The Legend of Zelda series is one of Nintendo's most popular franchises, yet there are still games in the series that have never left Japan. The best-selling games on the Switch include titles that have sold multiple millions of copies, and three of the top four games include Link as a playable character.
The Nintendo Switch has become host to a number of games in The Legend of Zelda series. The HD remakes of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker are notable exceptions, but they will almost certainly come to the system in the future. There are also rumors that Skyward Sword is coming to the Switch in the next few years. The Switch currently has Breath of the Wild, Cadence of Hyrule, Hyrule Warriors, the remake of Link's Awakening, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is on the way. The people who subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online also have access to The Legend of Zelda, Zelda 2, and A Link to the Past. Despite this abundance of The Legend of Zelda content on the system, there are a few games in the series that are missing from the Switch and have never been released on any platform other than the Super Famicom.
All of the mainline games in The Legend of Zelda series have made their way overseas, but there were a few that remained in Japan, as the add-on that played them was never released in the west. These are The Legend of Zelda games that never left Japan.
Zelda On The Satellaview
The Super Nintendo existed in the era when the Internet was still in its infancy. There was a Japan-exclusive peripheral that acted in a similar (but much more limited) manner to how modern systems can download games. This peripheral was called the Satellaview and it connected to the bottom of the Super Famicom. The Satellaview had rewritable cartridges which could house games that were downloaded via its satellite connection.
The Satellaview seems like it's the kind of system that would host shovelware, but it was well supported by companies like Nintendo and Square Enix (then called Squaresoft). These include updated versions of games that already existed on the Super Nintendo, like Harvest Moon. What makes the Satellaview so interesting is that it received several first-party Nintendo sequels that only appeared on the system, like BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2. The Satellaview never saw an international release, and its titles were never reworked to play on the Super Nintendo.
The Lost Zelda Games
Along with a downloadable port of A Link to the Past, there were two unique games from the franchise on the Satellaview: BS The Legend of Zelda and BS The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets. The strange thing about these games is that Link isn't the playable character. The Satellaview had two human player character avatars that were used to navigate its equivalent of a Home menu. The two avatars were a boy wearing a cap and a girl with red hair in a ponytail. It's these characters who have to step up and become the new hero of Hyrule. The games also included voice acting during certain scenes and an orchestral score, which was possible thanks to the SoundLink technology of the Satellaview. Unfortunately, these broadcasts are no longer available, and will likely remain so, unless they show up in a future Nintendo leak.
BS The Legend of Zelda is a remake of the original The Legend of Zelda game on the Super Nintendo. Along with the graphical overhaul, the game had timed events that occurred during the regular course of gameplay, including more enemies or items spawning. The world map was also made smaller and the dungeons were totally changed. In a way, this was The Legend of Zelda equivalent to Super Mario All-Stars on the same system, and it's a shame it never made its way overseas in some form.
The more notable Satellaview exclusive was Ancient Stone Tablets, which is a sequel to A Link to the Past. The game is set six years after the events of A Link to the Past, and Link has gone missing. It's up to the Satellaview kids to save Hyrule in his stead. Ancient Stone Tablets was set across four different episodes, each of which uses a piece of an updated A Link to the Past map. These episodes were originally broadcast at specific times and players only had an hour to complete the story. Like BS The Legend of Zelda, there were timed events and sound clips relating to in-game events, which the player could quickly react to. Ancient Stone Tablets doesn't take long to finish compared to most The Legend of Zelda games, but it's still a sequel to A Link to the Past and offers new adventures in its setting.
The Found Zelda Games
The broadcasts for the Satellaview Legend of Zelda games have long since ceased, and the story could easily have ended there, were it not for emulation. Gamers in Japan still had data for the games saved on the rewritable Satellaview cartridges, and these made their way online in the late '90s. It took a lot of work, but it's possible to play different versions of the Satellaview Legend of Zelda games through emulation. There are versions of BS The Legend of Zelda that use the avatar characters, as well as hacks that use Link, in order to make it closer to the original game. There are also several versions of Ancient Stone Tablets that implement the timer in different ways, in order to make the experience easier or harder based on the player's tastes.
The question that a lot of Zelda fans have asked themselves is whether the Satellaview games will ever be localized and released on modern systems? Nintendo has never been shy about selling its older titles, but to date, there has never been a Satellaview game that was released on another console. Even the Japan-exclusive sequel to Chrono Trigger has yet to receive an official localization. The canonical status of the games has been called into question, as they weren't counted in the official timeline in Hyrule Historia.
With that being said, it seems that Nintendo could be softening its stance on localizing and translating older games. The recent news that the NES version of Fire Emblem is coming to the Switch in English for the first time gives hope that Nintendo could finally be seeing a profit in localizing its older games. The Satellaview has games from several Nintendo franchises that could be updated for the Switch, and the BS Zelda games would be fine picks for a port. The library of Nintendo Switch Online would be a great place to house these forgotten The Legend of Zelda games.