BS Zelda is one of those games that would’ve never been played outside of Japan if not for emulation.

The game was released for the Bandai-Satellaview, a now defunct japanese add on for the Super Famicom that could download games from a satellite via a modem. BS Zelda was released in a way that certain sections of the game could be downloaded once a week, with a time limit on how long you could play each episode.

A few years ago, a ROM of the game was released on the internet, and a number of people translated it and did various hacks to it, such as removing the time limit, etc. The game itself plays very similarly to the original Legend of Zelda, but anyone who’s played the first Zelda will notice a number of differences. The dungeons are altered, the overworld is different, and instead of Link, you play as a little kid in a baseball cap, which I understand was the Satellaview mascot.

If you like the Zelda series in general, you should find this game fun to play.

Bumpus translated the in-game text, and this patch includes his work, and also includes Roto’s Beta One hack, and Damordred’s hack to replace the Satellaview kid with a nice little Link sprite. The submenu graphics aren’t really done, so this will have to stay Incomplete. I think it also uses Flobby’s time hack, but there’s nothing about it in the readme, and I’d rather not play 57 minutes through the game and find out.

By the way, you are required to use the ROM known as “BS Zelda no Densetsu Remix (J) [f1]” in GoodSNES; the original ROM will not work. Only ZSNES will play Roto’s hack, so SNES9x etc. won’t work either.