Arzette and the Importance of Game Preservation

In the great artistic continuum, every new work of art has its origins in the work that precedes it. Inspiration is found in myriad places, regardless of overall quality. Just as much as a writer can find gold in pulpy sci-fi and go on to craft insightful works of fiction of their own, video games have and will continue to do the same.

While this famously results in games such as Final Fantasy being birthed from a love of Ultima and Wizardry, more esoteric titles come from unusual origins. Unmetal launched in 2021, revisiting the design concepts at the foundation of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for the MSX rather than any 3D stealth game. While the stealth genre exploded around the lessons learned from Metal Gear Solid, Hideo Kojima’s early experiments in sneaky action gameplay proved foundational enough for Francisco Téllez de Meneses to create a loving parody and a well-received game.

With Unmetal and Metal Gear 2, players are largely fortunate. Unmetal is currently available on every modern platform, and Metal Gear 2 is soon to see a rerelease as part of a collection later this year after skipping a generation without availability. It has been part of every modern rerelease of Metal Gear Solid 3 since the Subsistence port.

We aren’t so fortunate with most titles.

The Game Availability Study was recently published, a collaborative effort between the Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network, revealing that 87% of all games published before 2010 are no longer legally accessible. I’m certain that with the prevalence of digital distribution following that date, numerous other titles have likewise become difficult to access or even risk becoming completely lost media over time. I will refer to the link above, as well as a video post from The Completionist from this point. This post isn’t specifically about the contents of that study.

I think it’s important to note the importance of games preservation from a different outlook. The historians and archivists are hard at work at notating the importance of documenting and protecting the history of this young medium.

Instead, I would like to talk about Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore.

From the Discs of History

Arzette is the upcoming game from Seth Fulkerson and Seedy Eye Software, and is a throwback to the infamous Zelda CD-i games from the mid 90s. The developer previously remade The Wand of Gamelon and The Faces of Evil. These two games, notorious for their cheesy animated clips, dodgy gameplay, and sharp deviation from their other titles in the franchise, are not beloved by anyone in the same way that, for example, Link to the Past is. At best, it’s camp. They are a source of memes.

And without them, there would be no Arzette. If there was no specific appreciation or even love for the old Phillips-made disasters, there would be no desire to create such a game.

I approach this topic with a sense of romanticism because of my own creative ideals. My work is drawn from a love of so many things, and I try to bring that admiration into the things I create. When I play a game, listen to an album, read a book – anything – I try to sense that love in the work. Such passions are not present in all things. It’s hard to see it in the major corporate products, so you likely don’t see me writing about such things in the same way.

Arzette lacks such market appeal, and is leaning into the campy presentation of its direct inspirations. It is a game with its heart on it’s sleeve.

I am here for every second of it. It looks fantastic. It appears to have learned what worked and what didn’t from the Zelda games that precede it. Seth and Seedy Eye Software are making something special that I’m looking forward to.

The Right to play Bad Games

So, what about the CDi Zelda games?

Nintendo will never bring these games back to the public again. Such a proposition is considered as a threat to the brand at this point. I can’t think of any CDi exclusive games that are likely to be ported or reprinted, and I’ve yet to do any extensive research to say otherwise. Most players aren’t going to be interested in revisiting the console.

However, it’s still a console worthy of study, of experiencing. As Yahtzee Croshaw said in a recent Extra Punctuation video, you can learn a lot more from failure than you can from a success, that we can not rely on remasters and remakes because it will likely only be for games that are fondly remembered. Zelda CDi has now spawned a modern game that learned from its choices, good and ill. What else could be learned from the bad games? At a time when homogeneity fills the shelves at local game shops and online platforms, it is refreshing -inspiring even -that a game like Arzette has a chance not only to exist, but to get a physical release through Limited Run Games.

If only the people who play and enjoy Arzette could easily play the games that inspired it. Changes need to be made where the creators of tomorrow have access to games like The Wand of Gamelon or Thayer’s Quest or any of the thousands of other games that make up the strange and wonderful history of the medium. In an age where media is destroyed for a tax write off, I do not believe in the long term viability of digital distribution as it currently exists, so I would like to take a moment to thank any outlet actively working to keep games like this around, such as Limited Run, who are publishing modern releases of classic titles through their Carbon Engine or through physical rereleases of games like StarHawk on Gameboy. This work matters. All of it. The creators of the future rely on the work of the past, and they deserve access to anything that can help them fulfill their own dreams.