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The Legend of Zelda (1986)

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Created exclusively for the Bandai Satellaview (an addon for the Super Famicom), BS Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets is an episodic four-part reworking of Link to the Past. It was only available for three sets of broadcasts in 1997 and 1998, and during those times it would be downloaded and played alongside a pre-recorded track that included CD-quality music and a voiceover cast acting out the game's storyline. Once a broadcast ended, you were done; the game couldn't be played outside of those specific times.

For each of the four weekly episodes, players had fifty minutes to complete two dungeons (and defeat Ganon in the final week) and rack up as many rupees and Heart Pieces as they could to earn bonus points. Getting a high enough final score would allow the player to win prizes.

I'm playing a fan translated version on SNES9x that has been hacked to spoof the broadcast timeframe requirements. SNES9x has no means of playing the audio track that goes with it, so we're not getting the full experience; however, this does at least let us try out the game, and gives us a pretty good idea of how people in Japan experienced it back in the '90s. -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/spoonshiro