Submitted 5 months ago by TORFdot0@lemmy.world to retrogaming@lemmy.world
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I’ve been determined to finally beat Zelda II and determine that I would do it without save states and without a guide.
I know Zelda II is considered a black sheep somewhat but I really think in some ways it’s more fun than the original although I’d still pick Zelda 1 over II.
One of my proudest moments as a child was beating this game. Incidentally, fighting the end boss was the first time my parents caught me swearing.
That game is impossible. I can’t believe how many people in the comments say they’ve beaten it. I never beat it as a kid, and when I tried it again on the switch a couple of years ago, I still couldn’t make it very far.
Yeah it’s tough as nails, you need to grind to progress.
I never beat it as a kid either. I barely played it. I thought it was cryptic and punishing, although 9-year-old me wouldn’t have used those words. Just a simple “This game is dumb.” worked.
In fact, I thought it was pretty universally reviled. I’ve since learned that this is due the to fact that a child’s gaming social-sphere in the 90s could be quite limited.
About 5 years ago, glancing across a bookshelf, a certain game cart happened to catch my eye. I couldn’t tell you why it was this particular game cart that my attention ;) but I really started to think about it. I don’t actually know anything about Zelda 2 (other than “This game is dumb.”). So then I thought, maybe it wasn’t for kids. Nine-year-olds are pretty ego-centric. The NES was one of our toys. No adults were playing these things. Did I mention my social-sphere?
It then occured to me: I’m a blank slate. I know next to nothing about the progression, the map, or anything. Of course along the way, I found things familiar, and I knew things like >!Shadow Link was the final boss!< but I didn’t know >!how to cheese the Shadow Link fight!<.
So I gave it an honest, no-help-other-than-the-game’s-original-manual playthrough. Yadda-yadda-yadda, Zelda 2 is one of the best games on the NES, and in my book, that makes it one of the best games ever.
In hindsight, Zelda 1 is cryptic af. “The 10th enemy has the bomb”, “gumble gumble”, “shaka when the walls fell”, wtf? If you’d like to know what the 10th enemy thing is: >!hopefully someone below explains drop counts because I’m sure as fuck not going to!<. How was a kid or adult going to figure that out?
My Z2 playthrough took days, maybe 10, but my memory is fuzzy. I got pretty stuck >!looking for the mirror!< and I wondered around for a full day with no progress although I felt like I understood where the game wanted me to go. About halfway through the next day, I read the manual. I didn’t actually think when I started that I was going to do a no-help-other-than-the-manual playthrough. I thought of as a no-internet-on-an-80s-game playthrough. After the realization that the manual wasn’t outside help, I did use the internet for that. Well as soon as I learned >!hammers can chop down trees!<, I was on my way. The rest of the playthrough went smoothly, apart from being hard as fuck.
10th enemy has the bomb
They’re explaining how enemy’s loot isn’t totally random. If you kill nine enemies without getting hit and kill the tenth enemy with a bomb, you are guaranteed to receive more bombs from it.
Same. I played it on the switch maybe a year ago, and at first I didn’t understand the reputation for being tough, but after a half hour I was too frustrated to keep playing.
I beat it when I was 10
I was startled by how dated Zelda 1 is. I know, obviously it’s very old, but people talk about it as if it still holds up today… It doesn’t. Maybe I could try Zelda 2 now.
You could try this
From their description:
*Celebrating the 35th Anniversary since the release of the original Legend of Zelda on the Famicom Disk System on February 21st, 1986; and continuing over from the Zelda II Redux hack, The Legend of Zelda Redux (or Zelda 1 Redux) aims to tackle some of the odd designs and programming decisions from the original NES classic to revitalize and give new life to the beloved and cherished classic.
This hack tries to address a lot of points to make the game fit with the rest of the series (and Zelda 2 Redux) by doing some rebalancing and QoL changes, and also some visual flare into the game, without compromising the original game’s design.*
Thanks a lot, I’ll definitely look into that!
And also wow, that graphics hack actually looks pretty good. I don’t tend to be a fan of pixel art graphics packs, cause they make them look weird and smooth, but that one is well done.
It’s obviously nothing like a modern title but I don’t think that’s quite fair - it holds up in the sense that it’s fun, it has good combat challenge and exploration, honestly it does. You do have to overlook lack of QoL features and the fact that you basically have to read the manual, but I don’t think it’s fair to mark a game down for lacking those things. It lacks the puzzles, NPCs and stories of later Zeldas but it doesn’t try to have those.
the fact that you basically have to read the manual
This is no joke and deserves a bit of emphasis. NES games expect you to read the manual.
I did my first play of Zelda 2 about 5 years ago. I didn’t like it as kid, but I loved my adult playthrough. I will note that this was one of the games that I got stuck until I read the manual.
Another Z2 pointer, to anyone that wants to give it a go, is that you can logically “soft lock” the game with bad key management. It’s unlikely, but if you like to look for unintended orders to do game goals, it could happen.
It has the stories, but back in those days they were in the form of books and shit. Remember the original Warcraft like half of the lore was in the extra shit they released with it.
Zelda II is very much a product of its time. It lacks modern sensibilities even more-so than LOZ. I think the platforming and combat is more fun than the original but if you don’t like or have nostalgia for the way games used to be made, Zelda II will just get frustrating
Okay, perhaps not then. Thanks for the reply
Check out Golvellius: Valley of Doom. It was a Zelda clone, but I think it’s more fun than the original.
i am error
(but for real congrats!!) ❤️
Absolutely one of my favorite NES games!
If you liked this I highly recommend checking out Hoverbat’s PC enhanced port, Link the Adventuresome. It’s an enhanced expanded version of Zelda II that even has a second quest. Plays just like the classic with additional content on par with the original.
I still like that dumb game. Congrats!
“I love this dumb game” is the experience in a nutshell. Every time I’d get a game over and Ganon would do his stupid laugh I’d think I’m done and then go right back to grinding it out some more!
Congrats! It's good to see some Zelda II love. It took me years to beat this as a kid, and you bet your ass I got some tips from Nintendo Power lol. To this day it's still one of my favorite NES games.
I only ever saw the ending to this on a real NES because it was on a demo machine at Toys R Us and someone had a save right at the final dungeon. All I had to do was beat 1 dungeon and I won the game! 😋
There are game subscription services like Nintendo’s emulator, which is kinda the same thing except you’re renting many games at once.
Congrats! I know how brutal some of those hallway fights can be.
You have proved to be a real Hylian bean and a real hero!
I remember playing this as a kid and English not being my native language it was hard to decipher the text in the games.
Didn’t understand what they ment with: “if everything else fails, use fire.” Or something like that. I only understood fire and the rest was a mystery to me.
Played this for weeks and felt so victorious when I finally had beaten the game!
Hard as nails but such a great game.
I beat it a couple years ago and had to use so many save states running up to the last castle.
Congrats, that’s a major accomplishment. I’d put it on my resume.
I’ve never beaten the game, but I recently, FINALLY, completed Death Mountain. And I’m pretty happy about that.
You’re gitting gud. Keep going!
Congrats! I’ve beaten most of the Zelda games and this is one of my favorites. (I tend to like the quirky first sequels where they tried something different, even if it doesn’t quite work: Zelda 2, Mario 2 (USA), Final Fantasy 2 (Japan), Castlevania 2…)
Congrats!
Now I’m a child of the GameCube generation so i was never raised on any NES games. But man i really enjoyed Zelda2 after i used codes to mainly just reduce the damage dealt. That said i did also save state the hell out of it and have no regrets.
But funny enough i find myself thinking about Zelda 2 all the time and i wish they would take a crack at a Zelda game in its style with modern sensibilities
jesus christ man well done. I tried again on the switch about 6 months ago and just fuckin cant do it
I’ve been meaning to play both Zelda and Zelda II on Switch Online, maybe I’ll take a crack at them over Xmas break
how long exactly is your christmas break
This is one of the few Zelda games I haven’t completed yet. Someday.
Congrats!
Wow, I finished it with my SO last year - but in the last temple, we needed a guide (the map is wtf levels of traps and dead ends) and save states to retry the boss combo. We wouldn't have been able to finish it
Yeah the great palace is a crazy labyrinth. I spent my first set of lives just wandering and game-overed without making any headway, happened to fall through the floor on my second set of lives and lucked into finding the right way.
Apparently “down and to the right” gets you through all the maze-like parts of that game (except maze island)
This game rules
why would you pick Zelda 1 over Zelda 2 if you think 2 is more fun
Zelda 1 had better music, the second quest after you master it, and is still really solid.
What I was trying to say is, that at its highs, Zelda II is more fun at the original but considering from minute 1 to the end of the game, I would still take the first game as the better experience overall.
I remember a lot of grinding to be able to beat some monsters, but the game is really a legend imo
I did this too, on the GameCube collector’s edition. It’s hard but the difficulty didn’t feel unfair! It was so satisfying when I made progress. Honestly this is such an excellent game.
By the way, fans of Zelda 2 may well adore Star Tropics. it has a similar feel. Although it’s prettier, linear, and has more story, it also has challenging, rewarding combat. Your movement (and some but not all enemy movement) is on a grid and you can only move up/down/left/right and you can only face in those directions too, enemies deal contact damage, and you have mostly melee attacks so combat is a question of mastering a grid-based dance as you attack whilst avoiding damage. The soundtrack is wonderful too.
Congratz!!!
I remember this one. Yeah, that one was tough, I never bothered to pick it up again after I beat it. The og Zelda and LTTP for sure, multiple times, but not Zelda II. I mean, I remember liking it, but it just didn't scratch that itch the way the top-down adventuring style did, ya know?
That said, congrats! A hero is you!
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 5 months ago
You really are a hero. I got stuck in Death Mountain and just haven’t gone back. That is not an easy game.
TORFdot0@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I could never find Bagu and get Riverman to open the bridge to get that far as a kid. I actually found the hint accidentally trying kill the blue blob in town. Lol.
Zelda II definitely was one of those games where they made it hard on purpose to lengthen the game. I’m doing some research for my review of this game and the director admits as much.
mercano@lemmy.world 5 months ago
There was a lot of that in that era. Arcade games had financial incentive to be hard as players would tolerate to eat as many quarters as possible. The home ports carried this difficulty over, and many console originals picked up on it. (See Battletoads.)
thecrotch@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Death mountain is the hardest part of the game by a wide margin, weird that it’s like 1/3rd of the way through