2. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Link embarks on his quest to wake the comatose Princess Zelda.

Original Release: Jan. 14, 1987, Famicom Disc System. Version Reviewed: NES Classics, 1987. Platform Used: Nintendo 3DS.


THE PLOT:

As with the first game, the plot basically resides in the instruction manual...

It's been a year since Link saved Hyrule from the evil Ganon. The wise Impa shows Link the kingdom's greatest secret: Zelda, the original princess whose name has been passed down to all of Hyrule's princesses, still lives - slumbering in a magically sealed chamber as a result of a long-ago curse. Impa tells Link that he must wake the princess by placing six crystals within statues at the centers of palaces located throughout the kingdom.

Unfortunately, Link's task will not be easy. Ganon may be dead, but his followers remain. They are now hunting Link, plotting to thwart his quest and to use his blood to revive their fallen leader!

An early enemy encounter.  You'll spend a lot of time with these...

GAMEPLAY:

Zelda II is so regularly referred to as "the black sheep" of the Zelda series, it feels like a cliché to repeat it... but that doesn't make it any less true.

For the series' second entry, the guiding principle seemed to be to make it as different as possible from the original. While combat was a large part of The Legend of Zelda, here it's pretty much everything. When Link isn't simply traveling from place to place, he will be battling enemies, many of whom can only be damaged by jumping and slashing at roughly the same time... or by using a spell to jump over the enemy's head and thrust downward, which is satisfyingly devastating but limited by the extremely small amount of magic Link is able to use.

The game utilizes RPG elements. Link gains experience for killing monsters and for completing palaces, allowing him to level up his attack, magic, and health - one change of which I wholeheartedly approve. However, the trade-off is that there are far fewer health drops than in the first game, which immediately makes it more difficult. I found The Legend of Zelda to be hard; Zelda II is much harder, often to (and past) the point of frustration, and I doubt I would have finished it without the Virtual Console's save state functions.

NPCs not only exist, they're actually somewhat helpful.

IMPROVEMENTS OVER THE ORIGINAL:

There are many things to admire about Zelda II. Graphically, I think it makes significant improvements over the original. By separating the action into side-scrolling "events," all the settings are more detailed. The forests have trees that actually look like trees. Caves feel suitably subterranean. The palaces have doors and elevators.

There is also more variety in the monster designs than in the original, and Link is allowed a greater range of attacks. This can sometimes be quite satisfying, such as when I was able to annihilate the game's third boss simply by casting the "Jump" spell and using downward thrust to obliterate his entire health bar in seconds. The boss fights are a lot of fun in general, with each one requiring a different strategy to beat.

Goals and navigation are less obtuse than The Legend of Zelda. I have no idea how anyone ever completed the first game without a guide, as there was often no in-game way of knowing where to go or what to do to advance the story. In this game, dialogue cues from villagers are genuinely helpful, and objectives are more straightforward.

There's only one serious problem. Unfortunately, it's a big one - and yes, I'm aware that other views are available, but in my personal opinion the majority of the game is...

Link fights his way through enemies to reach the Palace Boss. 
The boss fights are fun.  Getting to them... not so much.

EXTREMELY AGGRAVATING AND NOT AT ALL FUN!

For my first couple of hours with Zelda II, I thought I was in for a treat. I liked the look of the game, I liked the RPG elements, I enjoyed exploring the first couple of palaces and figuring out how to defeat the first couple of bosses. In contrast to most player comments that I've encountered, I didn't even mind the Death Mountain maze - Yes, I got killed off a couple times; but Death Mountain is located very close to the game's starting point, so in my opinion the aggravation of pushing through the maze has been substantially overstated.

But somewhere between the second and third palaces, the fun just drained away. By the end of the game, even sitting down to play felt like a particularly unpleasant chore.

The game is extremely repetitive: Find the next town, learn a new skill, find the next palace, defeat the boss, repeat several times until the end. In fairness, much the same could be said of the original game (find dungeon, defeat boss, collect TriForce piece)... but somehow, the original didn't feel repetitive. Though it was visually cruder, the dungeons in the first game felt different from each other, while all of this game's palaces gradually blended together.

I played on the 3DS, so my second complaint may be a function of that platform. Still, I found the controls to be often clunky and unresponsive. Combat is highly dependent on Jump + Slash, which for whatever reason I could only make work about 50% of the time, leaving the results of many battles feeling like a matter of luck. That said, this issue might not apply to the NES, Gameboy Advance, or Switch versions.

Then there's the "unidentifiable extra" quality that the original had. The Legend of Zelda is clearly an old game - it looks and plays and even sounds like it - but it's absolutely charming and addictive throughout. Zelda II, though technically superior in most respects, doesn't have that quality. There's more detail, and some interesting new gameplay mechanics. However, I found very little charm, and I got very tired of it a fair bit before the end... A fair bit before the midpoint, really.

Link makes his way across the World Map in a Hyrule
that looks far better populated than it did before.

OVERALL:

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is an admirable effort in many respects. It introduces new gameplay mechanics, adding RPG elements to the mix. Graphics are more detailed than in the original game, Link has a greater variety of spells and attacks to use, and he even has (limited) interaction with NPCs who aren't shopkeepers! The story background detailed in the game's manual also begins to add some detail to Hyrule, which I fully expect future games to build upon.

As a game to actually play... Well, I enjoyed it initially, but I grew weary of the side-scrolling combat/platform combination as it wore on. Boss fights were fun - but it became a trial to get to each one. As for the game's ending? Well, the less said about that the better.

I give the game points for being willing to experiment. It's just a shame I didn't end up enjoying it very much.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Game: The Legend of Zelda
Next Game: A Link to the Past

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1. The Legend of Zelda.

Original Release: Feb. 21, 1986, Famicom Computer Disc System. Version Reviewed: NES Classics, 1986. Platform Used: Nintendo 3DS.


THE PLOT:

The peaceful kingdom of Hyrule is invaded by Ganon, the prince of darkness. Ganon kidnaps Princess Zelda, but not before she divides the Triforce of Wisdom into eight pieces, hidden in underground dungeons.

Now it's up to young Link to find the fragments and assemble the Triforce. It will be a long and perilous quest. At the end of it, Zelda awaits rescue - while Ganon awaits his next victim!
...All of that's pretty much from the original game manual (thankfully downloadable online). The game itself gives only the minimum of context before dumping you out onto the world with your three hearts and your wooden sword...

Link fights enemies on the Overworld.

GAMEPLAY:

The game is divided into two main settings: The Overworld and the dungeons. You travel one screen at a time. With the exception of the starting screen and shops, each new screen offers bunches of enemies. Evade their attacks, kill them, and collect whatever rupees (cash), health, or bombs drop from them.

In the Overworld, after you've grinded for enough rupees, you can drop by shops to purchase shields, bombs, and health potions. In dungeons, you'll battle your way room by room through waves of enemies. Uncovering secrets (usually hidden staircases) leads you to new items and weapons that will make you stronger. Each dungeon ends with a final boss; after defeating that monster, recovering a Triforce fragment restores your health and returns you to the dungeon entrance.

The entire game follows this basic pattern. It's all very simple. It's also extremely difficult, particularly the last three dungeons. You run into Darknuts, enemies who must be hit from either the back or side to sustain damage... and who have a way of sharply turning to face you just as you're about to attack. Even more aggravating are Wizzrobes, who shoot beams that devastate your health in seconds. Worst are the rooms with Stone Statues: Not only are they firing on you the entire time you're in the room, dodging other enemies; there is no way to disable them.

In short: Dark Souls (which actually isn't as hard as its reputation) has nothing on the original Legend of Zelda.

Link faces a dragon with his sword and his trusty boomerang.

THOUGHTS:

After a very brief text introduction, The Legend of Zelda opens with Link on the Overworld. There are three paths he can take, and one cave he can enter. If you send him into the cave, an old man will hand him a wooden sword; if you send link in any other direction, then he will be instantly attacked with nothing at all to defend himself.

This sets the tone for the entire game. Buyers of the NES cartridge in 1987 (and, presumably, 1986 buyers of the Famicom Disc System release) received the benefit of a manual that described the backstory in detail and identified the various items and enemies. Modern gamers, downloading it from the Virtual Console or playing it on the Switch's Nintendo Online service, don't get that benefit.  The game leaves you to explore blindly, killing enemies and hoping to stumble across secrets.

I will confess: After a couple hours of aimless wandering, I gave in and resorted to an online walkthrough to get me from one objective to the next. Without it, I would have lost interest and abandoned the game. With it, the game was still difficult... But there was a structure to it, and I knew what I was doing at any given moment. I would heartily recommend any but the most masochistic of gamers do the same.

At a glance, it's hard to see how this game led to such an impressive franchise. It looks and plays much like an old-school arcade game, except that it allows you to save your progress (only when you get killed... though Virtual Console save states allowed me to cheat in this regard).

However, even before I gave in to the temptation of Internet walkthroughs, I found myself really enjoying myself. Hyrule may be very blocky and simplistically rendered, but it's also bright and colorful. The Overworld score is jaunty and the little "beeps" and "whoops" as you kill enemies and collect loot almost act as a counterpoint to that score. The music becomes moodier in the dungeons, and the designers find ways to vary the patterns you use in different settings so that it never gets stale.


OVERALL:

36 years on from its original release, The Legend of Zelda remains an attractive package: Brightly colored sprites, a catchy score, and a mixture of exploration and frenetic combat. It looks primitive, and it takes up a laughable 47 blocks of 3DS memory - Less than half a gigabyte. But its simplicity hides a surprising level of difficulty.  A lot of fast movement and on-the-fly strategy is needed to survive and progress, particularly in the late stages.

Incredibly well-made for its time, The Legend of Zelda stands up as a fast-paced, fun reminder of a simpler time in gaming. More ambitious tiles were to come... But this is a game that accomplishes everything it sets out to do, and it can be held up as one of the very best archival video games.


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Next Game: Zelda II - The Adventure of Link

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