In yet another example of why it's not the best idea to mess around with Nintendo and the intellectual property that pertains to it, a video game entitled Final Sword has been removed from Japan's Nintendo Switch eShop after the discovery that it used a soundtrack from The Legend of Zelda.
Final Sword is a game that is described as "the original RPG" by its publisher while allowing potential players to take advantage of "breathtaking battles" in an open-world setting. In reality, the game is a port of a mobile version that is available at a lower price ($7.49) as opposed to the Nintendo Switch version ($17.70). However, what makes the game truly stand out is that it uses music that many players may have heard a few times in the past, especially if they played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
If the soundtrack in the video footage sounds familiar, that is because it is Zelda's Lullaby. To be even more specific, the same soundtrack plays when Link meets Princess Zelda in Hyrule Castle in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and when Link obtains the Ocarina of Time in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and experiences a flashback with Princess Zelda. As such, when Nintendo caught wind of the situation, it instructed for the game to be removed from the eShop.
Although it's not exactly clear how Final Sword was able to slip past Nintendo and get the approval to appear on the eShop, one possible theory is that it was approved as part of a batch. Since multiple games are being added to the eShop on a weekly basis, some of the games don't go through a detailed and precise process and simply get the green light for the sake of time. As one can see this time around tough, approving a game that blatantly used assets from The Legend of Zelda was not a good idea.
For now, Final Sword seems to be available in the US eShop (update: it has since been removed), but given the situation in Japan, it's fair to say that the game will also be removed in the future.
Source: Nintendo Life