~Unreleased Zelda Titles~

In any game’s designing process there will always be ideas that are used as they are, dropped for others or developed further. These ideas are all potential games that are developed into the games we play today or just dropped completely.
There have been several titles in The Legend of Zelda series that have never been released for reasons unknown. One such title was The Legend of Zelda: Mystical Seed of Courage. When Yoshiki Okamoto worked to develop Zelda titles for the Game Boy, his team decided to create a series of three games named as the "Triforce Series". The games were known as The Legend of Zelda: the Mysterious Acorn: Chapter of Power, Chapter of Wisdom, and Chapter of Courage in Japan and The Legend of Zelda: Mystical Seed of Power, Mystical Seed of Wisdom, and Mystical Seed of Courage in the US. The games were to interact using a password system, but the difficulty of coordinating three games proved too complicated, so the team scaled back to two titles at Miyamoto's suggestion. These two titles became known as the Oracle of Seasons which was adapted from Mystical Seed of Power, Oracle of Ages which was adapted from Mystical Seed of Wisdom, and Mystical Seed of Courage was canceled.
How do you think the original plan would have worked out and what other thoughts do you guys have on this info?

Another of the ‘dropped’ titles was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Ura which was going to be an upgrade cartage as a remake of Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64DD.
Seeing as the N64DD was never released outside of Japan we never got to see it but small features of the game appear in the OoT Master quest which contained a modified version of Ocarina of Time Ura. This modified version lacked many of the features that were said to have been in the cancelled N64DD version.

I wonder how this would have turned out and what all these new upgrades for the game would have been?
Does anyone know someone from Japan who owned this game at one point and knows what it was like?
So what’s everyone’s thoughts on this subject?

Well I've heard that supposedly the third/dropped Oracle game had some of it's plot elements divided into the other two games.
I've never heard of the Ocarina of Time idea that got dropped though. Very interesting.

Originally Posted by Erimgard

Well I've heard that supposedly the third/dropped Oracle game had some of it's plot elements divided into the other two games.
I've never heard of the Ocarina of Time idea that got dropped though. Very interesting.

I only just learnt about it myself and thats why i thought it would be a ghood idea to share with anyone to see if they know more about it becasue it's a very intersting subject indeed.

And let's not forget that the Zelda game for DS was originally going to be a Four Swords game with some sort of online abilities...then it was scrapped for Phantom Hourglass.
I wonder how far they got into that...

I can actually remember reading an article back in like 1997 in EGM about the N64DD thing. It specifically mentioned how "Zelda64" as it was known as at the time, would have an add on with the system.

Totally forgot about that thing; cool pics.

Originally Posted by ErosionOfSanity

I can actually remember reading an article back in like 1997 in EGM about the N64DD thing. It specifically mentioned how "Zelda64" as it was known as at the time, would have an add on with the system.

Totally forgot about that thing; cool pics.

Thats very cool that you rember that, i think that it would have been cool to own but back then it wouldnt have taken off so i think it was wise for Nintendo to do what they did and stop its production. I'm really interested in the whole OoT Ura features and the fact that in OoTMQ we only see a fraction of what the upgrade features were.

Originally Posted by Erimgard

And let's not forget that the Zelda game for DS was originally going to be a Four Swords game with some sort of online abilities...then it was scrapped for Phantom Hourglass.
I wonder how far they got into that...

Exactly, its all part of the creation process. Theres probebly hundreds of ideas that would have been so cool that they have discarded although i am always very happy with whatever they release also.

woah woah haha, that should be called the Tank64.
what's the whole 'Ura' thing? is that the title of what wasn't released?

^ If I remember correctly then "ura" means "hidden" (or was it "different"?) in japanese.
From what I've heard some ideas that were going to be used for the ura Zelda were used in Majoras mask. The whole bombers note book could have been something that came from the ura version of OoT, but it's all up to speculation.

Edit:
And ofcourse the other Ideas for ura Zelda like the altered dungeons went to OoT masterquest.

^Ura has several meanings, the most logical in this case would probably be "secret" or "alias." "Different" is "chigau."

Originally Posted by ImReallyLink

^Ura has several meanings, the most logical in this case would probably be "secret" or "alias." "Different" is "chigau."

Ah thanks for clearing that up...well at least I was close.

Close is good. Is Master Quest really that different from the original? I've never played it before.

^ Storywise it is unchanged, they added more enemies and added more/harder puzzles. And the game has a higher resolution, but those are the only changes I noticed.

I think that MM was originally going to be released on the N64DD as "Zelda Gaiden", it means Zelda: Side Story" i think.
Miyamoto himself cofirmed that Ura Zelda and Zelda Gaiden were different projects, Ura Zelda became Master Quest and Zelda Gaiden became Majora's Mask

I believe Ura also means "hidden" and "behind" but i think ImReallyLink posted the intended meaning.

Also, Artorium, you forgot Tetra's Trackers, which became Navi Trackers in the Japanese version of FSA. It was originally planned to be a stand alone game.

Originally Posted by Hugh O

Also, Artorium, you forgot Tetra's Trackers, which became Navi Trackers in the Japanese version of FSA. It was originally planned to be a stand alone game.

Wow, to be honest with you i never herd of it before now. It looks really interesting, a shame its only out in Japan.
The intro looks very cool but how does it tie into the Wind Waker??? Hugh O, have you any other knowledge of this game you could share or anyone else for that matter, i am very curious?

Originally Posted by Artorium

Wow, to be honest with you i never herd of it before now. It looks really interesting, a shame its only out in Japan.
The intro looks very cool but how does it tie into the Wind Waker??? Hugh O, have you any other knowledge of this game you could share or anyone else for that matter, i am very curious?

Since i have been including spin offs in the timeline now i think it definitely has to come directly after tWW.

Here is some information about it, from Wikipedia:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Navi Trackers (formerly planned as a stand alone game titled Tetra's Trackers) is a game only present in the Japanese version of Four Swords Adventures (Four Swords +). In this game, multiple players, using a combination of the television screen and Game Boy Advances, search for members of Tetra's pirate gang to gain as many stamps as possible within a given time limit. All action takes place on the Game Boy Advance used by each player, with the television screen showing a basic map and Tetra narrating the action. Unlike most other Zelda games, players can enter their name as well as choose their gender; however, they play as one of the Links regardless of this choice.

Unique in the Zelda series (except, to an extent, BS The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets), Tetra and her pirate crew have full voiceovers in place of text-only dialog, with Tetra also synthesizing the two-character name that each player inputs at the beginning of the session.

A single-player mode is also available, either collecting alone or in competition with Tingle, the aspiring fairy found in other titles in the series such as Majora's Mask and The Wind Waker.

Also, it even has a page on IGN.