Second on the docket: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (Played on the 2021 Zelda Game & Watch and then that was NOT a good way to do it so moved to NES Classic)

I want to first and foremost offer my upmost respect to every 8 year old who beat this when it came out. You are the only true gamers among us. Playing this game was certainly frustrating at times but it's definitely not without its merits or fun sections. Namely the middle chunk (palaces 3-6) I actually really got into the groove of things and was enjoying the mechanics. I think the leveling is a really cool idea and the villages had a lot of charm to them (especially for an 8 bit game).

But this game is HARD. And I really want to say it's unnecessarily and unfairly hard, but I understand that this game came out in a era where it kind of WAS necessary. Similar to Zelda I- I can try my best to put myself in a 1988 mindset, but I can't pretend this is the only game I have to play for the next several months. My backlog grows at an unnerving rate and Deku Deals has sent me 3 separate deal alert emails today alone. And like, school and work and stuff.

I played the game on NES Classic and I can't even imagine going through it without restore points. Certain sections got so dire that I was basically save scumming between every successful hit on an enemy. And I think that gets to the root of what I found the most frustrating about this game, which is the same thing that's prevented me from ever finishing Majora's Mask- this game punishes you for exploring and taking your time. The first Zelda was all about seeing a weird rock and then trying a bunch of stuff to see if that rock moved. I had no problem bombing every wall in a dungeon, because bombs were cheap and commonly dropped and often led to great secrets. In Zelda II, you can try to see what's in that cave over there but you're on your last life and you're at 2450/3000 XP and it's probably not worth the risk of loosing all your progress. I spent most of this playthrough glued to a guide, because I didn't want to make a wrong turn and then realize I had wasted my magic meter only to reach a dead end, and now be totally screwed for the boss fight.

I think it was cool to try something so different for a sequel. And when it worked it did definitely work! I just don't think it holds up phenomenally 30+ years later in the culture of games today. And that's fine! We can't all be Super Metroid!

Onwards to a Link to the Past, which I tried once a long time ago and never got into. But after the endurance trial of Zelda II I'm actually super excited. See y'all in 16 bit!

This game is unexpectedly and unnecessarily hard. It is still (or even more so than the first game) cryptic, but my biggest problem with Zelda II is that combat in it is way too hard. It simply feels poorly balanced. God bless the emulators with infinite save states.

When playing Zelda II, I kept thinking about Castlevania II. While Castlevania II made a move toward Zelda's adventure/RPG territory, Zelda II has become a Castlevania-like sidescroller action game. And, to be honest, I think Zelda's sequel failed even harder than Simon's Quest. I enjoyed wandering around the world and 'dungeons', looking for items and clues (mostly) in The Adventure of Link. Well.. actually, everything about the game is cool except for combat, but it's the biggest part of the game, so it spoiled the whole experience for me. Unlike in the classic Castlevania games, it wasn't fun killing monsters: most of them took too many hits to kill, some had difficult to reach hit boxes, and the resources were never enough to make up for that. If Zelda II's action had been more like in Castlevania, I would have absolutely loved the game. But it is hard and frustrating instead.

I can't say I was bored playing through Zelda II as the challenging combat kept me uptight, but there wasn't much pleasure involved either. The internet says there are a lot of great games in the series, so I'll just forget about this one fast and move on to the next installments.

Often derided as the odd man out in the Zelda series, I got strangely addicted to Zelda II on my current playthrough. I was listening to the Insert Credit podcast and Tim Rogers was espousing the virtures of the game. As a shamefully devoted zealot of the man, I decided to give the game another serious look. I had previously beaten the game on the Zelda Collector's Edition on the Gamecube but that was fifteen years ago. I had dabbled in it recently as it is on the Switch NES online and found myself agreeing with the detractors who dismissed the game.

I decided to not abuse save states and see how the game would work played in its original context. Using the game's own save system, you are able to save when Link's three lives are depleted. When this happens, you get a game over, the option to save, and must restart from the beginning shrine. The game is similar to some roguelikes in that you lose a good chunk of your progress when you perish but do retain some things. Your current experience points vanish but your levels remain. (yes this Zelda has levels) All the items you have acquired remain. And, most importantly, the dungeons, or palaces as they are called in this game, are run-based affairs. If you are playing the game without a guide (which is nearly impossible for some of the progression) you basically need to make maps of the dungeons, an exercise that I found thoroughly enjoyable. The palaces are the most fun part of the game. You run through them, find keys, and basically eliminate pathways. When you die, you do have to walk all the way back to the palace, which is annoying, but if you are tracking your progress through the palace your next run can be more efficient. Bosses are never hard enough that you can't take them down if you appropriately use your magic.

Speaking of magic, magic is the key to mastering Zelda II. The first spell you learn is Shield, which doubles your defense, which is essential for most of the game. When traversing palaces, I used the Shield spell liberally to extend my exploring runs as much as possible. With bosses, obviously doubling your life is a smart strategy.

Balancing my use of spells and increasing the efficiency of my palace traversal was the addictive loop here. Traversing the overworld and trying to find its obtuse secrets can be frustrating. There is some serious NES era nonsense hidden on the overworld. The game also requires you to collect all the magic potions (the item that grants you more MP) to finish the game, one of which is hidden in a pretty darn obscure place in a midgame maze. If this were 1988, I would be spending the big money calling up that hint hotline.

As the game nears its conclusion, walking your way all the way back to palaces can become a bit tedious. You also pretty much need to be at max level for the Great Palace ( the last one) which does require grinding.

Thankfully, the final palace does allow you to restart at the entrance, so the designers clearly understood it would be way too tedious to walk back. However, by the time I reached the final palace, the tedium had become a bit too strong and I ended up using save states for the final bosses. I felt pretty good about making it that far without them. How I beat this game legitimately with a Gamecube controller is beyond me and I'm beginning to believe I fabricated that memory.

I had a good time with this game and it does some really interesting things. I'm not the first person to make this observation but there are definitely a lot of Dark Soulsy type things about this game. It has a similar progression in that once impossible tasks become cakewalks later and that a lot of time you are playing to unlock shortcuts or find more efficient paths. The 2D side-scrolling gameplay is actually pretty good and it was fun to gather information in towns, even if sometimes the hints were a bit too obscure. I also really enjoyed the labyrinthine aspects of the palaces although the Great Palace gets a bit out of hand with this. I had to consult a walkthrough just a couple of times, when the game hides its progression behind asinine secrets.

Honestly, in 2020, this game is probably more worth playing than the original. Zelda 1 is cool, but if you need a top-down Zelda, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, and a Link Between Worlds are all way more enjoyable. The first Zelda can become somewhat samey and punishingly difficult. Zelda II offers a more unique entry in the series and its gameplay has not really been duplicated or refined in any way. Any sane person in 2020 will need a walkthrough to get through some of the ridiculous progression blocks but there is definitely some rewarding gameplay to be had and the influence of Zelda II is definitely apparent in many of the "Souls-Like" games we see today.

Below is my hand-map of the maze caves you must traverse to find the hammer.