I'm not surprised that it took a Digital Press post to get a decent reply to my original question.

Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil sound relatively decent, like other rarely positive reviews. Yes, I'm serious that I'd be willing to give them a try, assuming I ever find a cheap CD-i. Going by the HG101 article, it sounds like they had a lot of love and effort put into them. Considering only two other Zeldas had been released at the time of their development, I'd say both games are very impressive, even with their flaws.