Between August 6, 1995 and May 30, 1999, Nintendo, in collaboration with St.GIGA, broadcast three different The Legend of Zelda titles to fans for download via the Super Famicom's Satellaview subsystem. BS Zelda no Densetsu, BS Zelda no Densetsu: MAP2, and BS Zelda no Densetsu: Inishie no Sekiban all featured SoundLink narration which was the first time that Nintendo-sponsored Zelda titles made use of voice-actors to provide vocal tracks.The earlier CD-i titles were not sponsored by Nintendo and are considered by fans to lack canonicity.Uxio, P.R. Historia de Zelda. DSWii.es. 14 June 2010. As the first SoundLink Game released via Satellaview, BS Zelda no Densetsu in particular was identified by Nintendo as the world's first integrated radio-game. Also broadcast during this time, starting on March 2, 1997, was a non-SoundLink port of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, known as Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce in Japan.BS The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past . IGN. Retrieved 9 July 2010. Broadcasts of Kamigami no Triforce continued periodically throughout the tenure of Nintendo's partnership with St.GIGA (which ended on May 30, 1999), after which St.GIGA independently broadcast the game until May 29, 2000.セント・ギガ衛星データ放送. stgiga.co.jp. 23 June 2000.

With the exception of Kamigami no Triforce all Zelda titles broadcast to the Satellaview were Satellaview-exclusive. Because the Satellaview was only released in Japan, these games were also all Japan-only releases. To date none of these titles have been released in any other form and due to the download limitations imposed on the broadcasts and the termination of support for the system these games are no longer available on the commercial market. Subsequent to the announcement at E3 2010 regarding the rerelease of BS Fire Emblem: Akaneia Senki (the first Satellaview-exclusive title to be re-released commercially) 10 years after the last Satellaview broadcast, there has been renewed speculation regarding the possibility of Nintendo's rerelease of the BS Zelda titles,Une surprise dans Fire Emblem : Monshou No Nazo . VideoJeux. 22 June 2010.McWhertor, Michael. Nintendo, Let's Have Great Metroid & Zelda 25th Anniversaries. Kotaku. 28 January 2011.Games Inbox: Dark Souls preview, BioShock Infinite, and Duke Nukem's bust . Metro. 15 June 2011. but to date there has been no official announcement on the matter from Nintendo.History's Hidden Hardware: BS-X (Broadcast Satellaview) / 1995. Nintendo Power. No. 225. February 2008. p.61

There has been much fan debate about whether or not the Zelda titles for the Satellaview (collectively known as the BS Zelda games) should be considered enhanced remakes or spin-off titles, whether or not their plots (different plots from the prior titles in 3 of the 4 Satellaview games) should be regarded as canonical or not, and if so where they should fit into the timeline of Zelda events.Duncan, Sean C. Literary Implications of Online Fan Debates . Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. March 24–28, 2008. p. 5.Sforcina, Mathew. Ask 411Games 06.14.10. 411Mania. 14 June 2010.Duncan, Sean C. and Gee, James Paul; Cuddy, Luke (ed). The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: Chapter 8 - "The Hero of Timelines". Pp 86-95. Open Court. 2008. .

BS Zelda no Densetsu

BS Zelda no Densetsu is an action-adventure game first broadcast to Satellaview owners in August 1995. It is the fifth game developed by Nintendo belonging to The Legend of Zelda series, but it does not feature Link, the protagonist of the prior four games. Instead it features the same main character that the player selects in the Satellaview game, BS-X, and indeed the games are linked functionally and roughly through plot.Harper, Alison. (ed.). Super Express: New Zelda Hits Japan. Super Play. Issue 35. Pp. 6-7. September 1995. As such BS Zelda no Densetsu, together with BS Zelda no Densetsu: MAP2 and BS Zelda no Densetsu: Inishie no Sekiban, is generally considered to be a spin-off title from the main Zelda series. Stylistically similar to the original top-down The Legend of Zelda for the NES, but utilizing the 16-bit graphical capabilities of the SNES, BS Zelda no Densetsu is also occasionally regarded as an enhanced remake of the original game.Simpson, Campbell. The Legend of Zelda: a retrospective . PC World. Good Gear Guide. 18 November 2009.

The game's title derives the "BS" portion of its name from the Broadcast Satellite system through which the game was transmitted by the distributor, St.GIGA, to Satellaview owners between the date of the first broadcast (in August 1995) and the last broadcast (in January 1997). As the Satellaview's first SoundLink Game, broadcasts for BS Zelda no Densetsu were composed of both a discretely quantifiable portion of game code and a continually streaming vocal track. Employing the voices of voice actors, BS Zelda no Densetsu became the world's first integrated radio-game and it marks the first time that a Zelda title released by Nintendo would utilize spoken dialog.

The game was broadcast a total of 5 times and several broadcasts were associated with special nationwide-contests and prizes. The game's popularity among Satellaview players prompted the development of BS Zelda no Densetsu: MAP2 - a remixed version of BS Zelda no Densetsu providing a functional analog to the original The Legend of Zeldas "Second Quest".

Plot BS Zelda no Densetsu is set chronologically close in time to A Link to the Past. Although neither of the two stories makes direct reference to the other, the back-story given at the start of the game is substantially identical. The back-story explains that the Gods had created a holy golden triangle called the Triforce which would grant the wishes of anyone who possessed it. Ganondorf, the evil boss of a gang of thieves, located the Triforce and was transformed into Ganon, meanwhile his baleful influence spread across the land of Hyrule. The Gods sent word by messenger that a holy sword would be required to stop this evil, so the King of Hyrule commissioned such a sword. After it was completed the Hyrulians discovered that nobody could wield the sword and so the king set his 7 sages to work creating a seal to seal Ganon away until such time as a hero would be born who could wield the holy blade. Not long afterward, Ganon escaped and managed to kidnap the King's daughter, Princess Zelda.

As luck would have it, on a Sunday a few days later, a youth from the far away entered a fabulous portal in a fortune teller's tent and emerged in the dark of a distant land. Following the stars, the child traveled until at last arriving in the land of Hyrule. Entering a nearby cave the child met an Old Man who armed the youth with a sword and explained the predicament in which Hyrule found itself. The child set out to recover the 8 fragments of Triforce hidden deep in dangerous dungeons. After collecting them and reconstructing the Triforce, the child recovered the holy Master Sword, fought Ganon, and slew him to recover another segment of the Triforce. The child then rescued Princess Zelda and returned to the Town Whose Name Has Been Stolen.

Throughout the adventure the youth's efforts were repeatedly frustrated by the inability to progress further. Due to the unstable nature of the magic associated with the fortune teller's portal, the youth's heroic quests in Hyrule were only possible for a one-hour period known as .締切直前！ギリギリセーフ！イキナリ情報 第1回. サテラビュー通信. 1995.9月号. pp. 96-97.Yip, Spencer. Watch: BS Zelda, the lost remake of the classic. Siliconera. 2 March 2007. At the end of the hour the hero would be whisked away back to the City Whose Name Has Been Stolen and the portal would not regain its magical ability to transport the child to Hyrule until the following Sunday.

To make matters easier for the youth, however, the Old Man that dwelt in the first cave the youth had discovered kept track of all of the youth's money and inventory items so that the youth could recover them again and take up from roughly the same position. Additionally, the Old Man was capable of telepathic communication with the hero and could grant the child magical abilities for short periods of time by researching spells in tomes of forbidden magic. The Old Man's ability to see clairvoyantly also enabled him to sense when certain plot elements were occurring such as the kidnapping of the great fairy or the washing up of useful items by the seashore. These events would be relayed to the hero telepathically.

Gameplay The gameplay dynamics of BS Zelda no Densetsu (and BS Zelda no Densetsu: MAP2) are most closely comparable to those of the first The Legend of Zelda, but a few major differences exist between Zelda and BS Zelda which make the two play-through experiences distinctly different. Foremost among these differences is the use of SoundLink data to supplement and provide plot for BS Zelda.

As the world's first satellite-based integrated radio-game, BS Zeldas implementation of the streaming SoundLink broadcasts represented an early approach to dealing with the difficulty of meaningfully connecting vocal files to character actions. As such, unlike the later BS Zelda no Densetsu: Inishie no Sekiban that allows players to continue moving during SoundLink messages, when the in-game clock hits certain times in BS Zelda the game pauses to display a message reading . During this time, players would hear the voice of the narrator (Kiyoshi Kobayashi - playing the part of the Old ManFletcher, J.C. Zelda Week: the Zelda games you'll never play . Joystiq. 4 October 2007.) grant the player magical abilities or warn of events occurring elsewhere in the Land of Hyrule. During other periods of paused gameplay such as during the introduction and end sequences, fully voiced plot details relating to Princess Zelda (voiced by Naomi Fujisawa) and Ganon (voiced by Seizō Katō) were also broadcast.

In order to allow the proper pacing of plot elements revealed in vocal files, the game progresses according to a strict time-based system.BSオリジナルゲームも充実!. サテラビュー通信. 1996.5月号. pp. 8-18. An onscreen clock displaying "Zelda Time" can be seen at all times and because the game is played in real-time, the time cannot be paused even if the game is paused. At various points in "Zelda Time" certain pre-set plot events occur. These events range from the death or stunning of all enemies in a room, or the appearance of fairies, to occasional weapons/munition upgrades allowing the use of more powerful versions of items and/or the unlimited use of items for a limited time.Jennings, Ryan and Schneider, Peer. BS Zelda. Hyrule Times (IGN). Vol. 14. 8 February 2002.

The game was divided in fourths and broadcast in episodic installments (with the only subtitle being the standard Satellaview suffix, where X was a number between 1 and 4).Retrospective: BS Zelda . Hyrule Times (IGN). 8 June 2006. Each episode limited players to a certain restricted playing area either by withholding necessary items or by using obstacles on the overworld map that would be removed in later episodes. This ensured that players would experience a paced gameplay experience and allowed for a closer tailoring of SoundLink plot details to the events unfolding in new areas of the overworld map. The overworld in BS Zelda was altered from the 8 by 16 map used in the original The Legend of Zelda to an 8 by 8 grid, although an effort to make Map 1 roughly comparable in terms of general landscape features to the overworld in Zelda is apparent.