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Zelda II: The Adventure of Link Game Review

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is a 1987 action role-playing video game developed and published by Nintendo for the NES. It’s regarded as the nadir of the franchise when in actuality it is a pretty good and interesting experiment.

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“I am Error“

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Yes, when this game was first released it fared well with critics and audiences, but nowadays it’s regarded as the black sheep of the Zelda franchise. It is derided for its different mechanics and gameplay elements. I disagree with that assessment as I find it to be a refreshingly unique entry in the series that aged so well for the most part.

Unlike the other games in the franchise, this one has a different perspective. As a bigger fan of side-scrolling than the top-down perspective, I did not mind at all this switch. In fact, I found it to be quite interesting. It took me a while to get accustomed to it, but eventually I did come to appreciate the game switching back and forth between the two as it made sense in the gameplay context – the top-down perspective is the overworld, but the side-scrolling perspective is introduced whenever you are in a dungeon, cave or town. This duality was quite clever indeed.

The latter mode holds most of the danger, but the enemies can attack you in the overworld too and then you have to defeat them in the other perspective. While this mechanic worked, it quickly grew tiresome as I was getting annoyed by being attacked by enemies constantly when I was just trying to reach the next area. But at least the enemies there were on the easier side of things.

The game has a much more complex combat system than its predecessor. Armed with a sword and shield, you must alternate between standing and crouching positions to attack enemies and defend yourself. This is the area where there was the most improvement and this is by far the highlight of this installment. It’s such a complex system that felt genuinely modern and way ahead of its time. It’s frustrating that Nintendo is not getting the credit that they deserve today for inventing such an advanced combat system back in 1987 when they so deserve it.

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The combat is amazing, but the issue lies in the difficulty curve that is extremely high. I beat this game thanks to save states, but even that way I had a lot of trouble with many of the toughest bosses. For instance, the Iron Knuckle. This guy is insanely tough! He changes the height of his attack and also his defense constantly, making for an extremely difficulty fight whenever I stumbled upon him. It requires both quick reflexes on your part and careful observations of his movements. But Link can jump in this entry, which did significantly help with those tough bosses. Not only can you learn additional moves (using swords in midair) that help you fight bosses more easily, but you can also entirely evade them if you jump on them and over them.

There are also magic and special items that can be acquired in those towns and villages that you encounter on the overworld map. I liked this concept quite a bit. You can talk to NPC townspeople and some even require that you do a side-quest to unlock a certain item. Getting those items can be extremely helpful and sometimes even necessary to further progress through dungeons and their final bosses. There are also fairies that can heal you and you can use a potion to recover health as well.

You can even increase your attack, magic and health, which was very advanced for the time. This is the most RPG element of the game and it largely worked, though raising those levels required a lot of points, which led to a lot of grinding at times, especially toward the end. It was a bit frustrating, but achievable nonetheless. There are even certain containers that you have to find in order to be able to lift those meters. Those are scattered throughout the overworld and quite difficult to find without a map.

And that brings me to my next point – Zelda II is pretty much impossible to beat without using an outside map or tutorial. This is often the case with the NES games from this period, so I personally followed a YouTube tutorial closely and that way I was able to successfully conquer this adventure. It’s an extremely difficult game that was ahead of its time in that complexity, even being reminiscent of Soulslike games at times. I did find it too tough, but the gameplay loop eventually really appealed to me as making it through each dungeon alive was immensely satisfying.

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The plot is standard, though of course more complex than in most games of that period. Graphically, the game is a bit better than its predecessor, but not by much. It looks good for the time, but hardly artistic or memorable in its imagery. The sound, however, is excellent and the same goes for its very good score. The game also controls well and is intuitive. It has a reasonable length and its world building is quite solid.