The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia

Dark Horse Books and Nintendo® bring you The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia, containing an unparalleled collection of historical information on The Legend of Zelda™ franchise. This handsome hardcover contains never-before-seen concept art, the full history of Hyrule, the official chronology of the games, and much more! Starting with an insightful introduction by the legendary producer and video-game designer of Donkey Kong™, Mario™, and The Legend of Zelda™, Shigeru Miyamoto, this book is crammed full of information about the storied history of Link’s adventures from the creators themselves! As a bonus, The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia includes an exclusive comic by the foremost creator of The Legend of Zelda manga—Akira Himekawa!

There aren’t many better ways to celebrate 25 years of one of the most iconic video games than a guidebook like Hyrule Historia.  This extensive book takes everything you know, and plenty you probably don’t, and wraps it all up in one concise, wonderful book.

With nearly 300 pages of content, we are given more artwork, history and never before seen goodies than you can imagine.  With four primary sections, the book starts off looking into Skyward Sword, the latest gem in the long running series.  Here we are provided a very detailed description of characters, settings and creatures that are seen in the latest game.

The next section is for many quite possibly the most exciting and interesting, in which an extremely thorough, chronological outline of every era of Zelda is laid out.  Fans will greatly appreciate the efforts that were made to organize the entire history of this legend for us step by step.

Section three is also quite a pleasure to flip through, as we get to see the artwork component of what gets put into the games.  Here we see everything from initial sketches, multiple test concepts, to pages that have never even been released publicly before.  This for me was a lot of fun as an artist seeing this side of the creative process in a video game.

Last but not least, our final section is actually an exclusive manga that was written to celebrate the game series’ anniversary.  This comic is based on Skyward Sword and actually includes elements taken from the game.  I’ve never read any of the manga before, but this just may have piqued my interest to do so.

It goes without saying that any fan of the Zelda series, die hards most especially, should definitely have this in their collection.  Those that aren’t all that familiar may not have a lot of desire to grab it with the specific focus.  Even so, this book is put together very well and might have a hidden treat for almost anyone.  The sheer amount of content that is put in this book is astonishing, and does justice to this classic game.

For more information on Hyrule Historia or other Dark Horse books, check out Dark Horse Comics.

Geek-o-Rama received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All giddiness, comments, enthusiasm and opinions are those of the individual reviewer.