Overthrown

The Philips CD-I. You likely don’t own one, and neither do I, but even with how crummy in quality it ended up being, the games were certainly important. Important enough to spawn loads of little YouTube parodies, animations, and while very rare to come across, fangames. 
What I’m going to talk about is one of those fangames, in the form of a file named “linkfaces_overthrown.iso.” Back in 2013, Link: The Faces of Evil was hosted on a little-known emulation website known as RomsWham, before every game became unavailable due to a lawsuit. 
I do have some snippets from DMs on my old Skype account, from when I played the game and told my friends about what was happening. We had a good laugh, but we didn’t think much of this “version” enough to save it. I have since gotten a new computer with a spacious hard-drive, meaning that I currently don’t have it, and none of my friends ever downloaded the file themselves either. 
I’ll do my best to describe what I saw.
The first cutscene started up immediately, not even giving me a chance to scroll through the options on the main menu, or play the tutorial level. It went out like how the original did, with Link stretching and commenting about how boring it was around the castle. King Harkinian tells Link that this peace and quiet is “what all true warriors strive for,” to which Link responds saying that he wonders what Ganon is planning. 
Gwonam comes flying in on his magic carpet, telling the King that Koridai has been invaded by Ganon and his henchmen. After the King says, “Hmm, how can we help,” the changes come into play.
First, there was no Gwonam pulling out a scroll and informing the King that only Link can defeat Ganon. It was as if that part was removed entirely. King Harkinian’s pupils were reanimated to slide rightward in the last few frames, and then the scene cuts to Link, standing there with a look of disappointment. He had a weird, uncharacteristic glare on his face, like he was just told to do something he didn’t want to do. It cuts back to a still image of King Harkinian, then back to Link again, still scowling. Suddenly, a piece of one of the later cutscenes played.
“Take him away-”
“I’ll grab my stuff!”
After the seemingly amateur attempt at changing the dialogue, the cutscene immediately ended and put me into the level selection map. 
When the gameplay started, Link’s movement was quite janky. His animations made him look like he was sliding across the ground rather than walking, and unlike the original, his sword didn’t swing at a single, quick frame. It got stuck at the attack animation for a few seconds, then drew back. 
This made it a lot more difficult to fight, as enemies spawned like they never did before, and I had to continuously rewind my emulator just to strike them at the right time. It was obnoxious, like this ISO was hacked to have its difficulty purposefully increased. No wonder the menu didn’t show up first thing; it didn’t want me to choose for myself. 
I got really bored and ended up Skyping some friends and sharing my screen while we talked. I decided to challenge myself and do what I can to get through the game in one night.
It was laborious as all hell and I felt like quitting. I painstakingly rummaged through hordes of enemies with a slow attack animation, just to get to cutscenes that omitted Link entirely, some of them removing half of the dialogue. Most of King Harkinian’s cutscenes were taken out too, leaving his only screen time so far to be during the beginning of the game. 
Well, there was one scene that was manually implemented, but it was from a different game, that game being Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. While I was scrolling through Toyku Lighthouse, not even interacting with people or items, the game froze, and pulled open a clip of Duke Onkled speaking to the King.
“Please, your omnipotence, have mercy!”
“After you’ve scrubbed all the floors in Hyrule, then we can talk about mercy. Take him away!”
Cut to Link pasted against a background, with very low exposure, and shade covering most of his face. The low-volume, muffled voices of Zelda and Lady Alma were heard.
“I wonder what happened to Link.”
“Oh, he was a four anyway!”
Zelda and Lady Alma shared a laugh, but it clearly didn’t come from their voices. Instead, it echoed two sound files, presumably taken from a stock SFX website. Then, the gameplay resumes as if nothing happened. Was this supposed to be a flashback? But, what pulled me in the most was what happened in the very end.
I managed to reach the final level with two hearts left. 
Except, there was no final level. No really short boss fight, no cutscene showing Ganon getting imprisoned with the sacred Book of Koridai, just an altered version of his confrontation. Ganon spoke. 
“Join me, Link, and I will make your face the greatest in Koridai! Or else, you will d-”
Before Ganon can even finish his sentence, Link’s hand slides into view, gesturing for him to stop talking. It cuts back to Link, but there was a massive difference.
The art and animation style changed completely, with the exception of the background which was still in-game. It was no longer a style similar to how the CD-I Nintendo characters were drawn. Link looked scratchy, and more despondent than his original counterpart. The camera zooms into his face, and he opens his mouth, about to speak, but it cuts to black right there.
The view comes back, this time, to a foggy, darkened shot of King Harkinian’s castle, with the words “one hour later” on the bottom.
A hardcut to the interior of the castle is shown, with the King sitting at a dinner table alone, pouring some uncorked wine into an empty chalice. His finger was tapping impatiently, and he looked like he was about to cry. 
The noise of a big door opening and closing played. In came Link, clothes sodden with blood, his sword being the thing covered in it the most. 
“My boy… you look awful! What happened, where is my daughter?!”
The voices of these characters were clearly microphone-recorded, and it sounded like every character was acted by the same person. Based on the tone, it may have been a high schooler or young adult. Link, with dark rings circling his eyes, he gulps.
“Ganon… disintegrated her, before I could even make it inside. She’s nothing but ash now… I’m sorry, King.”
“No, no! Zelda, my baby!”
King Harkinian’s head slammed against the base of the table, his hands grabbing his forehead in despair. He sobbed so loud that it overtook my volume, and I had to lower it just so it didn’t hurt my ears. Throughout the booming cries, Link stepped offscreen, and came back with a different-colored bottle of wine. At least, I thought it was wine at first. 
He stepped over to the King and poured some of it in his chalice while he wasn’t looking, before pouring some of the other bottle into a small bowl on the table. Link placed his hand on the King’s shoulder to get his attention, his eyes now reddened from the tears that poured out of him like a waterfall.
“I know you likely don’t care about drinking anymore, and I don’t drink either, but let’s… have a toast. Celebrating her life. Why not? After all, we didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
The King trembled in place, before taking his chalice.
“To my… d-dearest…”
Through sniffs and chokes, he drinks some of the wine that was poured for him. The hushed, echoed voice of Link repeatedly played on loop, like a broken record was placed inside of an old, murky tunnel.
“Please work. Please work. Please work. Please work. Please work.”
As this happens, Link’s sad face would be zoomed in on and the screen darkened, the background music now just consisting of blowing wind and some sort of slowed piano piece. The music and echoes stop, once a familiar voice interrupts.
“Your majesty, he’s fibbing through his teeth.”
Gwonam stood at the balcony, his magic carpet lying flat on the ground behind him. The screen zooms in on his face, then his hand lifts up into view. 
Gripped between his fingers, was the scalp of Zelda’s severed head, her spine dangling below and dripping with her vital fluids. Her eyes were rolled so far back into her brain, that all you could see was her irritated, reddened scleras, flooded with her tears. 
“If Ganon fractured every inch of her life force…”
Gwonam winced, trying not to lose his temper.
“Then why did I find THIS, outside of his dungeon?”
Sounds of the King’s screaming were heard, and the scene cut to him grabbing his mouth, trying not to vomit at the horrific sight. Link simply stood there, staring down at his feet, and clutching his sword until his knuckles turned white.
“Y-YOU ROTTEN, BACKSTABBING KNAVE! WHY DID YOU DO THIS?! WHAT DID SHE EVER DO TO HURT YOU?!”
As soon as the King finished his sentence, white foam shot out from his mouth, and he began to intensely vibrate, before collapsing on the floor. His face was slowly growing pale in color, and he held onto his throat, attempting to close the airways from making him spit up, to no avail.
Link slowly stepped over to him, the leather tapping of his boots echoing through the castle, before kneeling next to his dying body.
“...I’m surprised you didn’t notice this earlier, even after all the times I’ve tried to imply it, but I hate you, Harkinian. With every ounce of my being. You have brought me nothing but misery and shame.”
“You threatened to put me behind bars if I didn’t do what you wanted, but that’s not even half of it. What angers me the most is that you’ve turned me into your errand boy. I could be unfettered, free from your rancid bidding. I could live in a nice little cottage next to Hyrule, fulfilling my own purpose… but I can’t even have that when I’m around you, can I? I never asked to be trained, or to be your foster child to begin with. In fact, I would have taken anyone else.”
“I only ever wanted to get on your positive side, because Zelda… oh Zelda, how sweet she was at first, until she made a fool out of me behind my back. We could’ve been something together.”
“Your daughter already pissed me off as is, and she had this coming, but you… you can’t even bother to break out of your slothful behavior and aid her yourself, let alone every year she is threatened. Whenever you rely on me to handle your chores, I want to spit in your face… and now I can finally do it.”
“Oh, and I hope you enjoyed that drink, by the way… it’s a special kind of brew, from Ganon himself.”
Link kept his promise, and spat right in the eye of King Harkinian, before his vision faded, and he finally fell limp, ceasing existence. The last thing he saw was Link’s blurred face, shrouding and twisting with ruby. 
Gwonam, seeing Link’s plan unfold before his very eyes, had him shaking and losing his grip on Zelda’s head. It fell from his fingers, and hit the tiled floor with a revolting smush. His teeth chattered with a mixture of resentment and terror, before he finally fought back. 
A dark, lightning graphic shot from Gwonam’s wrinkled fingertips as Link approached him. Several shots were deflected by Link’s shield, which ended up destroying furniture in the castle. Once Gwonam was about to release his last shot, Link swung his sword, and the wizard gripped onto the blade, attempting to push it away from him. 
The aura from Gwonam’s hands caused the sword to glow. Link’s veins pulsated and his entire body began to shake from the shock seeping through him. The closer his blade got to Gwonam’s head, the more a smirk crept over his face.
Finally, Gwonam let out one final cry, before the blade pierced through his skull, causing his face to burst apart. His lifeblood and brain matter splattered in every direction across the ground, and it even shot up in Link’s face, painting it a warrior’s roseate. The aura died out. The wizard was no more.
Link hastily stood back up, and stumbled, catching his fall on the balcony’s ledge. He looked down upon the world that King Harkinian once ruled over, contemplating what he just did. He felt an unfathomable sense of power. Knowing that he finally got his reprisal against the people he loathed. In the process, gaining one new ally.
Before the game crashed and shut off my stream, the reason for the filename of the ISO became apparent to all of us.
Images of the outstripped castle faded in and out, before showing Link once more. He stood back up and walked over to the King’s carcass, before proceeding to strip him of his robes and crown. Shortly after dressing himself, he would pick up his chalice, but then shake his head in disapproval and smash it on the floor, shattering it into several shards.
“Long day in Hell before I become a drunk…”
Looking to his left, he spotted something off-screen. Something that would change his life forever just by touching it. At first, he snarled with disgust, but then he slowly grinned, and traversed towards it. He sat down, and we finally got to see what that object was. 
A throne, surrounded with gold and velvet.
Category:Video Games
Category:Computers and Internet
Category:Zelda
Category:Lafawnda's Reading Hour