Ura Zelda & Zelda Gaiden

As most of you know, I am a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda series. I could talk about how awesome it is and stuff, but Zelda's 25th anniversary is over, so... 

You may be wondering what that image above is. "A new Zelda title?!" you may ask filled with excitement. Unfortunately, no, this is not a new Zelda title. This is an unreleased Zelda title. There aren't a lot of unreleased Zelda titles, the only other one I can think of is Mystical Seeds of Courage which was to go with Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages. The thing is, Nintendo always wants to go big and innovate. They want to push the normal conscripts of making a game to the absolute max, even if it results in failure. However, when it doesn't end in failure, it ends up being amazing, so it tends to even out. One of these "innovations" that ended in failure was the 64 Disk Drive. 

Announced at 1995's Nintendo World (called Nintendo Shoshinkai at the time), the 64 Disk Drive was to be an add-on for the Nintendo 64. It was pretty awesome. It allowed the N64 to use proprietary 64 MB magneto-optical disks (readers scratch heads) for a whole lot more data storage. This thing had an internal clock, an artwork feature that supposedly allowed you to create textures and characters in certain games, and a whole slew of epic games for the lineup (one being Earthbound 64).

So what happened to the 64DD? Well, development began to slow down a lot. The 64DD was delayed until December 1, 1999 in Japan and never even saw light in America. It was a failure. Which is a shame considering some of it's features were downright Chuck Norris.

Now, what does this have to do with the unreleased Zelda title (called Ura Zelda)? Well, get this. Ura Zelda was an add-on to Ocarina of Time! That's right! Using the 64DD attached to the N64, you would insert both Ocarina and Ura and BOOM! More Zelda than you could ever handle. Apparently, after you beat Ocarina of Time, you would return to Hyrule with all new dungeons and characters! It would take full advantage of the 64DD's hardware using the internal clock, and possibly boosting graphics. The dungeons were even more difficult than before, much like... wait, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself.

Ura Zelda was not the ONLY Ocarina of Time add-on for the 64DD either! Another game was in development, called Zelda Gaiden (Ryu, anyone?) and was even more awesome than Ura (in my opinion). Zelda Gaiden was an entirely new Zelda adventure, slated after Ocarina of Time. It would include a new overworld, new dungeons, new characters, and possibly new items. It would be it's own new and unique Zelda story, which is why it interests me so.

But, as mentioned earlier, the 64DD failed and these games never came to be. Seriously. However, fan demand was so high for Ura Zelda that Nintendo couldn't stand it anymore. Taking tiny bits and pieces from Ura Zelda, and using their own dungeon crafting minds, they created The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest to shut the fans up. 

So there you have it, what could have (and in my opinion should have) been, Ura Zelda and Zelda Gaiden. Now, there have been rumors that there may be an Ura Zelda/Zelda Gaiden 3D in production, and it would work like so. Remember Action Replays for the DS? Well, Ura or Gaiden would look like the Action Replay, a cartridge with another cartridge slot on top of it. Players would insert Ocarina of Time 3D into Ura/Gaiden, and the game would run the add-on. Keep in mind, this is only a rumor, and one I've only heard once, but it's not a bad concept.