9 Most Perfect Single-Player Zelda Clones Nobody Plays, Ranked

Every Zelda dungeon runs on the same promise: find a tool, open a door, find a better tool. A whole genre of games borrows that loop without Hyrule’s precise theme music, and every few years one of them, like Tunic or Death’s Door, breaks out and lands on everyone’s recommendation list. This list is for the games that usually don’t make the cut.

By the genre’s usual definition, a Zelda-like is an action-adventure game with mandatory puzzle solving, progression gated by new abilities or items, and dungeons that stand apart from the overworld. These nine games hit at least three of those criteria — usually with a bit of an oddball twist. Grab your sword (or yoyo, or large key), it’s time for an adventure!

9 Ocean’s Heart (2021)

Zelda, but: A girl searches a world of islands for her missing father.

At one point, Tilia’s biggest problem was dealing with dirty dishes. Along with her father and sister, Tilia runs the family tavern in Limestone, a village on a small island — until disaster strikes. Pirates raid the island and kidnap her best friend…and then her father, in hot pursuit of the pirates, vanishes outright. Tilia grabs a sword and starts following their trail.

Ocean’s Heart features Zelda-like progression: You gain weapons and tools by exploring, and those tools unlock further environmental exploration, including a set of ancient, foreboding dungeons. The whimsical wit is there, too: The first town Tilia visits is guarded by the Barbell Brutes, a cartel of lifting-obsessed guards. There’s even a whole side quest centered on a dog’s birthday. Consider this your invite to take the scenic route to help reunite Tilia with her dad.

8 The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales (2026)

Zelda, but: It’s from the Octopath Traveler team, and the dungeons span four eras.

Humanity’s last refuge is the walled Kingdom of Huther. Everything outside belongs to the beastmen. So when ruins pop up beyond the wall, King Hichard does what any smart ruler would do: He sends someone else to check it out. That someone is Elliot, a renowned yet slightly goofy adventurer who travels with Faie, a fairy only he can see. In the ruins, Elliot finds a doorway through which he can access different chapters of Huther’s history. The Zelda influence here is crystal clear: Elliot’s got a sword, bombs, bow, and a boomerang to lean on as he travels through an overworld and delves through dungeons. Much as is the case in Ocarina of Time or A Link to the Past, you’ll explore basically-the-same-map throughout all four time periods, so you’re going to get to know your neighborhood quite well.

7 Master Key (2024)

Zelda, but: In a Game Boy palette of your choosing.

This game hands you a rusty key big enough to swing like a sword and nearly no text instructions to work with. You play as a fox who falls into a cave and finds the key. Your hints as to game progression arrive as little pictures to decode. This throwback adventure game focuses on finding new items and using them to discover secrets around the world. It’s got a black-and-white retro look, with the ability to swap in other two-color schemes as you like. Explore enough, here, and you may even find a sword in a stone that drains your health as you attempt to pull it free…

6 Prodigal (2020)

Zelda, but: You also date the townsfolk.

Ten years after stealing from his parents and sailing south, Oran gets a note from his grandfather: Tragically, both of his parents are dead. Oran returns to his hometown, but not everyone there is thrilled to see him. This Game Boy Color-style adventure sends Oran into dungeons that each hand him a new tool. Those new items open paths to areas he couldn’t reach before — which should sound extremely familiar to anyone who’s booted up a Zelda game. Between dungeons, Oran can earn the trust of various townsfolk by giving them gifts and helping with their problems. Some of these people may even be love interests, so, if you’ve ever wondered what a retro Zelda game crossed with a dating sim would feel like — this is a good place to get started.

5 Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo (2025)

Zelda, but: Your weapon is a yoyo, and your enemies are crime bosses.

Most Zelda-likes give you a sword. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo gives you a yoyo. Pippit, a young bat, only wants to focus on yoyo tournaments. He’s on his way to ask his aunt, Madame Pipistrello, for money, when rival crime bosses split her soul among four giant batteries. The fifth piece lands in his yoyo, which now talks in her voice. From there on out, the structure gets even more Zelda-like: Each of the city’s four districts has its own boss, reminiscent of Zelda’s dungeon challenges, and each one hands you a new yoyo power. Buying upgrades puts you into debt, so a boss fight gets riskier the more you’ve spent. (Yoko Shimomura, who composed music for Street Fighter 2 and several Kingdom Hearts games, wrote some of the soundtrack, if you needed another reason.)

4 Warden: Melody of the Undergrowth (2016)

Zelda, but: It’s a 3D collect-a-thon with ‘90s flair.

In this Zelda-like, you play as Tavian, who is swept away from your father by a river. By the time you climb out, a strange deity has made you a warden of the woods. Your new job is to find a lost god. Fortunately, you’re joined by two other wardens (who you also control). Each of your wardens brings a different ability to dungeons built, conveniently, around their talents — much as a Zelda dungeon might be built around one recently-collected tool. The three-person studio Cardboard Keep modeled the game after N64-era adventures, including hand-painted scenes and a color palette reminiscent of Zelda games like Wind Waker. One pro tip: Weapons in this game snap quickly, so, even though you can carry three at a time, it’s worth it to stop and stockpile more from fallen enemies.

3 Mages of Mystralia (2017)

Zelda, but: You design your own spells.

Magic is illegal in Mystralia. A mad mage-king once destroyed whole towns in his paranoia, so current-day townsfolk have taken precautions to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Zia, a young woman from Greyleaf Hamlet, learns this the hard way when a burst of fire magic burns her home down and gets her exiled. She heads to Haven, the secret hideout of the last mages, and meets a talking spellbook who has opinions. As she embarks on an adventure to explore dungeons, fight enemies, and collect the hearts, currency, and mana they drop, she learns to wield forbidden magic — starting with four base spells and a growing set of runes. Attach a movement rune to a basic fire spell and you get a fireball; put it on your shield, and it becomes a dash. Magic may be illegal, but it’s also intriguingly customizable.

2 Kharon’s Crypt – Even Death May Die (2022)

Zelda, but: You’re a dead ferryman who can possess every enemy.

Death has been sealed away in a crypt by a deranged king who wants to live forever. (Attempting to trap Death is a bold plan, but if it works, more props to you.) Kharon, a being thought to be Death itself, escapes from this situation by navigating through one continuous mega-dungeon. The combat will feel very familiar to anyone who has played a top-down Zelda. Kharon can take over any enemy he meets, flying around as a bat, fighting from inside a skeleton, or hiding with a mimic’s abilities. Those bodies unlock puzzles he can’t solve alone. This is a game about death and imprisonment, so it’s thematically heavier than Zelda usually gets, and the bosses don’t hold back. And, as the subtitle promises, even death may die. Kharon’s counting on it.

1 Minit (2018)

Zelda, but: You die every 60 seconds.

One minute, then you die. That’s the curse on the sword you pick up on a beach in Minit, where you play an unnamed duck-like creature who lives with a dog on an island crawling with other duck-like creatures. Even though you have precious few seconds to get anything done, you wake up at the last place you visited, and everything you’ve collected comes with you, so you do have time to make progress. It’s kind of like Majora’s Mask distilled down into one minute…with item-gated, top-down exploration…and a boss waiting for you at the sword factory nearby. Sixty seconds doesn’t sound like much. But, as you’ll find, it’s more than enough time to get hooked.