Set in the land of Tolemac ("Camelot" spelled backwards), the game follows a non-traditional storyline, in which Link has been captured by the evil lord Ganon, and Zelda must collect the seven celestial signs in order to rescue him.

[3] Playing as Princess Zelda, the aim is to fight through the Seven Shrines of the Underworld to collect the celestial signs, and bring the land of Tolemac to an Age of Lightness.

[5] Ganon has kidnapped Link and stolen the seven celestial signs, creating an "Age of Darkness" in the kingdom of Tolemac (Camelot spelled backwards).

[6] Princess Zelda (Diane Burns, Annie Ward) is recruited by the court astrologer Gaspra (Mark Andrade) to collect the signs to defeat Ganon and save Link.

[7] Guided by the words of Shurmak, Zelda must first travel through the forest to the Shrine of Rock,[8] where she encounters Llort, a greedy minion of Ganon who protects the first celestial sign.

[9] Gaspra appears to congratulate Zelda and direct her to the Shrine of Illusion where she faces Pasquinade to earn the second celestial sign.

Link is revealed to be safe, holding hands with Zelda where the entrance to Ganon's lair once stood, the land now thriving with new growth.

[26] Philips insisted that the development studios utilize all aspects of the CD-i's capabilities including FMV,[27] high-resolution graphics, and CD-quality music.

[26] Viridis was tasked with observing A Link to the Past and basing Zelda's Adventure's gameplay on it, though was told to still show off the CD-i's capabilities, meaning that the game still used Redbook audio and animated cutscenes.

[28] The backgrounds for Zelda's Adventure were created from videos of scenery near Santa Monica Boulevard in West L.A., footage of Hawaii taken from a helicopter and the developers' vacation photos.

Additional programming for the inventory system and game progress tracking, dubbed "FRP engine", was done by Gavin James.

[38] Cowan called Zelda's Adventure "practically unplayable" due to the jerky frame rate, unresponsive controls, and long load times, summarizing his review with a warning to avoid the game at all costs.

[39] IGN writer Peer Schneider was excited that a new developer was chosen instead of the one behind Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil, though still felt it was not worth playing despite being an improvement over the other two games.