Games - The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce Saga

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	Games - The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce Saga

The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce Saga is the alleged title of an unfinished Nintendo Entertainment System sequel to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. It received recent notoriety when a The Legend of Zelda
fan claimed to have found a development cartridge and attempted to list it on eBay in October 2005.

The alleged game

This game never made it out of the development stages. Very few development cartridges were ever found, and even less information leaked out about the game as a result. The very few outside of Nintendo who claim to have played the unfinished game reported an experience point system, a larger map, and hints at a "light/dark world" similar to the system in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

It is believed that the game, if it truly existed at its unfinished state, was abandoned and many of the new features created for The Triforce Saga and not abandoned were instead ported into the SNES title The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and the Game Boy title The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

Recent history

As this was only a rumored title, planned for release in 1990, it was largely forgotten until October 2005, when a development cartridge appeared on the auction website eBay. Almost immediately, websites talking about the cart sale began to spring up to discuss whether the cart was a hoax. The person who found the cart (allegedly at a flea market) later posted a screenshot of the game being loaded on his personal NES. The finder was later able to find a buyer for his cart, and allegedly sold it to a Canadian gaming enthusiast for just under $US 3000. A few days after the auction closed (and was subsequently taken offline by eBay for violations of its listing policy), an article on gaming blog Joystiq appeared with a report that the game was real.

According to Joystiq's initial report on the article, "A seller on eBay is purported to have found at a flea market (for $20) a very early copy of The Legend of Zelda III for the original NES. Dubbed The Legend of Zelda III: The Triforce Saga on a rather crude label, this beta (version 0.6.24) seems kind of shady."

Days later, Joystiq followed up with another article, which specified the winner of the auction, "Richard (the owner), decided to get ahold of a NES console and test the cartridge. He managed to successfully boot the game and play around with it for a bit. The game is very buggy, which is to be expected from a game that is only around 50-60% complete."

Silicon Knights involvement

Thereafter, Joystiq reported, "Word is, the buyer ("Knight 7") plans to dump the ROM on CD and start selling." This user, Knight 7, was allegedly reporting himself as an employee of Silicon Knights. This, along with screenshots, apparently was enough to satisfy the average fan. But somehow, Silicon Knights saw the report, and had this in response:

"We saw your recent posting at , wherein you imply that Silicon Knights
has purchased Zelda III, apparently under the name “Knight 7.” I can affirmatively state that our company, Silicon Knights, has made no such purchase, and we would appreciate your correction of the information on your website to reflect that fact.

With respect to the person using the name “Knight 7,” we are currently investigating whether anyone using that web name is employed by Silicon Knights. Regardless, however, I can confirm right now that no such person was ever authorized by me or anyone else with authority at Silicon Knights to make such a purchase, in the company name or otherwise."

Hoax?

Because of the problems concerning many of the facts of the case, there is speculation that the cart is actually a hoax.

The story of the winning buyer being an employee of Silicon Knights is apparently untrue.

Most of the information regarding the auction and The Legend of Zelda III beta were featured on Joystiq, while IGN
, 1UP.com
and other major game sites ignored the subject entirely.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce Saga ]

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