Fan games

There are many fan games based on The Legend of Zelda. Some games consist of entirely original material, while some others are re-makes of existing games. However, due to legal issues, many such projects have been shut down before completion. Naturally, all these games are to be considered non-canonical.

Another popular focus of fan game creators are hacks of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. This game is easily malleable to due its availability on ROMs. Hacks feature alterations such as graphics and different dialogue. The legal status of hacks is disputed.

Zelda Classic
ZeldaClassic is a 2D Zelda game engine that is famous for its quest editor that allows fans to create their own Zelda games. Currently, they have a database of 200+ fan-made Zelda games, most of which are fully completed games. Users can create custom backgrounds, enemies, characters, weapons and items using their quest editor, ZQuest.

The Legend of Zelda: Hall of the Undead
The Legend of Zelda: Hall of the Undead is a fan game utilizing original art and remixed music. The entire game takes place in one dungeon, and is considered to be of fairly high quality for a fan game.

The Legend of Zelda: The Fallen Sage
The Legend of Zelda: The Fallen Sage is a fan game made by undyingnephalim and Cosmic Revenues. Despite it being a fan game, they give credit to Nintendo. The game is reported to be released at www.zeldadungeon.net on December 25th 2007. The Fallen Sage forum hasnt been updated in some time and only features beta screenshots of the game. This game appears to be made in RPG Maker XP.

The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer
The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer is a fan game utilizing graphics from The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap and has been in development for over three years, one of the longest of any fan game. The game uses a 3-day cycle similar of the one found within The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, but at the end of the cycle it simply starts over again instead of the moon crashing into the ground. This 3-day cycle gives a routine to follow for the NPCs in the game. It also has a horseback combat system. There are currently 2 demos available and a trailer for this fan game.

The Legend of Zelda: Song of Souls
The Legend of Zelda: Song of Souls is a fan game that uses RMXP. It has 4 transformation masks, and contains edited graphics from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The creator has many names, such as Ummm To Coool, To Coool, Krik and even his real name, Steven Lawrence. The main enemies in this game are Vaati and Majora, even though there is one more boss that won't be ever revealed unless you play the game. The game takes place after the death of Ganondorf in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Link travels to Kokiri Forest and meets Saria, the Sage of Forest. He goes into the temple where he finds an ocarina and learns the "Song of Souls". After he learns the song, he is kidnapped by guards. On one forum can be found screenshots of the game and one map trailer, displaying some probable maps featured in the game.

Legend of Zelda: The Lampshade
Legend of Zelda: The Lampshade (also known as Legend of Zelda: The Lampshade of No Real Significance) is a fan-made flash video game originally created for Newgrounds by The Super Flash Bros. The game parodies the Legend of Zelda series, with the gameplay consisting of one lengthy trading sequence, a typical convention in the series. A few other Nintendo characters besides Link are included as NPCs, as well as the creators and other famous video game characters, including flash video creator Legendary Frog, who is also referenced by one item being called the Frog of Legend. Link cannot die or get hurt in this game.

Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Fan Game
Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Fan Game (title is a work in progress) is a fan-made 3D video game created using 3D Game Studio. The game borrows the look and feel of The Wind Waker and is under development. The story has not yet been revealed. The authors site is: http://www.freewebs.com/ed1988/

The Legend of Princess
The Legend of Princess is an indie action-platformer homage to The Legend of Zelda. The game controls a character similar to Link and fights enemies inspired by the Zelda series. It resembles a Game Boy Advance game with vivid colors and 16-bit chiptune-like music and sound effects.

Hyrule Online
Hyrule online is one of the few Zelda MMORPGs ever made. Two base classes, Warrior and Mage, are currently available. The graphics are somewhat high-definition 2D, and the current layout of the various locations in the game is based mostly upon The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The game can be found at http://www.hyruleonline.net/.

The Legend of Zelda: Return of the Hylian Trilogy
The Legend of Zelda: Return of the Hylian/Oni-Link Begins/Time to Triumph is a trilogy of fan games that take place after the events of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Originally made in French in C++ by Vincent Jouillat, it was translated to English by Lobaluz. The games utilizes many graphics and pieces of music from A Link to the Past. Additionally, Oni-Link Begins utilizes music from other games and has a cameo appearence by Pit from Kid Icarus. Time to Triumph is scheduled to come out August 2009 in french, and a bit later in English. The game is a free download.

Zelda Forever
Zelda Forever is a logical game developed by Softendo.com. The game has over 100 levels to complete, enormous world map, secrets, and atmospheric music. Zelda Forever can be found here.

Kousou Games
Kousou Games have created several Zelda fan games, all programmed using Gamemaker. They are:
 * The Final Challenge is an A Link To The Past style fan game created as an entry to a competition held by ZFGC in 2005. The player can take control of four different characters - Link himself, a Zora, a Goron or a Deku Scrub - with gameplay and dungeons differing depending on the choice of character.
 * Zelda: Just Beginning the team's first attempt at creating a true full length style Zelda game, the first demo is available to download from the website. It uses graphics based off the Gameboy Color Zelda games, and has support for PC game pads. Members from the fansite Just Zelda have been offered cameo roles in the game.
 * Zelda Bomberman is a version of the classic game Bomberman, remade with Zelda themed graphics. It will feature online multiplayer.
 * Maze Minigames is a fairly simple game, where the player has to guide Link through a completely randomly generated maze.

The Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds
The Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds is a complete overhaul using A Link to the Past as a starting point for its construction. Originally titled The Tower of the Triforce, a demo was available around 2003 that had used the basic graphics from A Link to the Past but revolved around a drastically different storyline. In the years following the release of the demo, the completion of the game was in question until New Years Eve 2006 when version 1.0 (a full game with completely different graphics) was released after several years work. Since that time the game is still being worked on and has been given a 1.1 patch release and updates on several drastic changes have been made public on one of the creator's websites. Overall, this take on A Link to the Past is a much more difficult affair than any other fan edit and as such is also the fan game that has been longest in production (currently 4-5 years). According to the official site for the game, adjustments are still being made and "[you] can think of this current version as open beta..." An FAQ and game information can be found at the official Parallel Worlds site.

The Legend of Zelda: The Seeds of Time
The Legend of Zelda: The Seeds of Time is a complete hack of Super Mario World by Invisible Coin Block. It is unique in that, although it is based on SMW, it makes use of several Zelda elements, including a working sword, throwable Deku Nuts, a Deku Leaf that allows Link to float over gaps, a boomerang, and bombs.

The Omega Hack
The Omega Hack is another A Link to the Past overhaul, albeit not quite finished. This game features new music and sprites but is riddled with many glitches, bugs and unfinished sprites running about in the world. A query for The Omega Hack will often turn it up in most search engines.

Ocarina of Time Beta Restoration Project
The Ocarina of Time Beta Restoration Project is a mod/hack by Team Beta Triforce which focuses on restoring the original beta version of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Progress has been shown via screenshots,videos, and even savestates for N64 emulators. Things being restored include the Hyrule sewers, equippable Fishing Rod, Temple of Light, Beta Castle Town, obtaining the Triforce, etc. This project was started in May 2008; a public demo is currently scheduled for release sometime in 2009, and the full game is planned to come out sometime in 2010. The official website of Team Beta Triforce can be found here.

Zelda Challenge : Outlands
Zelda 1 full hack, from graphics to story. Homepage

Ocarina of Time 2D (TRM version)
Ocarina of Time 2D is a project by Daniel Barras (who posts under the name "TheRealMethuselah" on the Zelda Universe forum). It's a remake of Ocarina of Time featuring the same graphics seen in A Link to the Past. While many believe the project to have been cancelled, Barras has stated: "Well, I'm actually still working on it... Nintendo did not shut me down... Yahoo shut down my site stating that they were worried about copyright infringrement [sic]... but I assure you It's still very much in development..." An overview and screenshots can be found at the game's new website which can be found in a discussion at Zelda Universe.

Ocarina of Time 2D (Dampe's version)
Ocarina of Time 2D is another 2D remake of Ocarina of Time. During its development, the game's creator, Richard Denton (net handle "Dampe") was allegedly killed in a car accident and within hours his website was taken down by his family. A Digg article had a "friend" of Denton's claim that he can verify his death, yet another Digg article points out the inconsistencies in the story and broke the news that Denton faked his death online to escape from the pressures of the game creation and all its entrapments. As of 2008, the game is still unreleased but a demo can be found where his site used to be.

Zelda mobile
Zelda mobile is a fan-made version of the original The Legend of Zelda for mobile phones. It is not supported by all models of cell phones.

The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening 3D
Links Awakening 3D is a work in progress by Jordan Mullen (aka MithosKuu) and attempts to recreate Links Awakening in full 3-dimensional graphics; as of March 2009 the overworld is complete, with an early proof of concept released, and two technical demos planned.