The Zelda Guides Gallery
Every licensed Zelda guidebook, two countries, one shelf.
The Library's census counts 146 licensed guidebooks for The Legend of Zelda — 56 published in the West, 76 in Japan, and 14 for the spin-off games — plus 16 companion art and reference volumes and 2 pack-in books: 164 objects in all, each edition treated as its own book. 75 of them stand on this shelf with covers verified against the book itself — publisher, edition and printing read off the cover, never off a filename — and 2 are printed double-sided, both faces shown on their pages. The other 89 are fully catalogued and join the shelf one by one as their cover scans verify; nothing here wears a stand-in cover, and no cover is borrowed, composited, or faked. The Japanese shelves are the thin ones for now — Japanese guide covers are the hobby's blind spot, and the hunt for them runs on a dated recheck list.
English — Nintendo Power & the Prima years
1987–2004 · the American guide trade grows up with the series · 23 of 27 covers verified
United States · Nintendo of America · 1992
Katsuya Terada art throughout, and a fold-out Sacred Realm page — the American guide as art object.
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United States · Nintendo of America · 1993
Terada art again for the first handheld Zelda — the guide Nintendo Power made for Koholint.
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United States · Prima · 1999
Prima, not Nintendo Power, guided the DX colour remake in America — with a pull-out colour map/poster. Nintendo Power never made a DX guide.
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United States · Nintendo Power · 1998
The American Ocarina guide. Its cover prints the same painting as the Japanese Wonder Life book — cut in tighter, where Japan prints the full storm with Ganondorf.
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United States · Prima · 1998
One of three rival American guides for Ocarina of Time in 1998. Some copies carry a song card; an Electronics Boutique exclusive variant cover exists on the same ISBN.
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United States · BradyGames · 1998
BradyGames entry in the three-way American race for Ocarina of Time.
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United States · Versus Books · 1998
Versus Books Volume 6, with two posters — the fourth American Ocarina book, and the one collectors argue about most.
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United States · Nintendo Power · 2000
Nintendo Power American guide, poster included per listings. Where Japan crops the mask to one huge eye, the American covers show the whole mask.
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United States · Prima · 2000
Prima American guide for the three-day game.
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United States · BradyGames · 2000
BradyGames entry, free poster included. Records conflict on the page count (176 vs 192) — the census prints both rather than picking one.
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United States · Versus Books · 2000
Versus Books Perfect Guide with poster.
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United States · Nintendo Power · 2001
One book, both Oracle games — the American pattern for the Capcom pair.
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United States · Prima · 2001
Prima combined volume; page counts conflict across records (128 vs 144).
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United States · BradyGames · 2001
The full-size combined BradyGames volume. Printed double-sided — flip it on its page.
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United States · Versus Books · 2001
A flip-book with two covers — one per game — plus poster and map. Printed double-sided — flip it on its page.
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United States · Nintendo Power · 2002
Nintendo Power guide for the GBA port and its multiplayer half.
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United States · Prima · 2002
Prima rival volume for the same cartridge.
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United States · Nintendo Power · 2003
Nintendo Power American guide for the cel-shaded voyage.
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United States · Prima · 2003
Poster included, plus bonus Ocarina of Time coverage in the back.
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United States · BradyGames · 2003
Signature Series with a giant sea-chart poster and bonus Ocarina coverage.
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United Kingdom (European English) · Piggyback · 2003
Piggyback's first English Zelda book — a European edition, fourteen years before the same house took over the flagship line with Breath of the Wild.
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United States · Nintendo Power · 2004
Walkthroughs for the four games on the GameCube Collector's Edition disc, in one book.
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United States · Nintendo Power · 2004
The game's ONLY English guide — and the mirror image of the usual pattern: Japan, searched hard, appears to have gotten none.
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English — premieres, collector hardcovers & Piggyback
2005–2023 · Prima takes over, then the flagships go to Piggyback · 29 of 29 covers verified
United States · Nintendo Power · 2005
The game's ONLY English guide. No Prima Minish Cap exists — listings claiming one are errors.
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United States · Nintendo Power · 2006
Nintendo Power's last Zelda guide — the line that began in 1987 ends with Twilight Princess. Covers both the Wii and GameCube versions; poster included.
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United States · Prima · 2006
The GameCube Premiere Edition — a separate book from the Wii version, because the two games mirror each other. Foldout poster and overworld map.
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United States · Prima · 2006
The Wii Premiere Edition. Its maps are the mirrored world — a genuinely different book from the GameCube edition, not a reprint.
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United States · Prima · 2006
Hardcover with gilt pages and a cloth overworld map — the Collector's tier arrives in the English line.
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United States · Prima · 2007
The revised hardcover, sixteen pages longer, cloth map retained.
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United States · Prima · 2007
Foldout sea-map poster inside.
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United States · Prima · 2007
Hardcover with a 16-page story booklet and a bookmark.
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United States · Prima · 2009
Prima Premiere for the train years.
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United States · Prima · 2009
The Collector's hardcover twin.
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United States · Prima · 2011
Poster included. No new English guide was made for the HD remaster a decade later — this pair remains the only English coverage.
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United States · Prima · 2011
Hardcover with a cloth map of the Surface.
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United States · Prima · 2013
A treasure-chest case holding six Collector's hardcovers, an etched bookmark and an Aonuma-signed certificate. The Ocarina of Time 3D hardcover exists ONLY inside this set; its Skyward Sword volume is revised to ~384 pages.
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United States · Prima · 2011
Poster included. Standalone, this guide is paperback only — the hardcover lives in the 2013 box set.
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United States · Prima · 2013
The paperback tier of the HD pair.
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United States · Prima · 2013
Hardcover, gilt pages, and a cloth map of the Great Sea.
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United States · Prima · 2013
This ISBN is widely MIS-SOLD as the Collector's Edition — check the book, not the listing.
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United States · Prima · 2013
Hardcover, gilt, with a framed gold-foil Hyrule Crest lithograph.
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United States · Prima · 2015
Its cover art is the painting Shogakukan reused for the Japanese Majora's Mask 3D guide (J64) — the one known exact English↔Japanese cover match in the whole guide corpus.
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United States · Prima · 2015
Hardcover, gold-foil, with reusable character clings.
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United States · Prima · 2016
The paperback tier of the HD pair.
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United States · Prima · 2016
Hardcover with an 18″×19″ cloth overworld map.
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United States · Piggyback · 2017
Piggyback takes the flagship line. US and EU printings carry different ISBNs and are routinely cross-listed by booksellers — verify the number on the book.
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United States · Piggyback · 2017
Hardcover with an XL map poster and a 16-page art section.
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United States · Piggyback · 2017
The oversize 11″×15″ hardcover with a 30-years retrospective and two ribbon bookmarks.
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United States · Piggyback · 2018
Adds both DLC packs, a map poster and a DLC concept-art gallery. There is NO Japanese revised edition — the Expanded Edition is Piggyback-only.
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United States · Nintendo of America · 2017
A 100-page pack-in with the Explorer's Edition and Starter Pack bundles — Great Plateau only, NOT a full guide. The '44 pages' figure online is Nintendo's free PDF excerpt, not the printed book.
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United States · Piggyback · 2023
The standard tier of the TotK pair — 496 pages for the biggest Hyrule yet.
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United States · Piggyback · 2023
The hardcover twin. The official ISBN ends -002; a spurious -149 number circulates and is not the book.
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Japan — Super Famicom, Game Boy & Nintendo 64
1992–2001 · Wonder Life Special and its rivals · 2 of 22 covers verified
Japan · Futabasha (GB Series 13) · 1993
Futabasha's Game Boy Series entry for the island.
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Japan · Shogakukan (Wonder Life Special) · 1998
The Japanese official guidebook. Its cover prints the full painting — Ganondorf in the storm — that the American Nintendo Power cover crops in.
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Japan — GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Wii & DS
2003–2011 · four-publisher races on a single day · 5 of 26 covers verified
Japan · Shogakukan · 2003
Shogakukan's book for the GBA double bill.
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Japan · Nintendo DREAM · 2007
Four licensed Japanese guides raced Twilight Princess in early 2007. Nintendo never released the GameCube version in Japan, so all four books cover a Wii-only release there.
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Japan · MediaWorks / Dengeki (Kadokawa) · 2007
Dengeki's Complete Guide.
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Japan · Enterbrain · 2007
Enterbrain's Perfect Guide.
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Japan · Shogakukan (Wonder Life Special) · 2007
The Wonder Life book closes the four-way race.
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Japan — 3DS, Wii U & Switch
2011–2024 · the Kadokawa era · 1 of 18 covers verified
Spin-off guides
Hyrule Warriors, Tri Force Heroes and Tingle — the shelf the site had never counted · 5 of 14 covers verified
United States · Prima · 2014
Prima guided the first Warriors spin-off in America. Page counts conflict across records (336 vs 288/272) — the census prints the conflict rather than hiding it.
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United States · Prima · 2016
Hyrule Warriors Legends is the only Zelda spin-off with FOUR licensed guides across two languages — this is the big American hardcover.
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United States · Prima · 2015
Prima published TWO English editions of Tri Force Heroes — the site knew the Japanese Nintendo DREAM book (J69) but neither of these.
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United States · Prima · 2015
The hardcover twin — with a records oddity: its page count prints LOWER than the Standard's in some sources (240 vs 256), an inversion the census logs rather than resolves.
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Japan · Enterbrain (mook) · 2009
A guide mook with two music CDs and map/notebook supplements bundled — print as a media package, for a game Japan never exported.
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Adjacent print — the Dark Horse line & its Japanese originals
Reference books, not guides: the sibling shelf · 10 of 16 covers verified
United States · Dark Horse · 2013
The book that opened the Dark Horse reference line — chronicle, chronology and concept art for the whole series.
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Japan · Shogakukan · 2011
The Japanese original predates the English edition by two years. A 40th-anniversary reprint was announced in 2026.
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United States · Dark Horse · 2017
Note the singular: "Art & Artifacts", whatever the listings say.
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Japan · Tokuma Shoten / Nintendo DREAM · 2016
The Japanese counterpart of Art & Artifacts — volume 1 of the 30th Anniversary Book line.
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United States · Dark Horse · 2018
The third volume of the "Goddess Collection" — a marketing name for the trilogy, not a box set; no trilogy ISBN exists.
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Japan · Tokuma Shoten / Ambit · 2017
The Japanese original of the Encyclopedia — and note the direction of travel reversed: the ENGLISH edition is the expanded one (+8 pages).
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United States · Dark Horse · 2018
The Breath of the Wild making-of, English edition.
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Japan · Tokuma Shoten · 2017
The Japanese original of Creating a Champion, a year earlier.
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Japan · Tokuma Shoten / Ambit · 2024
The Japanese Master Works for Tears of the Kingdom — the book the forthcoming English volume is NOT named after (see A15).
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United States · Dark Horse · 2027
FORTHCOMING — announced March 31, 2026 and delayed from October 2026 to March 30, 2027. The title is "Secrets of the Zonai", NOT "Master Works", whatever retailer pages say.
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The census behind this gallery was built book by book — ISBNs reconciled across publisher, retailer and library records, editions separated where the hobby usually lumps them (there are five English Twilight Princess guidebooks, not one) — and it stays open: the 89 books not yet on the shelf are on a dated recheck list (2026-12-04), and each joins this page the week its cover verifies. Two shelves — Japan — the Famicom era and Pack-in print — hold 12 catalogued books between them and are waiting on their first verified cover scans, so they do not appear above yet. The companion censuses of the series' games, manga and cards live elsewhere in the Zelda section.
