Friday Media Review: The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts

Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda Art and Artifacts is a rich and vivid volume that includes many special works that will appeal to both casual and ardent fans of the series, while feeling luxurious and satisfying both in the hand and to the eyes.

A Long-Awaited Volume

The Legend of Zelda TM: Art & Artifacts, published by Dark Horse Books, is a gorgeous, visually- and tactilely-satisfying treat for any fan of the Legend of Zelda TM series. With over 2000 delicious illustrations spanning 427 pages, Dark Horse has outdone themselves in the printing quality of this volume.

A photo of the cover of The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts

Incredible Art and Satisfying Detail

This massive book is in full color, and contains an incredible variety of art and illustrations spanning 31 years of the franchise. Large and weighty with a gold-embossed cover, outside and in, this book satisfies. When one touches the inner pages, one can feel where the ink begins and ends, with different textures to different parts of the image. Images taken from game booklets for various games (Ocarina of Time, for example) are blown up larger for greater appreciation of the line and color.

A comparison of some of the many items present in one of the Legend of Zelda games

A detailed view of the items one can acquire and use in Skyward Sword.

Ardent fans and art enthusiasts alike will appreciate the levels of attention and detail provided on each page. The incredible variety of art includes concept art, game manual art, in-game art including pixel sprites and unused designs, with thousands of images in the book. A spiritual successor to Hyrule Historia, it manages to be almost entirely different.

A photo from The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts of gorgeous art from the opening of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

Beautiful illustrations from Wind Waker.

Reference and Concept Art

Art & Artifacts is a fantastic reference for anyone who wants to make costumes, arts, and crafts based on The Legend of Zelda TM universe. The book is easy to open anywhere and browse, or one can read through it in its entirety to get an overview of the entire history of the series. It’s clear that the art seen throughout the timeline of this series’ history and included in this volume shaped the feel of the games overall. For several illustrations artists were asked to create pieces without the game being finalized yet, blending their own creativity with elements that were fixed. This method creates a fluid and exciting hook to capture one’s imagination while offering the potential for the game to grow and change in unexpected ways.

A beautiful two-page spread of art inspired by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

The Master Sword is an iconic item that appears throughout the series.

For readers who not only enjoy art but are curious about the history of The Legend of Zelda TM series, there’s a gem at the end that isn’t art at all—an interview with four influential creators who designed both the overall feel of and made the specific art for the games. These four men are Yusuke Nakano, Yoshiki Haruhana, Satoru Takizawa, and Takumi Wada.

Yusuke Nakano's favorite piece of art from The Legend of Zelda

Yusuke Nakano’s bio shows him holding his favorite piece of art from the Zelda series.

A Strange Omission

There are few things to criticize about this work, which is exceedingly detailed and well-designed. An observation is that the fan-acknowledged “terrible” Zelda games that do not fit in canon (the Philips CD-i games) are absent. However, these games wouldn’t belong here anyway, since this is a celebration of the best and most iconic of The Legend of Zelda TM art and stories. The only real disappointment was when the sole woman whose work was mentioned in the interview wasn’t named:

Interviewer: “So in the opening of Phantom Hourglass there is a picture play [page 86]. Who worked on that?”
Nakano: “A woman on my staff did it.”

This is stilted information compared to the direct attributions and clear crediting of other artists who were known to be involved in the art of Zelda! Hopefully in future editions the editor will see fit to add a footnote giving credit to this talented artist whose work prompted two questions from the interviewer.

This uncredited artist’s work is remarkable.

Final Thoughts

Overall, The Legend of Zelda TM: Art & Artifacts is a wonderful addition to any library. If you have enjoyed one game or all, are new to the series with Breath of the Wild, or are a diehard fan since the first game came out on the NES, you will enjoy this gorgeous journey through The Legend of ZeldaTM‘s history and feel joyful anticipation for games yet to come.

Breath of the Wild unfoldable page spread. If you want to see what it looks like, you can purchase Art & Artifacts!