I AM ERROR

[me2]

I was recently doing a play through of all the Zelda games [that I can pirate]. After running through Zelda 1 + 2nd quest like a tornado, I started up Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Fuck. This. Game. I think this is my fifth time attempting to beat the game (without ever finishing it), and it still frustrates the hell out of me. I'm surprised this didn't kill the franchise right there. Beating every dungeon is a chore; not an easy chore like fixing your bed or wiping your ass either. It's driving to the Wal-Mart 10 miles down the road, having someone run up to you at a red light and slash your tires, finding parking, waiting behind the asshole with 30 items in the express line only to realize that you have to go all the way back home to get more money because you spent too much replacing your tires... ALL FOR A FUCKING CANDLE. They couldn't have put in a few severed Link heads or green mushrooms or something? A save point maybe?

Not to mention how terrible the battle system is. There's a delay between hitting the B button and Link actually using his sword, as though he's developed some moral system after killing the fuck out of Ganon to where he hesitates to kill a fucking keese. Forcing the side-scrolling view is torture enough, so you have to line up perfectly to do any damage (FUUUUUUUUU IRON KNUCKLE). Magic seems like more of a HAY LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO than a legitimate feature. It also makes simple things like speaking to NPCs a tedious task.

Zelda II feels like Nintendo's attempt to cash in on the success of Final Fantasy, and I'm still unsure as to why it isn't banished to the same hole the Philips CD-I games hide in. Are there any redeeming parts of this game so I don't have to kill a part of myself to finish it (which I'm still attempting to do)?

[Nicholas Steel]

1) The first 5 (or 6) dungeons are fairly easy, I got stuck at the one that needed the magic key due to a clue located at the end of a dead village (has invisible floating ghost things throughout) which tells you where to get the magic key. I never knew about the clue because the invisible ghost things are bitches and because the first house you encounter has a guy saying something unhelpful >.>" so I never bothered exploring further in that village. I never finished the game before I had to return it 2 days after renting it :/

The magic system is fine for the game.


NOW, I might struggle with the game but that would only be because every game you play these days are made for dumb people slowly turning smart gamers into dumb gamers.

[Brasel]

I have gotten to the Great Palace, but I've never beat it. The road leading up to it is too frusterating for me to finish. I tried playing through it again recently and just lost the will to go any further when I got to the road to the Great Palace.

[Beldaran]

Shows you how spoiled we've become as gamers.

[Cloral]

I actually did manage to beat this game a while ago, though I did need a guide to tell me where that stupid hidden village was. I mean, how was I supposed to know that you could use the hammer on trees too?
The biggest piece of advice I can give is to learn where the 1-ups are located and save them until you're ready to go after the final palace. You'll need them for that trek through the lava fields. As for the final palace itself, make sure you take the correct path! There are two paths, and one of them is a big fat dead-end. Man was I pissed when I found out I had wasted all that time fighting down a path that lead nowhere! That path actually serves as the 'gutter' you fall down to if you fall off the correct path, so the best way to make sure you're going the right way is to stay on the higher path.

One interesting thing is once you beat the game, you start back at the beginning with your experience levels intact. That makes the first 5 or so dungeons ridiculously easy.

[Pineconn]

Zelda II was a fun game. I beat it once or twice, and probably played through it numerous additional times because the Great Palace was so difficult.


[that I can pirate].

Tell me that you buy new releases.

[vegeta1215]

The thing that always killed be the most in this game is falling in pits, especially on the way to the Great Palace. It happens very easily if you're not careful. Really, once you practice, the game isn't too bad. There are a few good areas to fight and level up in the field that will give you a leg up. I could never get past the 2nd dungeon when I was little, but now that I've learned all the tricks in the game, it doesn't give me trouble at all. I actually considered writing a FAQ with my tips at one point, but I was too lazy :shrug:

[Starkist]

Aside from the difficulty of the game, it's neat to see how many themes the later games borrowed from this one, right down to the names of the villages.

[MottZilla]

Yes the game is brutal. But that's not out of place on NES. It's still a decent game.

[Anthus]

I like Zelda 2, and I like that it was different. Maybe the style doesn't fit Zelda now, with what it has become, but at the time, it was the new Zelda. No one knew what to expect from the growing series. I am glad they went back to the roots with A Link to the past, as it still remains my favorite game today.

As far as design, it's okay to have a hard, and challenging game, but I admittedly never finished it either. Having lives in a game like that, and forcing players to go through the ridiculously irritating area leading up to the great palace has made it the only main Zelda game I have not finished. I don't know if I ever will beat it, as I've seen the end on you tube, and I really have no desire to go through a cave that requires luck to time jumps, and then, going through a dungeon with invisible floors that make you fall down, and have to do large portions of it again. The bulk of the game is pretty good, IMO.

Bel is right, gamers have become spoiled, but that is talking very generally. Most "gamers" now would hate Zelda 2, but, I actually hate most games now because of the fact that they are mindless and uninspired. I'm not much of a current gen gamer myself, really, at all. Old games like Zelda 2 are perfect examples of things that are great about games, and bad about games from the earlier generations.

Bottom line, the game would have been much better if you didn't have to worry about lives. It's still a fun Zelda, till the end, and a lot from the game has been used in later entries into the franchise. It introduced Magic to the series, as well as new items. Even the 2D style has made a slight come back in the GB Zelda games in those brief portions in some dungeons.

[MottZilla]

Even the 2D style has made a slight come back in the GB Zelda games in those brief portions in some dungeons.

Or maybe it was like the 2D view of Zelda 1's Dungeon passage way or item room. Really it's more like that than Zelda 2.

[AtmaWeapon]

I'm kind of disappointed Nintendo hasn't done more with this format.

It really seems like it could be a fun game, but the brutal difficulty doomed it to leave a bad taste in many players' mouth. Hard games aren't atypical for the time period, but Zelda 2 had a really agitating "you have to walk back around the world" death penalty coupled with enemies that had truly random patterns. Iron knuckles are the reason I can't defeat this game. They just move too fast for me; I can't react to them fast enough. It doesn't really motivate me to think that if I made it to the end of the game, I'd have to fight Dark Link, the Iron Knuckle on crack. No thank you good sir.

Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAkeieI3o2I

[DigiPro31279]

The good thing about Zelda 2 is that once you made it to the Great Palace...as long as you kept fighting through it and never left...you would always continue there. The first time I ever made it and defeated the game it took me maybe 10 lives to get to the end. I disliked the lives left and unless you had fairy magic...you were doomed in the pits.

[vegeta1215]

...Iron knuckles are the reason I can't defeat this game. They just move too fast for me; I can't react to them fast enough. It doesn't really motivate me to think that if I made it to the end of the game, I'd have to fight Dark Link, the Iron Knuckle on crack. No thank you good sir.

Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAkeieI3o2I

Iron Knuckles aren't too bad. I usually don't bother with trying to judge where their shield will be and go back and forth trying to hit them. Instead, I do crouched jumping slashes (you jump in the air and swing your sword, but hold down so Link is in a crouched position). You will hit them more often than not, and if you don't, I think you'll hit their shield and knock them back out of reach of counter attack. (if I remember correctly) The only bad thing about this trick is that it is a little harder to do once you get the downthrust. Also, this will not work on Dark Link. There is a super easy way to beat Dark Link though , but it is really cheap.

The only enemies I really hate are those bird knights in the Great Palace. I run like heck when I see them!

[AtmaWeapon]

As a player, I'll give that a try. But as a long-time fan of video games and a casual reviewer, it's ridiculous.

It's the same "strategy" as kneeling in the corner in the Dark Link fight. I feel like the game designers intended for you to fight up-front with careful dodging and stabbing, but they screwed up the speed numbers to the point that the only viable strategy before downthrust is to use a jumping, crouching thrust repeatedly. I think a good modern-day analogy would be tracks in Mario Kart that require snaking to get enough speed to make it across a jump or a Smash Bros. move that can hit any player on the screen that is not wavedashing. It's a trick that advanced players can use to make the game easier turned into the only viable mechanic. That's poor game design. If I wanted to win by performing half-circles repeatedly I'd be playing Street Fighter.

[Nicholas Steel]

Only Darknuts I hate in the game are the blue ones, ffff blue darknuts ffff

[vegeta1215]

As a player, I'll give that a try. But as a long-time fan of video games and a casual reviewer, it's ridiculous.

It's the same "strategy" as kneeling in the corner in the Dark Link fight. I feel like the game designers intended for you to fight up-front with careful dodging and stabbing, but they screwed up the speed numbers to the point that the only viable strategy before downthrust is to use a jumping, crouching thrust repeatedly. I think a good modern-day analogy would be tracks in Mario Kart that require snaking to get enough speed to make it across a jump or a Smash Bros. move that can hit any player on the screen that is not wavedashing. It's a trick that advanced players can use to make the game easier turned into the only viable mechanic. That's poor game design. If I wanted to win by performing half-circles repeatedly I'd be playing Street Fighter.

The crouching in the corner thing with Dark Link is the exact cheap way I was thinking off. You can fight him head on, but it is way harder than fighting Blue Ironknuckles head on, and the strategy I mentioned above doesn't work on him. I don't always use that strategy for Iron Knuckles though. I'll fight them head on too. (sometimes I like to run and sort of slide crouch jab, hoping to surprise them) But it does make an other wise hard game a little more bearable. Even if you get far in Zelda II, there's no easy way to beat Thunderbird that I know of. Plus you'd better have enough magic left to cast Thunder (required), and Shield and Jump if you want a better chance at winning.

[Cloral]

It's been a while since I last played Zelda 2, but I think the trick I ended up using against the Ironknuckles was to go on the offensive. Striking them should knock them out of range, reducing the number of strikes you'll have to block. If you switch between high and low semi-randomly, you should connect with enough of your hits to kill them within a reasonable amount of time.
And again, leveling up helps. I think you can kill a regular Ironknuckle in 2-3 hits by the end of the game.

edit:
Hmmm... now that I think about it, I think I might've gotten in the habit of hitting them with jump slashes. You don't even need to duck first - just try to hit them just above the shield. Once you get the timing down it should usually connect.
And once you get the down slash you can kill any in an open room by bouncing on their heads.

[Chris Miller]

I've the sudden urge to do a video playthrough. :3

[Beldaran]

Here's (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/angry-video-screwattack/702460) a funny video on the subject of Zelda II.

[Brasel]

That's right, Link collects bags of piss.

[Jigglysaint]

I've been messing with Zelda 2 a bit lately. Actually in the Great Palace, that bit fat dead end is actually an awesome shortcut. See, when you get to the actual dead end(passage to the left and the top is empy from where you fell down, bottom half has breakable blocks with the pit to the end of the game). There are those unicorn heads that go in a wave pattern. Use Jump and run up against the right wall. When head is near the top, jump and down stab to gain just enough momentum to get up over the top of the wall. Go right, go up and left to get the 1-up, right for fairy, then back down to break those blocks. If you take the "right" wrong path, you will save much more time than if you went the right way.