BS Zelda: Kodai no Sekiban (which translates as Ancient Stone Tablets) was like a "second quest" or "master quest" for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past that was released for the Bandai Satellaview attachment of the Super Famicom in Japan.

Using this addon, gamers could download the game from the satellite and save it onto either the BS-X base unit's flash-RAM (included) or a BS-X Special Broadcast Cassette (an additional purchase).

Gameplay

The game and its gameplay was mostly identical to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (hereafter abbreviated ALttP), which it is modified from. However many mechanics were tidied up. You could now change directions when running with the Pegasus Boots, and the Shovel (which in ALttP was merely a plot device) can now be used to dig for [[[Rupee (Legend of Zelda)|Rupees]].

Also the dungeon items were changed. Instead of three Pendants and seven Crystals the player now collected the titular Ancient Stone Tablets, of which there were only eight.

Bombable walls, which in ALttP were noticeably cracked, are in this game completely invisible! Only prodding with a sword will reveal a hollow sound. It was well worth the search, as each and every bombed-out area rewarded the player with Rupees, or bomb/arrow refills, and so on. Sometimes the wall concealed an "Upgrade Thief"; the thief who in ALttP knocked into the player and stole their stuff now appeared in a helper role; he would upgrade their maximum of one ammo type (either bombs or arrows, each thief only upgrades one type), but for a cost.

On the overworld, these thieves gave out large quantities of Rupees if you found them.

Presentation

The game was divided into four weekly episodes. These episodes were played live, at the same time as a videogame tips show was running on the satellite network (it probably contained ads and such to promote the games currently being played).

Character Selection

The player could configure their name and gender in the Bandai Satellaview game-selection interface. This then carried across to the game. This is the first (and possibly last) time a female character has been a playable protagonist in a Zelda game. The female character was the ALttP Link model with hair replacing Link's traditional green hat, while the male character was Link with a baseball cap.

Live Voice

All cutscenes were fully voice acted, live, much like a radio play. The players constantly heard the "narrator" (playing the part of the voice of Sahasrahla, a well-known character from ALttP) give various tips and hints during play. During the final minutes his statements become more demanding and forceful, as time is running out.

The non-mandatory sidequests were also fully voice-acted; however since the player could come across that event at any point rather than at a forced time, and there was no viable way for the console to convey proximity information to the voice acting center, it is to be assumed that the voice actor for that character kept saying their script over and over for the entirety of the designated time (they can each be saved from about 18:43 until 18:56), whether any player was actually on the same screen (and thus in "earshot") or not.

The Zelda no Video documentary shows several minutes of Live Voice-enhanced gameplay in action, both of the opening cutscenes and of a sidequest, with the voice actor for Princess Zelda calling for help desperately (and very realistically) for the entirety of the clip.

The Clock

The game was played in real-time. Each episode was one whole hour, and so the gameplay was intense and compressed, with cutscenes inbetween. However, the game in its entirety took one hour, that means the cutscenes counted as part of the gameplay time! There were optional sidequests available, each with their own mostly text-only cutscene (they weren't activated at any set time so couldn't feature live voice), the completion of which netted you a score bonus and some rupees (the currency in the Zelda world) but by deviating and reading through all the "thank you!" responses you shortened your game time even further. So there were many odds to weigh up.

Unlike other videogames where the clock stops when you open a menu or pause it, in this game the clock kept on ticking no matter what you did. So you couldn't leave it paused and go off to the bathroom or get a snack or something, you had to keep playing or you'd lose precious minutes. It is to be assumed that this made the game (in its original format) very addictive.

The clock affected gameplay enormously. At particular times on the clock various things might happen: health-restoring fairies appear, a Bombos or Ether magic attack destroys enemies onscreen, the player gets unlimited bombs or arrows or magic, and so forth. An enormous list of things can happen in each week, and the events and the times they happen at change between weeks.

Also, a thunderstorm breaks loose at a different time in each week, restricting exploration by defusing any bombs planted and increasing the difficulty by replacing any normal overworld (i.e., not in a dungeon) enemies with Zoras, fierce lizard-like creatures that home in on the player and cannot be stunned with the Boomerang like their ALttP forefathers could.

The Separate Weeks

In each week the player could only access a certain amount of the overworld. There were two dungeons per week, but the episode did not end when the player had completed all the objectives for that week, but only when the time expired. So in the meantime the player could complete sidequests and hunt for Rupees and Bottles and Pieces of Heart.

Once they acquired certain key dungeon items new areas of the overworld become available; for example once a player has the Magic Hammer they can knock previously unpassable pegs down into the ground, enabling the player to walk over them. Also large and heavy rocks lie in the hero's path, but when he acquires various types of Gloves he can lift some or all of these rocks and throw them our of the way.

The Rental Shops

ALttP veterans will notice many changes to the overworld, most notably the additions of many Rental Shops. At these a player can purchase a sword upgrade (unless they already have the L-4 sword) or a Shovel (unless they already have it), for 100 Rupees each. However these items are rented, as the title indicates, for only ten minutes, so the player must make the most of them in order to make their purchase worthwhile.

Since the Shovel can now dig up Rupees (it couldn't in ALttP), it is a very lucrative means of filling up any spare minutes before the gameplay hour ends.

See also

• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
• BS Zelda, its "cousin"
• List of Super Famicom games
• The BS Zelda Homepage, pretty much the only website with comprehensive information on this title.