​

The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets is a little heard of entry to the Zelda series. It was released back in the days for the Super Famicom Satellaview in Japan. The Satellaview was an add-on peripheral to the Famicom working as a satellite modem and allowed players to download and play games over a satellite connection! (Click on the photo below to see how sexy the Super Famicom looked with it )

​

Due to this unique method of playing the game, emulating it was no easy task; the game could only be played while it was being broadcast via satellite. Players could only access certain parts of the overworld and specific dungeons depending on what week the title was being broadcasted. The game was played over four weeks and broadcasted for one hour. Progress would be saved to a special cassette tape to transfer over to the next week.

We're now in the 21st century, things have changed and you can now download the game over here. While you're there, you might notice that another game, BS Zeruda no Densetsu, is also available which was a reimagining of the original Legend of Zelda for the Super Famicom.

So hurry up retro fans, Nintendo fans, collectors, Zelda fans and (/or?) tempers before this gets the traditional C&D treatment from Nintendo!

SOURCE

 

[ceelo]

I always knew this existed but never really sat down and looked into it. So many patches to put into the base game... Should just put all thats needed into it, and you know.... distribute it.

 

[Chris_Highwind]

I was thinking that this was old news myself, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the also transcribed and translated the audio dialogue too. Now if only the Official roms had had as much done to it as the Master Quest roms

 

[purechaos996]

This site and project have been around for ages, just some minor changes. Kinda sucks that it'll probably get C&D'd now from all the attention.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I'll say this once again, Nintendo can't C&D this project, nor any other related to unreleased stuff.
This project is basically a big and extensive romhack, just look at the pages and all of the patches.
Nintendo doesn't go after romhacks, only made from scratch games like Remakes in new engines (AM2R/Pokemon Uranium/SM64 Remake, etc).
If they did so they would have shut down the Mother 3 translation a long time ago too.

Even in the worst case scenario, what are they gonna C&D about?
The project is more than done at this point, there's nothing to "Cease" nor "Desist" about it. xD

 

[ned]

Just saying, abandonware is a myth. Just because it's not available for purchase doesn't make it legal to distribute.

You know companies have been known to use pirated rom dumps because their either too lazy or don't have the hardware to dump said
game for various emulated / compilation releases, not to mention various bad game breaking dumps from original tapes / carts that had to re-released when they where available for purchase, which the companies never kept track of.
Codemasters even released some without using their own emulator, instead opting to bundle them with a well known open source one instead.

 

[tan-tan]

i don't understand, can you explain with more detail this part?

the game could only be played while it was being broadcasted (i guess it was unidirectional data broadcasted like a radio station?)


does this mean you could only play for that hour?
i guess nintendo would release a game every offten like a tv show it had it's schedule, after one hour other game would be broadcasted and you could play it for that hour?

how does it actually work? you have to wait some minutes to download the data, which will be saved on ram, or is the game (rom part) actually saved in the cartridge?

Yes, you could only play during that hour time slot where the game was broadcast. A clock was shown on screen during gameplay, and the game would end when the broadcast did. As for the game download, the games are downloaded into the Satellaview's 256k onboard flash memory. Some downloaded games could be saved from there onto memory packs for extra storage (the little slotted cartridge on the BSX cart) and played any time, but SoundLink games like Zelda could not be saved, since they utilized music, full voice and other content that was broadcast live. Unfortunately there are at least several other Soundlink games that have been completely lost to time because of this. They only broadcasted BS games in a small window of time between 4pm and 7pm, since ST GIGA used the rest for other kinds of programming.

 

[Normmatt]

Since when is posting links to roms ok here?

This is copyrighted material.... some on mods....

 

[leon315]

ehi guys, i've got all 4 roms, but how can i play them?

 

[Maximilious]

I'll say this once again, Nintendo can't C&D this project, nor any other related to unreleased stuff.

And I'll say this again - They re-used assets that belong to Nintendo (sprites are a great example of this). If they wished, they could C&D at any time. Just because they haven't yet doesn't mean they won't at some point.

 

[MaskedMarvel]

I'm residing on land that my ancestors stole from and killed its peaceful, ethical inhabitants (North Amierca). I'm typing on a computer that was built by Chinese slave labour. There are whales and other sea creatures dying from ingesting plastic that we keep creating endlessly. If you care about the legality of roms or give a shit if Nintendo gets 5$ for a 20 year old game then I say, as politely as I can.. take your head out of your ass.


Also hasn't this game been available as a Rom for quite a while now?

 

[Maximilious]

I'm not arguing legality, I'm just stating that Nintendo could C&D if they wanted. CoolROMS is another great example. But I do agree there are better things to worry about in the world, so I'll just leave it at that.

 

[chango]

I think what might be reasonable to hope for though is an official localization of Mother 3 via the VC.

I've always wondered why people give a shit at all about Nintendo doing an official release of Mother 3 for them to buy. People talk like Mother 3 was never translated, or talk as if the translation that exists is some janky garbage. Mother 3's unofficial English translation is highly praised by media outlets as one of the best translations/fan projects ever made. It took years of work and was smiled upon by Nintendo, who were aware of the translation project and never attempted to stop it or send any C&D threat. Its been available for 8 years. You can play this ROM on your 3DS *right now*.

 

[bradzx]

ehi guys, i've got all 4 roms, but how can i play them?

Do you have emulator?

 

[leon315]

Do you have emulator?

Yes, i use Retroarch on my modded ps3, which supports snes games

 

[GuyInDogSuit]

Ah yes, thank you for this. Finally!

 

[duffmmann]

I've always wondered why people give a shit at all about Nintendo doing an official release of Mother 3 for them to buy. People talk like Mother 3 was never translated, or talk as if the translation that exists is some janky garbage. Mother 3's unofficial English translation is highly praised by media outlets as one of the best translations/fan projects ever made. It took years of work and was smiled upon by Nintendo, who were aware of the translation project and never attempted to stop it or send any C&D threat. Its been available for 8 years. You can play this ROM on your 3DS *right now*.

Hey, I'm not waiting on baited breath for an official translation of Mother 3, the unofficial version is more than sufficient, its wonderful even. I'm just talking realistically, if there were to be another old game that Nintendo never released outside of Japan that they'd go back and release an official translation of, I think realistically, Mother 3 would be the next title. Not saying that's what I want next or that I'm dying for such a thing from Nintendo, I just think its the most reasonable thing to expect them to go back and localize, certainly not something like the Ancient Stone Tablets, as cool as that would be.

 

[tbb043]

I'm residing on land that my ancestors stole from and killed its peaceful, ethical inhabitants (North Amierca). I'm typing on a computer that was built by Chinese slave labour. There are whales and other sea creatures dying from ingesting plastic that we keep creating endlessly. If you care about the legality of roms or give a shit if Nintendo gets 5$ for a 20 year old game then I say, as politely as I can.. take your head out of your ass.

You mean the "peaceful" Indian tribes that would go to war against each other long before Europeans showed up?

 

[bradzx]

Yes, i use Retroarch on my modded ps3, which supports snes games

Then you will be fine. When you pass Week 1, change your save data to rename Week 2.

 

[BORTZ]

I've played through this game in it's entirety before. It's been available for a while. But now that I think about it, it was kind of a bitch to set up.
I do recommend it to fans of ALttP.

Damn thats me then isnt it? I wish there was an easy way like a CIA to install it. Other than that there isnt really a change im going to go through the trouble.

 

[MaskedMarvel]

You mean the "peaceful" Indian tribes that would go to war against each other long before Europeans showed up?

More so than everyone else at the time? Even if that was the case, nothing else that I said at all hinges on natives being peaceful to each other. Just trying to point out that there is often a difference between legal/illegal and ethical/unethical.