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 RPG element was actually one of the few things I can praise about this game. I thought it was pretty it was 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.