ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal

ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal (2002)

by Funatics Development, Daedalic Entertainment, THQ
Genres:Role-playing (RPG), Adventure
Themes:Open world, Action, Fantasy
Game modes:Single player
Story:The legends speak of a long forgotten prophecy... of a shining hero and of perilous adventures... of sinister powers, strange worlds and swarms of fairies ... but they said nothing of a girl with a big heart instead of a big sword!
user avatarAdded by @Max_R
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Stories about this game (14)
What’s your memory of ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal?Share your favorite moments and see what others remember about this game.
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user avatar@Ekylauser avatar@Ekyla
January 31, 2025
It was such a nice experience to play this game back in the days. The world was super nice, and the gameplay was fun. There were many different fairies and it felt like a Pokemon game but with different mechanics (arena fights with a FPS view). The story was simple but it felt great to walk around and try to capture all these fairies. Definitely a nice game that I would be happy to find on GOG !
user avatar@TeaCharmeruser avatar@TeaCharmer
January 31, 2025
Quake 3 Arena meets Pokemon! I remember I first played the demo of this game from one of the demo disks from a local magazine. I didn't understand the mechanics behind it but was captivated by the world nonetheless. The idea of catching the fairies and then shooting each other in a magical arena was quite cool for little me. Recently I've managed to play it again, and it was a great time. All the managing of the fairies to suit the environment, uncovering many secrets of the game and just walking around this beautiful world, especially with enhanced graphics courtesy of dgVoodoo wrapper was an absolute pleasure. Would love to see it brought back to life, it deserves it. And with games like Palworld nowadays combining Pokemon and survival games, Zanzarah was truly ahead of it's time.
user avatar@rob.liefelduser avatar@rob.liefeld
February 06, 2025
Loved this one so. Has on odd little world probably based on Brian Froud and the like, and the gameplay of Pokemon crossed with Unreal tournament. Charming, addictive, absolutely unique!
user avatar@Microsd6user avatar@Microsd6
February 10, 2025
Watching the fairies evolve as I played this game with one of my best friends was really quite unforgettable. We had to go through so many different attempts to make it run, as the Steam version is a buggy and unstable mess on modern hardware, but it was really worth it to let her experience that nostalgia again. I hope she can play this game again without having to perform a magic ritual to soothe the machine spirit of this game, which is why I would love t osee it on GOG!
user avatar@MajorTom828user avatar@MajorTom828
February 15, 2025
10 Elements, 77 fairies. This was one of my favourite games back then and I would love to see it revived in some way. The 3D battle was ambitious and it had its problems, but was all in all fun. I feel, how my memory slips with this one.
user avatar@Enclave270user avatar@Enclave270
February 18, 2025
Where should I start? I remember playing this when I was 9 years old on someone else's computer—the story, the gameplay, the music, everything—so much nostalgia. I have it on Steam, but it doesn't work; it's always crashing, despite the fact that I did not ask for a refund and kept it on Steam. Hopefully, if it gets a GOG release, it will be able to run modern hardware.
user avatar@stanistouser avatar@stanisto
March 24, 2025
The music!!!! I still have a CD of this game. The game gave that fairytale vibe and was just purly visualy very pleasing. I would love for my kids to also ejnoy the same thing.
user avatar@Djaronuser avatar@Djaron
April 14, 2025
Take a sweet story in the alley of Alice in Wonderland, wrap it up into huge celtic vibe and awesome music, then for the gameplay you smash together pokemon and quake 3 arena, with cute faeries ! I don't care if the game did not get huge popularity, because for me it left a long lasting memory-print in my brain ! The hours i spent exploring this beautiful celtic world with its funny characters, searching for the perfect faeries (considering their affinity and their skills) to build my team and overcome the challenges on my way through the game... It really was a genuine childhood vibe adventure even though i already was a grown up adult by the time the game was released... At that time, we would have no "pokemon styled" game on PC and then ? You bring me cute faeries, controlling them in some small arenas to play them like FPS style, improving them with experience of each combat and tailoring their skill set, while enjoying a fantasy colored nice universe ? How could one not be thrilled ? This game is a kind of unique hybrid (of its own time of course; nowadays we get many cool indies with hybrid gameplays, thankfully) and for me, it had earned a rank of cult classic game ! Like another unique innovative game of roughly same time period, called Ghost Master (but this one is already on GOG, thankfully)
A fairy-based Pokemon-like, with action, instead of turn-based combat? SOLD! I played this on Steam and was thoroughly entertained and invested. It might be buried there, but I think a perfect home like GOG would help it find the broad appreciation a game like that, from the time of 2002, deserves.
user avatar@Bastasiauser avatar@Bastasia
April 05, 2025
Well actually im not such an Fairy-Type-Lover but this Game i've liked to play when i've build my second Computer so in 2003 / 2004. The Story, the Levels, the Gameplay, the Music had me kept for a few Hours on my PC. But sadly on modern Hardware it is almost impossible to play old CD-Games from your Collections. I really wish i could play that Game again on my modern System without searching the Internet to how to make old CD-Games running on modern CPUs.
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