I will give the game a compliment that it does feel more logical than its predecessor in terms of communicating with individuals to figure out where to go. It also encourages the player to embrace the realism of communication pretty well for the NES era. It’s pretty primitive, but at least characters don’t flat out lie to you like in Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest. It’s also a lot less reliant on Nintendo Power indirect advertisement by lack of direction than the original game. It still has doozies, but this is the NES era; they’re unavoidable, so just be thankful that you only have to occasionally stupidly jump at a wall. The unfairness is more in difficulty spikes like in the infamous Death Mountain or the final palace. Oh, that final palace…
You obtain items that help you progress throughout the story like a traditional Zelda game. Progressing by being able to break hard blocks or crossing through rivers by having Link walking on water like he’s… a very religious figure. Political correctness shield: activate! Now, this is where we get into the most complex and underrated part of the game: the combat. The combat of Zelda II: Adventure of Link is a bit of a learning curve that feels like a precursor to RPGs like the Tales series, but I would also compare it to games like Ninja Gaiden, mostly the modern version. For the twitch-challenged, this game isn’t easy if you just can’t nail down the reflexes and timing. I know a lot of you new-age Zelda fans were expecting combat to be more relaxed, but that’s just not what this game is about.
The constant whining about the difficulty wouldn’t be an issue if people would just actually study the patterns of enemies. True masters of this game could actually make it through this game without even having to worry about the RPG elements. The only thing they do is just add on how many times you have to hit an enemy to kill it, but what good does that do if you can barely hit it to begin with and can’t avoid their attacks? Your shield does quite a job at blocking certain attacks. Do you see those knights pulling out their swords a split second before they hit you? If they pull it out high, you should be standing straight up, if they pull it out low, you should be ducking. If you pay attention to those details you will barely take hits. Why are you running into the boomerang throwers when they throw one above your head? You should fool them and jump into the boomerang it will block it because your shield is at the same level then you come down with a sword swipe to guarantee a hit over their head. The combat can get down to a point where you have to keep turning around and ducking to block boomerangs that come back towards you while then turning back around to hit the same enemy in the face.
Where have I seen this kind of AI before — where they hold their shield up depending on where you are? Oh, I know, it started that formula for Ocarina of Time, but then it takes full effect in Skyward Sword! It gets even more complicated when you learn moves like the up thrust and the down thrust. Wait, learning new sword moves, where have I seen this? Twilight Princess! You know, for a game that has so many people crying foul that it’s not like “Zelda” and is a black sheep, it sure seems to be a huge influence on the whole freaking series. Almost everything that debuted in this game (sans the RPG elements, a life bar and the sidescrolling) seems to make an appearance down the road in a future Zelda game. Add in my commentary earlier about the features of this game being added to Link to the Past, and it all just starts to compound on people who claim Zelda II is a misfit. I’d even like to make a call that Zelda II is more influential on the series than the original game or Link to the Past is. Guys, can you please put your torches and pitchforks down until I’m done the review? Thanks.
Potentially, some of the actual enemies are harder than most of the bosses in this game — the bosses just take longer. Although a couple of the bosses give quite a challenge, such as Gooma and his swinging mace. You have to keep a rhythm of hitting and jumping away. It’s all a game about reflexes — something that most newer Zelda players aren’t used to. Nintendo could have made an entirely new IP out of this combat alone as a hardcore sidescrolling hack ‘n’ slasher that required lots of reflexes to engage in the epic sword combat you partake in. It’s not just that, though, so add in the micromanagement of the RPG elements and the decision to activate the shield spell every time? That’s just me talking about one-on-one fights, though. What about having to worry about other enemies who may come into the picture on screen? This is the most brain-stimulating Zelda game I’ve played.
Don’t even get me started about the actual palaces. These labyrinths are crawling with enemies, but they can start to tax you in other ways. Some of the enemies drain your experience points and give you little-to-no experience for actually defeating them. Some drain your magic every time they hit you. There are times where you need a spell like “Fairy” to fly through a section of the palace, but, by the time you get there, you’re out of magic and you’re probably down to one life, too. You’re up a creek without a paddle! Each palace gets harder and harder to navigate. It is somewhat relieved on the account of it being a sidescroller, but they seem to keep adding more forks in the road. Oh, let’s throw an elevator in there for kicks that also goes up and down? You know you’ve got to check out all four directions — there’s no way you can leave every nook and cranny unchecked. I almost forgot to mention that this is the only Zelda game (sans some sections in Link’s Awakening) where you have to platform and control your jumps. The platforming in this game is crucial to master, as well! Mix that in with the combat and try to remember to down thrust or up thrust when a flying head is coming at you in mid-jump in some obnoxious squiggly line pattern like every other annoying NES games with flying heads of some kind!
I may be very stimulated by Zelda II, and I love the way it approaches “Nintendo Hard,” but there are just some things keeping it from being perfect. Occasionally, it feels like they were negligent to some minor foul-ups or things that just seem to disconnect. First of all, I don’t really like how inconsistent the difficulty of the bosses is. It seems like the gradient of the bosses as you go on in the game more so goes in a U-shape, rather than a straight progressive incline. It’s disappointing to be in one of the harder dungeons, only to be let down by a joke of a boss where I just jump and down thrust the whole time as a blue knight runs into me over and over again. Meanwhile, the actual enemies have better AI than the bosses.
Let’s get into some technical issues. It’s very jarring the way the physics work. Link can jump a bit higher only if he gets either some kind of running start or if he does one jump after sticking landing for another jump, but without running into a wall. Instead of just holding the Jump button to jump higher, you have to trigger a sequence, and it feels unnecessary, especially when you’re trapped in a pit that only allows you to get out of it with this method. Link can barely clear three blocks of height with it and just barely four (I think?) blocks of a gap and, when he actually makes it in both scenarios, for a split second he bleeds into the corner of the ledge before the game just decides “OK, he made it” and just jerks him up. Enemies that go in zig-zag patterns can occasionally get stuck against a ceiling thinking that the barrier of the inside of a ceiling is the wall they are bouncing off of until they go off the edge of the ceiling.
On a more aesthetic level, it’s a little jarring to navigate the overworld when more flamboyant textures are on the screen. I’m not talking enemies. I’m talking when it’s trying to load anything other than bright green grass or golden-yellow roads. The music slows down a little and so does the movement. This can also occasionally happen in the sidescrolling sections themselves, but I can forgive it as just an NES trope.
That’s kind of my gripe about Zelda II. I love this game, but, because of my video game developmental ethics, I’m a Nintendo fan for a reason. In terms of quality assurance and polish, Zelda II falls a tad below my threshold for what I expect out of games. Being that I have high standards, Nintendo seems to be the ones to meet that. So, it disappoints me when I see a Nintendo game have rough edges like in this review. The slightly disjointed gameplay, one-shot deal items, leaving room for players to unfairly misunderstand and just the fact that this is the Zelda game with the most bugs and the clunkiest gameplay. Now, every developer should still be jealous of this game, because they would all dream for their games to work as much as this one did back in the day! Nintendo can crap out a vanilla platformer like these New Super Mario Bros. games, but the core concept is that it still runs smooth and is 100% fluid, and every developer dreams to get half of even what that could do. Generally, every minute of even outsourced Nintendo games, they make sure you’re strapped in tight. You can let loose and just forget about the possibility of something as common sense (like a one-time acquirable extra life!) in development thrown out the window. So, when I see something great like Zelda II miss the bar with negligence in the QA department where more lukewarm Nintendo games strive, it really irks me. It rarely happens, too.
Now, I understand that Zelda II was kind of a mediocre product when it first launched in Japan. So, when bringing it to North America and Europe, it went through a lot of quality control and improvements. That’s just it, though. I still smell the odor; the odor I get with every game that is once released and “fixed” later (instead of getting it right the first time). It had even blander color palettes, graphics and even more disappointing music (seriously, the soundtrack for this game is a bit underwhelming, as well, for the Nintendo standard) and, instead of a slightly questionable RPG system, it was a completely broken one. It’s kind of the same problem as Super Mario Bros. 2 starting out that way in Japan, too, although Zelda II is not as severe. Am I nitpicking? Yes, I am, but I’d like to point out that I’m not necessarily disappointed in the game as not being entirely a Zelda game (like everyone else is), I’m more so disappointed for in terms of developmental ethics. That some shortcuts were taken. That it’s not entirely a Nintendo game to the standards I’ve known since I was a very young child. It’s missing a couple of the nuances that I associate with Nintendo’s presentation. I think I just wanted this game to be perfect so badly because it had so much stuff that was solid and robust, but it still missed the bar by about half a star. Literally.
So, I did say Zelda II is more influential than Link to the Past, but does that mean it’s better? Hell no, it’s not perfect. It does, however, still deliver in spades giving one of the most epic experiences I’ve faced in my life. I pulled an all-nighter this past week with the game, for almost 10 hours (which is how long I expect it should take a normal clean run of this game) and it really stimulated me so much that it pulled me out of a depression with gaming and life in general. Then I wrote this review. Zelda II: Adventure of Link is a polarizing NES gem, but it shouldn’t be that way. It has a great and mostly fair challenge, provoking players to have high-maintenance gameplay protocol and giving a rich sense of exploration and adventure. It was one hell of a game, and it won’t be the last time I play it. Now, why don’t you?
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Review Copy Provided by Author
Played Wii U virtual console version
