious looking eBay auction which claimed to be an unreleased Zelda 3 game for NES? Now that the auction has gone down Richard (the owner), decided to get ahold of a NES console and test the cartridge. He managed to successfully boot the game and play around with it for a bit. The game is very buggy, which is to be expected from a game that is only around 50-60% complete.
Richard has promised to put gameplay shots up on his site as soon as possible. Right now hes unsure about what to do with the game, now that its legitimacy is proven. One commenter on his site suggests that the last thing he should do is stash the game away in his collection. Instead he should rip it onto a ROM and distribute it, then either sell the cart or donate it to a museum. What do you think he should do with it?
This guy, claims to have a cart (no longer working) of zelda 3 that was one version later than the one the guy on ebay was selling. He compared the two.
http://www.ratedo.com/articles/z3proto.html
The Mystery Behind Zelda III
By Okibi
Updates To This Page Are At The Bottom, Newest Coming Last
I know some of you are probably thinking that this article is going to be about Zelda: A Link To The Past, but it's not. It's going to be about the Zelda game that was intended to be the third in the series. This game was never released and was never given a name. In fact, less people have heard about this game then the population of the town I grew up in, which happened to have been 27. This game is simply refered to as Zelda III.
As far as I know, there is only one copy of this game in existence, and yes I have it. The game itself is for the NES. It was meant to come out shortly after Zelda 2, but never was released. After the release of the SNES, Nintendo set the Zelda III project for the NES aside and started over, taking some ideas from the game. This new game they made, A Link To The Past, became the third game in the Zelda series. Awhile later, Nintendo wanted to increase sales of their Game Boy so they decided to make a Zelda game for it. Rather then start from scratch, they took Zelda III for the NES and ported it to the Game Boy. They added some items, changed the story, changed the map, added the menu, and some other various things. The game was tweaked so much it was no longer the Zelda III they started with, but was based of it. They released this game as Link's Awakening, the fourth game in the Zelda series.
That should tell you what happened to Zelda III for the NES, but what was the NES version like and how far along was it? Well, according to Nintendo Power, the Proto would have been no more then 70% complete, which I'd say is probably correct. The proto I have now no longer works, but it did several years ago, and I played the game a few times. It played like A Link To The Past, but had the feel of Adventure of Link. The graphics also looked a lot like the Legend Of Zelda. The music and sound effects were the same as in the previous Zelda games for the NES. I bet that confused a lot of you out there, how it could be both like ALTTP and AOL. Well, there seemed to be a start of an experience system, not like the one in AOL. I'm not sure how that aspect was to turn out. Anyways, the odd part was that you had the world map much like in AOL, but you didn't walk around on it, but rather you "traveled" to different areas. It's much like how you'd go to a castle or cave in AOL, but the difference was that in AOL, you went to a side-scrolling map. In Zelda III, you went to the top-down view used in LOZ and ALTTP. I really like this aspect as it was easier to travel and it kept the great top-down style that I love. The items you collected were basically the same from the first two Zelda games, so nothing new was added yet.
Now what about the story? Well, it was hard to tell exactly. I don't think the story was even close to finished, but I think they were wanting to do a cross between what they did with ALTTP and LA. What I mean is they had the alternate thing going on, but not on the level of ALTTP. They didn't have the whole Dark World thing going either, but rather it was like a different or "dream world" like in LA. There also, come to think of it, wasn't a title screen finished. It simply said Zelda III and went to the game. There really isn't much else to say about the story as it clearly wasn't finished.
The most important thing is to remember what happened. Nintendo developed the third Zelda game, but due to the release of the SNES scratched the idea to start over and to improve upon other ideas they came up with. At this point apparently the Zelda III Proto, near finished and in sample form, was lost. They later took this build and ported it to the Game Boy, which became LA. To end this article, I'd like to show you a few pictures to back this story up. Keep in mind that this game was once refered to as Zelda: A Link To The Past 2 and was thought to be a sequel to ALTTP that got canned. While this is that game, it's actually the third in the series as it was intended to be, but later became Link's Awakening.
FAQs of the supposed cart:
Zelda III NES Proto FAQs
It seems that a lot of people have some questions about this game. Well, I'll answer every question I get and post them here. Before sending me any questions, please make sure it isn't already answered here.
I'll answer questions in the following format:
#. Statement made by me, if one was made, that the question is about.
Q. The question that was asked.
A. My answer to the question.
1. There seemed to be a start of an experience system, not like the one in AOL.
Q. Can you describe this a little further? Maybe there were no experience points but you leveled up by collecting quest items? That would have been great.
A. It was hard to tell. It was clear that you were meant to level up. It felt like Dragon Warrior like you have to walk around and gain levels, but I don't remember actually being able to level up, so I think they hadn't implemented that yet.
2. You had the world map much like in AOL, but you didn't walk around on it, but rather you "traveled" to different areas.
Q. So it was like the map in Four Swords Adventures or Illusion of Gaia? The thing I like about this sort of map, is that it makes it look like Link is traveling a lot more than he would in your typical Zelda game (as you probably know, the area of the first game is "included" in the lower left of AoL)
A. Yeah, it was kind of like the Four Swords Adventures map, but didn't show Link, rather it had a little box thing with arrows pointing to directions you could go. It was almost like using the flute in ALTTP to select an area, but more advanced. Kinda hard to explain I guess.
3. It was almost like using the flute in ALTTP to select an area, but more advanced.
Q. Advanced? How? I mean what was different? Only in looks perhaps?
A. Well, in ALTTP you just hit buttons to rotate through the list more or less. On this map, you moved the selector or whatever you call it around to choose an area. Not really more advanced as much as more sophisticated.
4. You had the world map much like in AOL, but you didn't walk around on it, but rather you "traveled" to different areas.
Q. What was this map like? Entirely original? Or did it resemble one that we know (I think you said it was like ALttP... so you basically just moved to each location as if using a flute?)
A. It was a map of Hyrule almost identical to ALTTP's map. There were a few changes, like it took place at a different time, or they just hadn't decided what all to put on the map. There also seemed to be kind of a transition of the map, much like the Light/Dark Worlds of ALTTP, only I don't think you could use an item to get back and forth, but rather ended up in the other world eventually (maybe it was after beating a dungeon?). I don't think this feature was finished yet either, but it was working.
5. There also seemed to be kind of a transition of the map, much like the Light/Dark Worlds of ALTTP, only I don't think you could use an item to get back and forth, but rather ended up in the other world eventually (maybe it was after beating a dungeon?). I don't think this feature was finished yet either, but it was working.
Q. So, how did you trigger that? (I realize it was probably not in the way you were meant to, I'm just wondering)
A. If I remember correctly, you beat the first dungeon and ended up in the other world where you could get to the second dungeon. I'm pretty sure that's what caused the transition.
6. I don't think the story was even close to finished
Q. So the dialogues didn't reveal much? (Was there an evil wizard?) Oh and just how far could you go in the game? I mean how many dungeons could you complete (and were they somewhat like in ALttP/LA?)
A. Well, I don't remember following a story (or talking to characters for that matter). But the dungeons were there and you got an item in the dungeon as usual, and at the end collect a piece of something that looked like a rock. It didn't have the snazzy "You go the *** piece!" dialog, but rather the sound of getting an item, if you know what I mean. There wasn't a wizard, and I remember playing two dungeons, but giving up after that due to lack of understanding what I was doing. (No story and no guidance makes it harder lol)
7. I don't remember following a story (or talking to characters for that matter).
Q. No characters? Figures, I never would have guessed they'd leave those for last.
A. There were characters, I just have a tendency not to talk to them lol. Just like in AOL, I don't talk to characters unless I have to, and I don't believe there were any forced encounters with them like there is in ALTTP.
8. Apparently the eBay auction got pulled.
Q. Do you know why?
A. Yes. eBay doesn't allow protos/devs/betas to be sold through them. Someone turned in the auction and eBay pulled it.
9. eBay doesn't allow protos/devs/betas to be sold through them. Someone turned in the auction and eBay pulled it.
Q. Because of copyright infringement?
A. Exactly.
10. Q. About that title screen, the moment I saw "The Triforce Saga" written there I thought "lame hack", because just about every hack uses the word Triforce in its title... but then I realized something: this could very well be a religious free translation of Kamigami No Toraifosu cart to me
A. Well like I said earlier, there is no title screen in the proto. I don't think they'd add a title screen to a buggier version of the game AND make it that ugly AND that "generic" of a name. Sounds like he has a hacl burned to an NES
11. "About that title screen, the moment I saw "The Triforce Saga" written there I thought "lame hack", because just about every hack uses the word I don't think they'd add a title screen to a buggier version of the game AND make it that ugly AND that "generic" of a name. Sounds like he has a hack burned to an NES "
Q. It does look kinda ugly, but if you look carefully, it's clearly the cliff with the Triforce seen in ALttP's manual artwork, even with the circle around the Triforce, only made within the NES limitations. And Triforce of the Gods too has become a very generic name now, but it obviously wasn't so back then
A. Well, I don't think his image is the 8-bit version of that ALTTP image. It closer resembles LA's title screen with the egg sitting on the mountain surrounded by sky. Actually, it looks a lot like it, but with a triforce rather then the egg, which fits the original story of Zelda III. it just doesn't make any sense why his cart would have that title screen.
12. Q. Oh and this is just a curiosity: I believe you said the protos are in English, do you know why Nintendo would do them in such a manner? Maybe they were meant for some expo like the CES?
A. I'm not sure if it was an English or Japanese proto. I played it years ago and there wasn't any text that I remember honestly. I don't even remember having the name thing. Odd how there wasn't much text in it, but maybe that was due to the lack of story created yet.
13. Q. Do you remember which items you found in the game?
A. Like I said earlier, when you complete the dungeons you got some kind of rock or stone thing. It didn't say what it was, it just made that sound of picking up an item from LOZ and AOL.
So they're not impossible to find if the game was made by a company less protective of their property than Nintendo.
