Over the past three decades, The Legend of Zelda franchise has produced many epic and ground breaking titles that have impacted the gaming world. Three of those titles, however, had an impact that Nintendo was not particularly proud of even though it is one that is still felt today. The infamous CD-i trilogy has spawned countless memes and other strange creations in modern internet culture and the most recent addition may delight fans while simultaneously supplying fuel for their nightmares.

The Legend of Zelda CD-i trilogy is considered an oddity in the franchise’s history. Nintendo did not develop the games at all, instead passing the responsibility to Philips, who would in turn made the games specifically for its CD-i console. These were the first Zelda games not made for Nintendo software and it proved to be disastrous. Releasing on the same day in 1993, Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon were received positively at the time. Zelda’s Adventure, however, fared far worse when it came out the following year and that marked the turning point for the general consensus of the CD-i titles. Fortunately the franchise’s reputation was saved by the next installment, which was back under Nintendo’s control, and which happened to be the classic Ocarina of Time.

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Despite Nintendo’s efforts to bury the CD-i trilogy, it has returned in recent years thanks to its incredibly meme-able content. YouTuber Hoolopee, however, took things a step farther by rendering two cutscenes from The Faces of Evil using RTX. The first scene features the shopkeeper Morshu telling Link about his wares while the second sees his reaction when the player does not have enough “rubies” (not the traditional Zelda “rupees“) to buy anything. For reference, Hoolopee put the RTX clip side-by-side with the original game cutscene.

The RTX rendering is a near perfect match to the original animation and many of the video’s comments praised Hooplee for that. What makes it so unnerving is the slightly uncanny valley 3D mixed with the exaggerated movements from the original cutscene. Hoolopee has done similar work to other popular intellectual properties, such as The Simpsons, and it can all be viewed on their YouTube channel.

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These short clips are perfectly on brand for the type of humor spawned by the CD-i trilogy. Despite what Nintendo may have originally thought of them, these games have added a unique piece of Legend of Zelda history that continues to delight fans today. As for Hoolopee’s RTX rendering of Morshu, it is an impressive display of visual effects work that achieves the desired combination of humor and horror.

Source: Hoolopee/YouTube

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Blaise Deveney
(294 Articles Published)

Blaise Deveney is a freelance gaming news writer for Screen Rant and a multimedia specialist with both amateur and professional experience in writing, editing, videography, animation, and more. Blaise is from the Philadelphia area, where he lives with his wife, and is an avid fan of gaming, movie and television scores, and football. He has a passion for storytelling and is thrilled to be writing about the latest in the world of gaming.

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