Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

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Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, known in Japan as ゼルダの伝説パート2 リンクの冒険 [Zeruda no Densetsu, Pato Tsu: Rinku no Boken], "Legend of Zelda, Part 2: Link's Adventure" is an action adventure role-playing game developed and published by Nintendo and released on the Famicom Disk System on 1987-01-14, then ported to NES for release in other countries. It is the second game in the Zelda series.

In the game's story, even though Ganon has been defeated, his evil monsters live on, and are seeking out Link to mix his blood with Ganon's ashes in order to resurrect him. Also, another Princess Zelda has been cursed into a deep sleep from which she cannot awake. Link must seek the third Triforce, the Triforce of Courage to wake the princess which means defeating the guardians of six palaces and place a crystal in a shrine in each one, then, defeating the final guardian to prove himself worthy.

Being such a huge fan of the original game, I rented this game from a movie rental place around 1990. My brother, who had already played the game at a friend's house, warned me saying the game was terrible, but I refused to believe him. I had seen the game described in Nintendo Power and The Official Nintendo Player's Guide, and it looked so cool. Sadly, my brother was right, and even with a fairly descriptive walk-through of the first part of the game, I didn't get very far before having to return the game. After toying with the game for many years, I began to realize that it was actually a decent game for the NES era, it just got a bad wrap from being compared to the original masterpiece. So, I tried play the game seriously, and made it all the way to the final palace, before eventually becoming sick of the game getting so difficult, and I never finished it.

I would love for Nintendo to remake this game like how they remade Metroid with Metroid: Zero Mission. If it was polished with a graphics upgrade, new translation, bug fixes, and an internal mapping system, I would probably give it another try.

Status

I own the original gold cart. I have not beaten the game, but I have reached the Great Palace.

Review

  • Overall: 4/10
  • Best Version: NES

Good

  • Despite what people say, I actually enjoy the side-view platform elements of the game. I like the jumping, ducking, sword swinging, and shield use of combat.
  • Link looks pretty great in his new larger sprite.
  • Adding experience and levels was a nice addition. By allowing weaker players the opportunity to grind to become more powerful, the designers made the game more accessible.
  • It's nice to see towns throughout Hyrule. The original was almost completely devoid of citizens, so it just felt more like a monster land than a kingdom.
  • Stalfos, Molblin, Goriya, Octoroks, etc. were all well-converted to their side-view look.
  • The boss guardians are pretty impressive.
  • I like how you are taught new forms of attack like the up-thrust and down-thrust.
  • I appreciate the addition of magic and spell points in the game.
  • The game's music is quite nice and hummable.
  • I like how the overworld has many hidden areas with simple rewards.

Bad

  • The background story is a bit of a mess.
  • The overworld graphics are awfully blocky.
  • Lives and 1-ups don't fit the game's theme, and aren't even a good mechanic in an action RPG.
  • I don't understand why a lot of the enemies which have obvious analogues to the original game were renamed. The bat Vire and Keese are now called Acheman and Ache, the slimes Zol and Gel are renamed Bit and Bot, Darknuts are called Iron Knuckles, Moldorms are called Geldarm, etc.
  • I don't like the decrease in items, and how several of the new ones are more of a lock-and-key form rather than being useful: Child, Trophy, Hammer, Raft, Boots, Cross, etc.
  • The dialogue translation has several problems which cause the story to be fairly difficult to follow at times. "I am error," for example.
  • The game has a fair amount of glitches, most obvious the Fairy spell, that should have been resolved before the game was released.
  • The P-Bags are pretty fourth-wall-breaking. I'm okay with treasure counting as experience, but this form is a bit childish.
  • It's a minor issue, but I don't like how palaces collapse after you finish them. I prefer being allowed to return like in the first game.
  • They should have recorded a new laugh for Ganon rather than recycling the Punch-Out!! laugh.

Ugly

  • I find the game to be too difficult, especially in later palaces. This makes it inaccessible to its target audience.
  • I don't approve of death by falling in games where players have lots of hit points, especially if the character is difficult to control when taking hits (think Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden). I'm fine with pits in Mario games because you never really get that powerful, and levels are fairly short, but it's such a let-down for your fully equipped character with tons of hit points to get killed by a weak monster just because of a single late reaction.
  • The long areas where Link is expected to simply dodge enemy fire are really annoying and unrewarding. The bridges with bubbles are annoying, but the path to the Great Palace where Gerus pelt you with rocks over and over again is just obnoxious.

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