The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition

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The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition
Developer(s)	Nintendo
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Released	November 7, 2003 November 14, 2003 November 17, 2003 March 19, 2004
Genre(s)	Compilation
Mode(s)	Single player
Ratings	ESRB: Everyone
Platform(s)	Nintendo GameCube
Media	GameCube optical disc

The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition is a compilation of many of Nintendo's Zelda video games from previous consoles for the Nintendo GameCube, along with a demo of its then-newest Zelda game, Wind Waker.

It contains the following Legend of Zelda games:

• The Legend of Zelda
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker 20-minute demo

The compilation excludes The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past because its Game Boy Advance port was still being sold. Nintendo points out that with both this disc and use of the Game Boy Player, every game in the main Zelda series can be played on the Nintendo GameCube. Since then, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass has been released for the DS, making this no longer true as DS games cannot be played on the GameCube.

This compilation was never sold commercially. It was only available:

• as a bundle with a GameCube (in North America and Europe).
• as a prize to members of Nintendo websites and clubs around the world, specifically by registering Nintendo games and hardware (in North America, Europe, Japan, Australia) or by subscribing to Nintendo Power (in North America).

Never the less the game can still be found in some game and online retailers even to this day.

[edit] Quality of the "ports"

These games are not actually ported in the traditional sense, but rather the (slightly altered) ROMs (Read-only memory) of the original games are run via emulators; this has been proven by the ROM dumping community, who have been able to extract authentic ROMs of all these games from the disc, and they can even be booted on their original consoles with a copier or flash-cart (depending on the console).

Because they are only emulated (rather than altered for the new console) there are some problems, most notably some of the music in Majora's Mask is said to be inaccurate. Many have also complained that Majora's Mask unexpectedly crashes, freezes occasionally, again, caused by the inaccuracies of Nintendo's emulator, and may even erase the save file or not save the file at all. There are similar faults in the Ocarina of Time emulated edition, including (reportedly) lack of lens flares when looking at the sun. But despite these concerns it was still received very well by fans of the series.

These flaws do not affect the games themselves however; when run under fanmade emulators the games run far more accurately than under Nintendo's; the fanmade emulators had had various bug and compatibility fixes made to them over several years, whereas Nintendo's emulator was obviously made very quickly.