Link: The Faces of Evil

Link: The Faces of Evil is a video game developed by Animation Magic and released for the Philips CD-i in 1993. It was developed in tandem with, and released on the same day as, and followed up a year later by , which was developed separately by Viridis Corporation.

A product of a compromise between Nintendo and due to their failure to release a CD-ROM based add-on to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, The Faces of Evil, alongside the other two, are the only  games developed by a non-Nintendo company and released on a non-Nintendo system. The games have been subject to much criticism, and Nintendo does not recognize them as canon to the Zelda series.

Story
In the now-peaceful land of Hyrule, Link is feeling increasingly useless and bored with no adventures to go on. Suddenly, a wizard named Gwonam arrives on the balcony of Hyrule Castle, informing the King that Ganon and his minions have seized the island of Koridai, and that according to a written prophecy, only Link can defeat him. After being refused a kiss "for luck" from Princess Zelda, Link goes with Gwonam on his magic carpet to Koridai. He explains to him the island's "Faces of Evil", giant stone structures in the shape of heads, each of which is controlled by a minion of Ganon and in whose likenesses the faces themselves are made. Ganon's minions have also been turning many of Koridai's citizens into monsters and enslaving them. Link must conquer each of the Faces of Evil before facing Ganon himself, who has his own Face of Evil.

While adventuring through Koridai, meeting numerous characters and fighting monsters, Link learns from Gwonam that Zelda has been captured by Ganon and put under a sleeping spell since he left the castle, and is imprisoned in his lair. As Link continues his adventure, he fights and defeats each of the masters of the Faces of Evil: Goronu, Harlequin, Militron, Glutko, and Lupay. He also retrieves the Book of Koridai after defeating Glutko, which after bringing to Ipo the reader, learns that it is the only item that can defeat Ganon. Link also finds Gwonam's house, and is given the Lantern of Vision to help him see and fight the Sancromies that swarm Ganon's Lair.

After all other obstacles have been cleared, Link arrives at Ganon's Lair, where he confronts the villain and defeats him by throwing the Book of Koridai at him and magically imprisoning him in it. Ganon drops the key to Zelda's prison chamber, where Link finds her asleep. He rings a giant gong and wakes Zelda up, exclaiming that he just saved her, though she teasingly says she does not believe him. Gwonam then returns and takes the two back to Hyrule Castle on his carpet, and proclaims Link as the Hero of Koridai.

Gameplay
The Faces of Evil is different from most conventional Zelda games in that it is played using a side-scrolling view, similar to that in. Levels are accessed from a world map which are selected with a cursor, with more areas becoming available as Link progresses through the game. Levels are comprised of several sectioned areas within them, usually with multiple enemies in each section. If Link loses all of his Life Hearts and perishes, a Continue screen will be displayed, allowing Link to restart at the entrance of the area he was last in. If Link however dies three times, he will be sent back to the world map and be forced to start over. Each level has two Triforces (called Triforce Maps in the in-game tutorial) that serve as exits; one at the beginning and one at the end. In addition to simply reaching the second Triforce in each stage, some levels also have special items and power-ups in them that are necessary to progress through later areas. Link encounters several NPC characters in certain stages who provide Link with essential equipment and information, often requiring a specific item in return found somewhere else in the game.

Link also collects "Rubies" dropped by defeated enemies, which are used to buy extra equipment from Morshu's shop in the Goronu area. Some items in the game also require Rubies to be used, and will use up a certain amount each time they are used.

Character interactions is achieved through the use of cutscenes, which are activated when Link approaches a character and touches them with his sword. The game describes this as the "Smart Sword", a sword Link uses that cannot hurt friendly characters and instead encourages them to talk. The cutscenes use voice acting to provide Link with instructions and story, which makes The Faces of Evil one of the few Zelda games to have voice acting. Very little in-game text is encountered otherwise.

Development
Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, and later Zelda's Adventure, were the result of a compromise between Nintendo and Philips. Nintendo had once attempted to produce a CD-ROM based add-on for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System with, but had violated their contract after partnering with Philips, a rival company to Sony, to produce a similar peripheral. After this attempt failed however, Nintendo reached a compromise and gave Philips the license to five of their franchises' characters for use in their own console system, the Philips CD-i. Ideas were pitched to American Interactive Media, the CD-i software publishing branch, who settled on making games based on Nintendo's biggest names. The developers at Dale Disharoon Inc. decided on making two separate games featuring Link and Zelda. Due to the small development budget and time restraints, the developers resolved to combine the funding to develop a single game engine that would be used by both games. The development team consisted of four programmers, one audio engineer and composer, four artists, a producer and a freelance writer who would help to design both games. The games' full motion video cutscenes were outsourced to a new animation company in St. Petersburg, Russia. The two companies would eventually combine and become known as Animation Magic.

Very little input was given by Nintendo during the development of the games, who were mostly interested in the designs and sketches of Link and Zelda. Philips also gave very little input, however Dale DeSharone, the games' creator, expressed in an interview that he believed Philips would not approve of a top-down view for the games, as it would have "looked old, and (would not) make use of the CD-i capabilities," and had instead went with the side-view. The lack of input from both companies allowed the developers room for creative development.

Reception
Along with the other two Zelda CD-i games, The Faces of Evil is not considered canon as Nintendo had very little involvement in its production. The three games, particularly The Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamelon, were subject to much criticism from reviewers and series fans alike. The game sold poorly and suffered from critical reception, with key complaints regarding the confusing and unresponsive controls, dull and repetitive gameplay, and poor animation and voice acting used in the game's cutscenes.

This game, along with The Wand of Gamelon, were frequently used to create "YouTube Poop" remix videos, which added to their reputation among series fans. Characters such as King Harkinian, Gwonam and Morshu were particularly popular.