Out of all the sequels where Nintendo tried to twist the original formula during this time, namely Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA) and Metroid II: Return of Samus, I think Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is the absolute worst of the bunch, in terms of design alterations.

It's not an awful game, and I think it's cool that they tried adapting this IP into a Castlevania-like side-scroller, but its execution is pretty dreadful. If the unbalanced difficulty involving abundances of enemies with minuscule hitboxes wasn't bad enough, the game itself seems to have a tough time even deciding which pickups can be collected simply by walking onto them and ones that require you to slash your sword at them to grab.

Unless you're some die-hard fan of The Legend of Zelda series and want to play every single game, this one is an easy skip, even from a historical standpoint in its overall design. Such a shame.

Trivia Time!

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link famously features an NPC who introduces himself by saying "I AM ERROR." This portly neckbeard character is a cameo representing everyone who would spend the next few decades whining about Zelda II being bad. His name is a reference to the fact that every single one of them is WRONG!

Did you know that this game secretly rules, but we made it super hard because 80s Famicom gamers were just built different? All you need in order to have a good time with this one in 2024 is save states or rewind, and we've blessed you Zoomers with both of those on the Wii U, 3DS, and Switch. If that's not good enough for you, free walkthroughs have been on the internet for literally longer than most of you have been alive.

Zelda II gave you that Smash Bros Zelda Temple music. It gave you Dark Link. And have you seen the final boss?? That thing's nuts!

This is the one that separates the Child Links from the Adult Links. Don't be a crybaby. Don't believe the anti-hype. Zelda II owns.

Stay tuned for more Trivia Time segments in the near future!

Finally making my way through the "mainline" (can't casually use that term after Jan Misali) Zelda games I've never finished. All of the things I've heard about this game were true, a black sheep, Nintendo hard, weirdly disjointed, but for all of that, there's a lot that bears fruit for the rest of this series, and some very interesting choices that showed a lot of courage changing so drastically from the previous game.

Man, the 'Hyrule Temple' theme hits different after going through it as the dungeon theme here!

This is probably the first game where I had to pull up a guide to beat the "name entry" menu. Bravo! Still a less tedious game than the first one :p while yall are debating whether this game is actually a hidden gem or the worse slop known to man, know that I am taking double the amount of misinformation. Link is like Robin Hood except he's stealing little kids in caves and giving them to single mothers??? Very weird. I suppose this segues into my political stance about Link wielding magic, a crystal clear case of identity crisis. But make no mistake, the game only gets real good right when you get the fire spell. Me when unlocking the full moveset actually makes the game as good as it should always have been. It's more common than you think.

While I'm a big fan of most of the game, fuck that one room in particular in the 3rd temple where you're digging stone blocks to get to a key (Minecraft reference) because these dog heads got hands damn! The point is that they don't, so I am... shocked, as they say! Now imagine my surprise when I finish the 1st temple and find out what God it reveres: it's a moyai! You're putting something in his brain... hnnng moyai brainrot... ahah I hope I'm more than a niche internet micro-celebrity to you guys, I also am a variety gamer, and that means I vary my approach to the game: nope, I'm tackling Zelda II like it's a DMC-like. It really is high octane at times, though. All is manageable, however. Even Link's crippling rupee debt. He just does not engage with the currency. Modern problems require modern solutions.

Combat is just really funny. You get pulled into the narrow streets of Kamurocho every 10 steps in the overworld that suspiciously looks like The Legend Of Zelda on the NES, and whenever you hit somebody, I can't believe how many mfs I'm using za warudo on, but I better believe. And also, the regular attack just looks satisfying for some reason. Link is poking them. But don't poke the bear, though! Thankfully, it's just a bunch of unmemorable enemies here. That Lizalfos be looking stiff as a gyatt 🥰 but yeah that's it. I'm not sure how to convey how I really feel about all this. But, know that enemy placements is pretty fair. Atleast, that's what I said as my graduation quote. ¡ No mames !

It's funny when he does the upwards thrust... because it feels like he's offering his hand in marriage. LoL ¿quieres? The way I creaaaamed when I got the opportunity to do this attacking shit down below AND above me. Although this ties in to a mucho problemo that the OG had, where the missable content is way too important, the average joe is liable to it, and I will call the manager about it. Only then will they learn Link has actually entered people's houses without their permission, marking the grand premiere of his criminal record. The only way he has to redeem himself is by vanquishing Ganon once more, as his death was GREATLY exagerated. Yep.

This is the second review in a marathon of reviews for “The Legend of Zelda” series. If you haven’t yet, please read my previous review here. Please also check out Reyn, Phantasm, Steinco, & ptcremisi who are doing this marathon with me. They will also be posting reviews for each Zelda game in the marathon, though not all of us are playing the same games. I will also be linking specific individuals who will be playing specific Zelda games alongside us, so please check them out also! Without any further delay, let’s get right into The Legend of Zelda II: Adventure of Link.

I have only one question… What happened?! As someone who gets mild enjoyment from the first Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda II: Adventure of Link tries to do everything in its power to make it an unenjoyable experience in every facet possible. I originally played this game many years ago, but dropped it once I got to Death Mountain, an infamous area in this game where the difficulty needlessly spikes while the game feels unnecessarily unfair to the player. For this marathon, I finally decided to finish it, but the idea of dropping this game to get to A Link To The Past was very, very strong.

One of the most notable changes with Zelda 2 is that it decides to change the gameplay from a top-down adventure game, to a platformer? Granted, the overworld exploration from Zelda 1 is still here, you have a vast world to explore filled with secrets, towns, and caves for you to find. Yet it feels so stagnant and bland, exploring itself is fine, if a bit slow, but instead of enemies that you can fight in real-time, a set of three will appear randomly that can potentially run into Link and initiate a battle. Also, the Overworld itself is plain and lacking in detail, something I praised from the first game was how detailed the environments were, while here it’s all incredibly blocky and unnatural looking. Exploring the Overworld is simple enough, but it’s segmented. Usually when you enter a new segment of Hyrule in Zelda 2, you’ll be staying there for a while, the execution is always the same as well. Find a town, complete some random fetch quest for or within the town, get a new spell, maybe get a new sword technique, then head to the temple of that area. This formula gets old incredibly fast, especially when you consider the item progression in Zelda 2 being extremely weak.

In the original Legend of Zelda, every item you received within a dungeon would upgrade your capability, this included items to help you further explore Hyrule, such as the Stepladder, and the Raft. While the Raft wasn’t necessarily utilized well, the Stepladder felt like a legitimate upgrade that was continuously useful in dungeons which gave it value, it had significance far past when it was originally obtained. This is my big issue with Zelda 2’s items. In Zelda 2, you’ll get an item, it’ll have maybe one specific use in the Overworld, and then it just rots away in your inventory for the remainder of the game. Now, to be fair, items like the Boomerang and Bow in the original were probably not used extensively either, I certainly didn’t use them often. However, in Zelda 2, every item feels like this. Let’s take the boots for example. In concept, the boots are actually very interesting, allowing you to walk over water and lava in the Overworld. Unfortunately the use for this item is limited to only a few specific spots, and is never used again. It doesn’t even have a purpose within the 2D sections either, it’d be an incredible feature if these boots allowed you to walk over lava, it’d make Link feel like his items have use and that he’s becoming stronger in a tangible manner through his items rather than just being a means to reach the next temple. Other items suffer the same fate such as the Handy Glove, the Hammer, etc. They do not feel significant in the same way Zelda 1’s items did, except maybe the Candle which lights up caves, but it’s no longer a weapon you can use to dispatch enemies, it’s relegated to just one purpose, which is a shame.

The most significant manner in which the game tries to give Link progression in power is by leveling up. This to me is probably the highlight of the game. In Zelda 2, defeating certain enemies will reward you with points that contribute to your level ups. Each level up requires a specific number of points to achieve, after which a stat will be upgraded. Now unfortunately, you don’t get to choose what stat you wish to upgrade per level up, the game pre-selects one for you, which is a huge negative for me because it doesn’t allow players to tailor their builds, or prioritize a stat they deem more important in whatever specific area/scenario they’re in. This becomes especially brutal because upgrading health and magic is a free refill respectively, so utilizing that in difficult areas such as Death Mountain could’ve been incredibly helpful and made it more bearable. Now granted, you can choose to skip your level-up, which will then require you to level up again. Once you level up again, the game will allow you to choose between two stats to upgrade, doing so again gives you complete reign on which stat to upgrade. I really don’t like this idea because it makes leveling up slower and less valuable overall. Sure, you can skip your level up without the point requirement increasing to upgrade a stat you want, but from the beginning the game should allow for player freedom in how they wish to build Link for the upcoming trials ahead. The game thankfully has heart containers and magic upgrades to help alleviate these issues, but they’re incredibly well hidden on specific squares on the map that have no visual cue to tell you they’re there at all, this issue will crop up more later. So if you’re not using a guide, it’s very likely you’ll be missing out on these free level-ups essentially, which is not ideal whatsoever. Especially when you consider how valuable these resources are for fighting and progression.

Alright, let’s talk about the worst part of the game, the enemies. I have no clue what they were thinking here designing these enemies the way they did, but let’s break it down. You have a lot of rather easy enemies like “Bots” which are basically slimes that can’t do much, you just need to crouch to hit them, nothing too mind-blowing there. My real issue are with enemies who have shields. Enemies with shields are an absolute nightmare to fight because they often just block so many attacks, it takes forever to kill them, and if your weapon bounces off, chances are you’re getting hit. That’s not even the worst of it though, the best way to deal with these enemies is to jump then attack their heads, and you’ll usually land a hit. Not only do you need to space these attacks out well, but it’s just tedious. Add onto the fact you can’t necessarily run past some of these enemies due to how they move or the level design, and it gets so much worse. I think the worst offender is definitely the Blue Darknut, a fast, shielded enemy that can shoot his own sword beams at you high and low, requiring you to react quickly, and he can throw them out ridiculously fast. If you’re not playing carefully and get reckless, you will most certainly die, and Blue Darknut is just one example. Guma’s and Doomknockers are equally annoying since they throw projectiles that you need to carefully watch before striking, while there is some satisfaction to learning enemy patterns, a lot of them can just double-hit you or throw two projectiles one after the other quickly and you’ll get hit, your shield also cannot block certain thrown projectiles, yet can block others. This inconsistency feels unfair and too specific since a player will have to learn the hard way that Oh yeah, your shield can’t block this It's awful. Dealing with projectiles is even worse since all you can really do is jump over them, but that’s not always a luxury you have due to the constraints of the level design.

If you thought Zelda 1 was cryptic, well get ready, because Zelda 2 is just as bad. One of my favorite examples is the hidden town within a forest you have to reveal by smashing the forest tile with the hammer item. While Zelda 1 was cryptic, it was at least somewhat logical, “fire burns bush” and “walls can be bombed”. Zelda 2 says to hell with logic, hammer cuts down forest I guess. There’s a hidden wall in a temple you can just walk through, there is zero indication of this, which probably left many players very lost and confused in that temple. There’s a town where you need to use a specific spell in a specific area to spawn a tower that has an item inside that would greatly benefit you to have. The list goes on, but Zelda 2 is as much, if not more of a guide game than Zelda 1 was I think. I personally used a guide for this playthrough, because for one: I was already not thrilled to be playing this game and wanted it to be over with quickly. And two: I legit would not have figured any of this out without a guide anyway, it made the already terrible experience smoother at least, but in my mind I always thought “how were you supposed to figure that out?” Again, Zelda 1 has this issue, and one thing I didn’t touch on that applies to both games are the items you get. They have no description or instruction, so you either need the instruction booklet that came with these games, or you have to be incredibly insightful to know what they did. I think Zelda 2 gets away with this more though since most items are passive and have dedicated buttons for them in the Overworld such as the hammer and flute respectively.

Level design in Zelda 2 is outright awful as well. Link’s jump is incredibly stiff and the apex of its height is finicky to figure out and utilize. A lot of later platforming sections demand you understand this, or else you’re taking a dive into a pit or some nice warm lava. The platforming is insufferable due to obstacles such as bubbles, enemy placement where they can hit you, or requiring specific magic spells to even overcome. Since Link gets knocked back a lot in this game, getting hit near a ledge is guaranteed death. If you need a specific magic spell such as “Jump” to reach an out of reach platform, or get over a large pit, you better have the magic for it. If you don’t, you either need to pray you get a magic potion drop, or die to fully refill it for you. There’s areas in this game where as soon as you enter a screen, an enemy will already be on top of you, so you have to react instantly or you’re getting hit or worse. There’s a specific screen near the end of the game where an enemy legit spawns on top of you and you can’t avoid the damage. So if you went in there with one health left, guess you’re just dead. There’s rooms in this game with enemies constantly spawning that will overwhelm you, and it gets so much worse when you have to platform while dealing with these enemies combined with the knockback and Link’s terrible jump. It feels very reminiscent of Castlevania actually, but I’d much rather be playing that than this game. It just amazes me a lot of this made it into the game, and this isn’t an inconsistent issue, most of this game is plagued by these problems, and it only gets worse the more demanding the game gets, on top of introducing harder enemies that hit like trucks, I legitimately don’t understand how you can beat this game without some form of rewind or save-stating. I’ll be the first to admit to using save states for this game, and I’m very glad I did. Had I not, I promise you, I wouldn’t have finished this game, it’d have stayed unfinished, and I would’ve gone straight to A Link To The Past

Now for some other miscellaneous issues. Akin to a platformer, Link now has lives. You start with 3, and there’s a bunch of secret areas in the game to collect more lives, how you’re supposed to find them without a guide, I don't know, though none of them are so overly cryptic to find really, it’s just a matter of exploring in this case. My issue is the finite resources of these extra lives. Every time you die, the game will respawn you in the beginning of the room you died in, which is very generous, I will admit. Once you lose all of your lives though? Well, regardless of where you are, with the exception of the final temple, the game will respawn you at the very beginning of the game. Which means, you will have to travel all the way back to where you need to go, this includes temples. I find it… ridiculous. In Zelda 1, when you died in a dungeon, the game was courteous enough to put you at the start of that temple. In Zelda 2, no, you’re whisked away back to the very start of the game. Not only does Zelda 2 not live up to the first, but is also just regressing in design.

Link doesn’t receive important upgrades early enough in my mind. A move like downward thrust you should get earlier since it’s such an essential move to Link’s kit. Yet in stark contrast, the upward thrust is useless because it doesn’t stay out long enough to even be usable, and there’s not many enemies at the point in the game you get it for it to be worthwhile. I think the cost of the “Life” spell should’ve been reduced, because besides towns and level ups? There are no potions in this game to refill your health, all you get is the life spell. It consumes so much magic, it may not even be worth it, especially when you consider later temples require you have a good amount of magic left to use specific spells to progress like Jump, “Fairy” and “Thunder”. I think the “Fire” spell should be the first or close to the first spell you get. The soundtrack is weaker than Zelda 1’s to me, though the Temple Theme is amazing. A lot of the environments look good in the 2D sections, temples feel a lot weaker to me though. While Zelda 1 re-used a lot of rooms, all the dungeon layouts were different and the different color palettes helped distinguish them all. Zelda 2 I’d say does a good job here as well, while it does have a lot of similar room layouts like Zelda 1, it brings back the concept of each dungeon having its own distinct color. On top of this, the material the temples seem to be made of are also different, a nice visual change to help set them apart is very welcomed. Fairies felt a little too rare in temples and the overworld to be relied on, but are helpful. Towns were a drag to go through, but broke up gameplay I guess, just wasn’t a fan of the fetch-quests just to get a spell I may never use. I hated how you had to hit items like potions, keys, and point bags with your sword to grab them. I actually missed a key by not hitting it because I thought walking over it would pick it up, like Zelda 1, so once again we’re just regressing in design here rather than progressing. My last complaint is the sound design. I don’t like how high-pitched the sword beam is, and stuff like hitting shields, or your shield getting hit doesn’t sound pleasant, really a lot of the sound design in this game sort of grated on me pretty fast, which didn’t help matters by any means.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link by all accounts was a miserable experience. I truly only found the leveling system to be the only thing I enjoyed in this game, yet the restraint it places on the player to only level up a specific stat or grind more points is tedious and badly designed. The rest of it either left me infuriated, annoyed, or bored. I had to abuse many save-states to finish this game, but I honestly don’t mind admitting that because the game doesn’t play fair, so why should I? Special shoutout to the Blue Darknut for being one of the worst enemy’s in any video game ever! I did want to quit playing several times, but I kept my word, and for the integrity of the marathon, Zelda 2 is finished. Will I ever play it again? Nope, not in a million years. I’m just glad it’s over. On a more positive note, the next game in the marathon is A Link To The Past. One of my absolute favorite Zelda games, and honestly one of my favorite games period. I hope you all enjoyed this review, I don’t normally make reviews so negative, but I really had little praise for this game. Though Link To The Past will be far more positive for sure. Until then, thank you all for reading, see you in the next one!

Reyn’s Zelda 2 review - PT’s Zelda 2 review - Steinco’s Zelda 2 review

Zelda II was one of several mainline Zelda games I had yet to play at this point. I didn't know why I skipped trying this one out when I went and beat Zelda 1 in 2020. Maybe it was because it's such a departure from every other game, or the fact I heard it wasn't good. Either way, this marathon gave me a good excuse to finally play this one. Sadly, what I've heard people say about this game is true. I unfortunately found this game to be straight up bad overall.

The story this time around revolves around the Triforce of Courage. The last game only had the Triforce of Wisdom and Power, but this game reveals there's a third. Basically, the King of Hyrule hid it far away so no evil can ever get it. The prince, aka Zelda's brother, wants it for himself. He gets the help of a wizard to have Zelda tell him where it is, since only she knows, by using a truth spell on her. When that doesn't work, the wizard puts Zelda to sleep, and so Link must get the Triforce of Courage and wake Zelda up from the sleep spell. He must do this by going to each of the six main palaces and placing a crystal there, so it opens up the Great palace, which houses the Triforce. Pretty effective plot tbh, it's weird that Zelda has a brother because he never gets mentioned in any other game (at least to my knowledge) but it's interesting.

The first thing you'll notice when actually starting the game, is the change in gameplay. This is no longer a top-down action adventure but is a side-scroller. This is unlike every other mainline Zelda ever and it really does feel off from the rest of the games. Along with it being a side-scroller now, there are also some light RPG mechanics too. There is exp in this game that you get by killing enemies (or collecting exp bags) and you can level up when you get the required amount. You either upgrade your health, magic or your attack power and the game always has a set path with whatever one you get on level up. With the magic, you can get spells throughout the game, and they can be quite useful. The life spell, for instance, is the best spell in the game since it's just a straight up heal. Same with the shield spell, since both make you survive longer. Believe me tho, you're gonna need them! Anyways, the exp system was actually one of the few things I can praise about this game. I thought it was pretty satisfying leveling up every time and it at least makes this game stand out from other Zelda games (if the side-scrolling nature didn't do that already).

The overworld in this game is more like an older RPG than how Zelda 1's was. Instead of having to bomb random locations to find secrets, this game has you progressing the world by using the items you get from palaces. Towns have NPC's that will let you in their house to get a spell in exchange for an item you find. Overworld encounters are now represented by little enemy sprites, that appear once you take a certain number of steps, and they put you into a battle scenario. They can be EXTREMELY obnoxious with how frequently they appear and with how hard it is to dodge them. If you stay on the roads that appear in game, the encounters won't appear but if you take one step off of the road (or just aren't on the roads at all which happens a lot) they will so the roads only help a tiny bit I think. All of this just makes this feel less like a Zelda game and more like an older adventure/RPG. I like the leveling up, but all of this is a downgrade from Zelda 1's formula, even if I wasn't in love with how that game did things.

The start of the game up until Death Mountain, was honestly not bad and was a solid time. Once you get to death mountain tho, this game shows its true colors. This game is incredibly difficult and incredibly bullshit a lot of the time. I know this is an NES game, so this is kinda expected, but Zelda 1 was not like this. Zelda 1 could be hard (mostly in the endgame) but it never felt like NES hard, hard for the sake of it basically. This game definitely does tho and it's worse for it. Death Mountain and the last area and palace were the absolute worst parts of the game. Both were just full of obnoxious BS and I just don't find that very fun. The rest of the game is like that too but to a lesser extent. I had to save state pretty much all the time from Death Mountain until the end, and I don't feel bad about it. It also doesn't help that when you die, there are also lives in this game because you NEED those for a side-scroller I guess, you go back to where Zelda's sleeping (aka the beginning of the game). You can unlock items that make this way better than it sounds, but if you die before you get the hammer and unlock the first shortcut, you must do all of death mountain over again. Without save states, this is very easy to have to do since this game is so brutal. If this game wasn't so hard and bullshit, this wouldn't be too bad because the general gameplay is solid. Link feels good to control and the moves he gets are cool. But due to the NES difficulty, those good elements don't mean much.

Going into the palaces, they're hit or miss. A couple of them I didn't find too bad and actually somewhat enjoyed, while the others were just hell. Palaces are a lot longer in this game and have barely any puzzles. Zelda 1's dungeons weren't super puzzle heavy, but they were more than just find key..unlock door and progress. This game focuses more on the combat than the puzzles and its worse for it since most of the enemies are just frustrating. The bosses aren't anything special, they're either piss easy or super obnoxious like Thunderbird. I always heard Dark Link (or Link's Shadow I guess) was absolutely brutal if you didn't do the duck and swipe method. I just killed him super easily by doing the jump attack method I do on other enemies. Didn't even need to use the shield spell, he was one of the easier bosses in the game lol. Idk if I just got lucky, or I'm just that good but I thought it'd be interesting to mention.

The OST is definitely not as good as the first game's. The palace theme is great and iconic due to it appearing in Smash Bros but that's about it. Every other song was okay at best to me. Nothing, not even the palace theme comes close to being iconic as the overworld theme in the first game.

All in all, while some of the mechanics like leveling up and Link's new swordplay are interesting, it doesn't change the fact this game is just a brutal, bullshit mess of a game. I said it before and I'll say it again, it's hard for the sake of it and just don't like games that do that. It also doesn't help that no other mainline Zelda game that I've played is like this lol. There are some Zelda elements here and there, but this really doesn't feel like a Zelda game to me. I'm glad I finally played this and got it off my bucket list, but I certainly will never be playing this again.

I didnt really like my time with Zelda II. I thought the sprite work was pretty good and the soundtrack was nice. I liked how npcs in town could give you little hints and I thought the skill points were a cool concept. There were three skills you can use your experience on, those being melee attacks, magic, and health. Unfortunately, outside of those things most of the game was either just eh to straight up bad.

The items you obtain throughout the game were really lackluster, and you dont get any new weapons so the combat from the start of the game is practically the same as the end (outside of link up-air, down-air, and spells (not worth using outside of one dungeon)). I didn’t like how cryptic progression was, sometimes if you wanted to progress you had to find a random tile on the world map to continue (finding some of the key items or finding a npc). This game also has random encounters which sucks, but atleast you can dodge them sometimes if you are fast enough and sometimes you can even get a fairy which will restore your health fully.

I thought combat was alright until I started fighting enemies with shields and projectiles. Enemies with shields were very tedious to fight against since they counter your only attack. Enemies with projectiles were the WORST since you can’t really counter it effectively. Later in the game enemies would have both shields and projectiles which was abhorrent to deal with. If you are at full health and can use your blade beam, it would not help at all since most enemies were straight up immune to it which sucked. The bosses were bad but the second to last boss was TERRIBLE because it randomly shoots out a ton of projectiles that are difficult to react to and you are required to waste most of your magic so you cant heal during the boss.

el dicho de "segundas partes nunca fueron buenas" se aplica perfectamente a este juego. la fórmula del 1 era muy buena, y en el 2 entiendo que estaban intentando innovar y explorar otros sistemas, pero no entiendo por qué cuando ya habían creado uno que funcionaba a la perfección. es un coñazo, pero al final es cierto que te acostumbras a los nuevos controles. aún así me alegro que la saga permaneciera con el sistema del primero y desechara este rollo de plataformeo y encounters porque madre de dios qué suplicio.

Ah... esse jogo. Como começar a falar dele?

Esse é o polêmico e exótico Zelda 2 de NES, aquele famoso Zelda de plataforma com alguns elementos de RPG. Pensa que esse jogo toma um rumo completamente diferente de qualquer Zelda lançado até hoje, realmente sendo uma experiência bastante esquisita e diferente. E se o seu antecessor é datado, esse talvez tenha sofrido as sanções do tempo pelo menos umas 3 vezes mais, sendo um game extremamente complicado de se zerar sem um guia ou ser ler o seu manual.
Mas o motivo de eu ter desgostado e muito desse título não foi somente sua fórmula diferente, na verdade isso não quer dizer muita coisa, visto que tem gente que curte o jogo por causa disso, eu só acho que ele teve algumas decisões bastante duvidosas e que ele é limitadíssimo.

Admito que vai ser um pouco difícil estabelecer uma ordem ou padrão pra abordar as decisões que esse jogo tomou que não me agradaram, então vamos começar do início. Ao ter o controle do personagem, o player se vê em um game do estilo plataforma, mas logo depois é apresentado a um mapa top view no estilo Final Fantasy com... random battles? Sim, esse jogo também é famoso pelas suas esquisitas e repetitivas random battles, que inicialmente podem até parecer inofensivas, mas mais pro meio do jogo percebe-se que elas estão lá somente pra encher linguiça, estender seu tempo de jogo e tirar sua vida e magia.
Outra coisa bastante repetitiva são alguns trechos aleatórios no mapa top view sem indicação alguma em que o jogo muda para o estilo de plataforma de novo. Isso na verdade é totalmente compreensível, visto que realmente dá uma sensação de progresso muito maior do que só um mapa top view, mas o problema é que elas no geral são muito parecidas e repetitivas, sendo uma ideia bacana que só foi mal executada mesmo.

Aqui as dungeons são palácios, e sinceramente isso foi uma ótima ideia pra época, até porque achei a curva de dificuldade deles bastante coesa. Mas é aquela coisa... ache tudo o que tem direito para buffar o link, se não passar de um palácio vira uma tarefa semi-impossível. Eles poderiam ter mecânicas próprias ao invés de parecerem os mesmos, só que com inimigos mais fortes, mas a real é que eu nem poderia cobrar tanto assim desse jogo, afinal, o primeiro Zelda não fez isso, e esse até tentou ser mais fora da curva, essa era uma ideia em ascenção, então apesar de ter dado uma datada cabulosa, reconheço seus méritos. Pra não mentir, o jogo até tenta fazer uma mecânica diferentona de ao invés de usar elevadores, cair de buracos para seguir no palácio, deu pra ver realmente que eles estavam flertando com novas ideias.
Mas apesar de depositarem bastante os esforços nisso, vamos convenhar: Os palácios desse jogo dataram bastante. Salas muito parecidas, salas inúteis sem nada, e claro, os malditos pisos falsos são coisas que fizeram esses palácios apanharem bastante das sanções do tempo, o pouco que se salva deles é a curva de dificuldade coesa, como disse lá atrás. A energia e a estrutura labiríntica podem agradar algumas pessoas também, mas para mim algumas sessões de labirinto só me fizeram enjoar mais de cada palácio.

A gameplay desse jogo infelizmente é bastante... triste, vamos colocar dessa forma, e não era para ser assim se aumentassem uns 3 pixels da espada do link, é serio. O combate desse game é bastante simples: ande, pule e bata, o que pra ser sincero é bastante funcional. Mas puta que pariu, que vontade de arremessar o controle na parede quando o link bate e não acerta, e um pequeno spoiler pra você que pretende jogar esse game: Isso é MUITO frequente. A espada desse puto é bizarramente curta, não posso sequer chamar isso de espada, tá mais pra uma adaga, um toco, sei lá, e isso na minha opinião cagou a gameplay de uma forma bem pesada.
Ah, e não posso deixar de citar os cagados pulos semi pixel perfect... Se você jogou você sabe do que eu estou falando, o lance é que há alguns pulos que parece que o link não consegue fazer, mas ele consegue, só que são extremamente difíceis de se acertar. Bom, pra ajudar temos uma magia de pulo nesse jogo, mas o MP é extremamente escasso, e confia em mim, você não vai querer jogá-lo fora em um pulo que é possível de se fazer normalmente.

Enfim, deu pra ver o que eu penso sobre esse jogo, e me perdoem fãs e defensores de Zelda 2, mas esse é o game mais fraco de Zelda que joguei até agora, e não vejo como algum outro da franquia consiga ser pior que esse, pelo menos na polidez. Sim, é um jogo que tem seus méritos, como uma trilha sonora bastante clássica e que deu origem a temas consagrados na franquia e uma história que era muito rica e complexa pra época, mas em termos de gameplay e experiência o jogo apanhou feito boneco de judas. Aos fãs da franquia, se forem jogar já preparem o detonado ou desbrave o manual do game, e pra galera que não liga tanto pra Zelda esse certamente não é uma boa porta de entrada ou um must to play, então se você não curte uns jogos mais barra pesada, talvez ele não seja para você.

Decidí abrir por fin la Game And Watch de Zelda que Nintendo sacó hace unos años con 3 títulos de la saga: The Legend of Zelda, Link's Awakening y por último el infame Zelda II: The adventure of link. Y debo admitir que su fama es más que merecida.

Para empezar, a parte del universo y dos o tres elementos característicos de la saga, Zelda II rompe con la forma de su predecesor (que amo muchísimo) para volverse una especie de Castlevania.

Sí, un Castlevania, el combate contra enemigos es del mismo estilo (pero mucho más cruel) y se nota que bebe mucho de Castlevania II (teniendo un mundo en el que vas de localización a localización combatiendo contra enemigos por el camino). Además, siendo ya los Castlevania de NES, juegos que requieren práctica, al lado de Zelda II se convierten en un mero chiste. La última mazmorra no se la deseo a nadie (ni voy a negar que acabé por verla por YT).

No sé que llevó a Nintendo a cambiar la fórmula del Zelda original, tan sólo me alegro de que esta fuese la entrega que les hiciese recapacitar.

I'm not going to mince words here, this is by far one of the worst, most frustrating games I've ever played. There are plenty of NES games that have stood the test of time and remain playable and fun till this day, still regarded as classics of the medium.

This game isn't one of them.

This is cock and ball torture.

The biggest problem this game has is it's enemy design. Enemies hit hard, fast and randomly, seldomly giving you a chance to get a clean strike on them. You'll almost never escape an encounter unscathed.

I had a brief moment in the game were I was enjoying myself, having just finished the first Palace and gaining my first item, the candle. Now I could finally explore dark caves! Then I got to Death Mountain, probably the hardest section in the game and the frustration began anew. Even though you'll progress and "grow stronger", you never feel like you're well- equiped for the journey ahead.

Glad this one's over with.

I love the Zelda series and for the longest time, I was always curious about this game. It is certainly the black sheep of the series thanks to drastically different gameplay and general negative reception. I don't think this game is bad but it isn't up to par with the other entries in the franchise. It continues the trend of NES sequels that are noteworthy or polar opposites of their predecessors. This game is hard and has certain aspects that suck like how short Link's sword is. I didn't want to hate this game since everyone else was so harsh; I think it has some good ideas I wish were explored more in other games but sadly this game does not do them just and comes across as the weakest entry in the series.