Amnesia Lane: Zelda Clone Tier List

To fully understand Zelda Clones, we must first be fluent with their meter, rhyme and figures of speech, then ask two questions: 1) How closely has The Legend of Zelda been cloned and 2) How impactful are the differences? Question 1 rates the clone’s perfection; question 2 rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining the game’s greatness becomes a relatively simple matter.

— Foreword to “Understanding Zelda Clones”, Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D.

While we’re still in the midst of experiencing the one, the only, the original The Legend of Zelda on out livestreaming days, it’s only natural to think about not only how all the clones stack up to their inspiration, but why.

In general, Zelda clones tend to fall into three easy to identify categories, which I will inefficiently explain over four tiers.

We’re not talking the 3-D Zeldas here, so you won’t find Okami in these parts. If the people demand it, we’ll revisit this for 3-D Zeldas. I’ll even not stretch the Dead Poets Society joke past the breaking point next time.

An Honorable mention goes to the Ys series, but I feel like their lineage traces directly back to Hydlide without passing through The Legend of Zelda.

Since I’m making a blog post rather than a tier meme image out of this, we’re going to flip the script and start at the bottom to build anticipation.

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C-Tier

This is for all intents and purposes the unranked tier. It is also the “geez, what do you have against Sega?” tier. In here goes all the 2D Zelda rip-off that I know about, but have never tried. As such, I regret to inform you that this list is missing the following games which might turn out to be key: Beyond Oasis, Crusader of Centy,Golden Axe Warrior, Alundra,Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King.

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B(yron)-Tier

These are the games that score high on question one but get middling ratings on question 2, much like a sonnet by Byron.

Spiritual Warfare

While there’s a lot of dopy material to riff in Wisdom Tree’s most ambitious project (food fights make sinners repent?), the end result was stunningly competent with both the contemporary setting and Christian theme proving to be deep wells of inspiration for making old ideas new. Plus the goal of the game is to prepare to fight your way into Hell and kill Satan, which is oddly metal for Bible trivia edutainment software.

Nutopia I & II

The sloppy hit detection and clunky script were forgivable in the first game, given that Namco had made such a good effort otherwise. But Neutopia II evolving so little from the first game was inexcusable — especially considering it came out less than two months before A Link to the Past.

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A(nti-Byron)-Tier

By scoring average on question one and high on question two, these games branch out from their inspiration, and are all the better for it.

Binding of Issac

No game in this tier wears its influence more proudly than Issac… but also no game diverges from the model as much as Issac. Having a game consisting of nothing but procedurally generated dungeons with randomized gear to find and combine was quite the twist already, but Issac made its most foundational change to the formula by being a twin-stick shooter.

Startropics I & II

How can I pass up any chance to pump Startropics‘ tires? If you haven’t heard me do it yet, you must have bananas in your ears. Mike Jones didn’t get much in the way of permanent additions to his inventory, but he faced down much more dynamic and puzzle-filled dungeons than Link.

Crystalis

This game is what you get after giving The Legend of Zelda a healthy dose of story and RPG mechanics without changing it into Zelda II. Sprinkle in meaningful exploration of the overworld, more differentiation between weapons, and establishing a more lived-in world.

Final Fantasy Adventure (Seiken Densetsu)

Take everything I said about Crystalis and go even harder with them. This is how you start a franchise: with one of the best games on a platform. It’s a game so well-made on the original Game Boy that it surpasses its own remake on the Game Boy Advance. But I’m distracting myself from the topic now.

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S(hakesphere)-Tier

So what scores high on both questions? If you were here yesterday, you already know.

You really should play 3D Dot Game Heroes sometime, Geoff. It’s the greatest love letter ever written to the original The Legend of Zelda, all the while adding so many new layers to the experience.

But you won’t have to wait long to see for yourself. 3D Dot Game Heroes will be one of the first games being streamed in 2023. It’s NEVER too early to tease a stream.