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I played Zelda II: Adventure of Link. AMA


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10 hours ago, Tyranogre said:

 

Hate to break it to you, but Shigeru Miyamoto went on to have quite the successful career after Zelda II. He's developed dozens of games for a variety of Nintendo systems, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest game developers of all time.

...

 

... okay

 

but like

 

ASIDE from that guy.

 

From googling his involvement with the Zelda II, he's said in a 2013 interview that Zelda II was the first example of a "bad game" he could think of, and that he was disappointed in his involvement with it. I think I also read that it was made by a different team, so I don't know how involved he was after the design phase. But in classic Miyamoto fashion, the reasons he gives for it being a bad game completely miss the mark.

 

Does he cite the brutal difficulty? The grinding, backtracking, or instant deaths for bad luck? Nope. He wanted taller enemies and more changing perspectives. That's it.

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Over-hyping its faults or losing your skills and talents needed to play older games?

 

When the game was current, I never really hated on it.... I did find it quite harder than the first game but I also found it more expansive and trying out new ideas.  My only difficulty in going back to it now is I have lost my touch with navigating the swamp up to the final palace.

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48 minutes ago, purple_beard said:

Over-hyping its faults or losing your skills and talents needed to play older games?

I wouldn't say the second one--I've been playing video games my whole life, with lots of experience playing older games. And I can usually take on every enemy in Zelda 2 without much trouble, including the blue Iron Knuckles who shoot sword beams. I've developed my timing and reactions for these enemies, as well as figured out how their AI behaves and where the pixels are for hitboxes and AI triggers.

 

But there's nothing you can do when you enter a new screen, jump across a pit, and as you land an enemy leaps across the screen and knocks you down the pit. Or when a Wizzrobe spawns on top of you, or a second spawns as you're jumping over another enemy or obstacle. Or a hard encounter spawns on the overworld right in front of you and moving toward you.

 

Or even in the first third of the game, before the downward thrust--you need to get onto a lower platform, but a common enemy is moving back and forth. As soon as you land, the enemy darts toward you and you're hit.

 

Take almost any two enemies in the game. Put them on the same screen, and all the player can do is pray that their attack patterns aren't in sync.

 

... And that's just the combat. There are plenty of exploration-related points that no player would figure out without a guide. For example, knowing that in one specific house in the game, you can crouch in front of a table and press the attack button to get a necessary item. There is no indication that the player would ever be able to interact with that kind of background element, or in that manner, or on that specific screen which is identical to every other house.

Edited by Destiny Hero
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I beat it. I beat Zelda II: Adventure of Link. It's over. My childhood is avenged.

 

Blasted through the last temple unashamed of my constant save states, because this is one of those games that wasn't made to be finished. Very glad that we've shed that mentality.

 

Maybe I just got lucky that I didn't take many wrong turns at the end. Figured out the Asian ghost moth vampire whatever this is supposed to be, and then looked up some help for Shadow Link after getting killed three times without damaging him. Boy, imagine getting to replay the whole temple plus that other boss for that. Fun.

 

There are a few things to like about the game. Most of these things are the downward strike and Link's after-attack animation, and of course the feeling of putting this game down and never, ever touching it again.

 

Also, the ending scene reeks of the kind of sexism we are this close to eradicating, so that's really gonna keep me from ever thinking I'd want to finish another playthrough.

Edited by Destiny Hero
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