The Legend of Zelda II
The original Legend of Zelda for the NES was quite revolutionary. The game was pretty simple however your mind could not be on simple mode. Zelda games were certainly not mindless games, you had to have decent puzzle solving skill to stand a chance of progressing through the games. Though Zelda 2 was very different it did not lack difficulty and puzzles. I guess I should give the developers some credit for that however I was quite disappoint on the which the game played.
The mistakes the developers made may of been triggered by the sudden craze of precision platform games. It would be a good guess to say that the developers were afraid of the Super Mario Bros series, it look as though the original Legend of Zelda game was being forgot about buy those who owned an NES.
If you have played Zelda 2, you will know that it is not exactly a platformer though it does have the odd platform element from time to time. I think the main change was the fact that most of the games perspective was 2D and Side Scrolling. This annoyed me and many other Zelda fans, this was certainly not what we were expecting and this was certainly not what we wanted.
Graphics
This is possibly the only high in the whole game. When you take a look at the work gone into this game graphic wise, it is quite acceptable. Out of all of the NES games I have played this game is near the top of the list graphics wise. Though the glory only comes in the side scrolling sections in the game. There were so many different textures, colours and detail crammed into this 8-bit cartridge that only Super Mario Bros 2 and some of the later NES Mega Man games can beat.
Unlike the original Legend of Zelda game, Link's sprite was quite detailed. This is where the side scrolling came in handy. Because Link was close up to the screen you would expect more detail than in the first Legend of Zelda where throughout the whole game he was from a distant top down view.
Unfortunately the top down sections in this game look terrible, they should of at least used the same sprites in Zelda 2 as the did for the original Zelda. But no, the developers insisted that everything would be new and unfortunately what was new in this over world was really bad. Everything looks really scrappy and almost half finished. It is embarrassing for the developers but I can compare some over worlds to consoles before the NES.
Personally I feel the developers of Zelda 2 could of done so much more with the game, in graphics and in general. They knew that the original Legend of Zelda was a master piece so fans of the original were waiting desperately on them to release something twice as good. Graphics wise and in general, the opposite happened.
Sound
Some of the game's music is actually really nice. I may hate the song in the room with Zelda and the overworld theme (they are almost the same) but the majority of the temples contain some really nice tracks. I really like the music for the first temple / level, it could be the games peak. I find myself tapping along to that or humming, when I am not concentrating. Unfortunately I do not often get time for that because the game is ever so tough, requiring concentration almost all of the time. That is why I have said before that it is not a mindless game.
The sound quality is just what you would expect from an 8-bit console like the NES. It is all quite average and predictable quality wise but I really like the Ganon laugh, well I did until I saw it over 1000 times. It sounds quite realistic and at the time of the NES there were very few games that had voice recording in it because the Ganon laugh sounds as though it was done in that method.
All in all the music is good, almost the best thing about the game.
Gameplay
Again I am going to moan on about how much I really do not like the fact that it is a side scrolling game. I just am confused why they would pretty much change the Legend of Zelda genre all of a sudden, though it was the second installment to the series and the second around back then so there was only one game to compare it to. To me it feels like an extremely difficult Castlevania and if you have played Castlevania already then you will know it is really tough anyway.
The difficulty in this game is intense, I would predict that even the Zelda MLGs will find this tough. I will have to admit that the first 2 areas of the game are relatively easy but by the time you reach Death Mountain the game turns from fun to difficulty hell. There are so many really annoying enemies. For instance there is this knight looking thing that throws axes at you and since your jumping height is very limited it is quite impossible to avoid them. It may not be the hardest part in the game but it is the hardest part in the game because at that stage you will have little or no magic, health power ups and other items that help you progress. Don't even get me started on how impossible the final boss is!
Aside from the difficulty there are other irritating things about this game. It sort of reminds me of pokemon how you are just walking around in the wild and then suddenly you're in a battle, well the same thing happens in Zelda 2. At any time in the overworld the odd shaded creature will come out from nowhere and chase you. Annoyingly it is not like modern Dragon Quest games where you can actually run away from wild enemies but in this you're in a battle within seconds of them appearing on the screen. Battles are fun for a while but since every time you die in the game you must go back from the bed where Zelda is at in the beginning of the game, it becomes really annoying because you will have to do it time and time again until you just can not be bothered to play the game anymore. Yes that is what the suffering of boredom and repetitivity does to you.
To be fair there is so much that this game offers compared to the original Legend of Zelda. I mean it has so many game modes, that is if you wish to call them that, that this game offers. It is an action RPG however it is also a side scroller so they deserve a bit of credit for cramming in so much. This may explain why the graphics were so bad in the over world because they had to keep the file size down so that the console could actually hold the capacity of the game. Though it would of been wise to get rid of some of the towns because lets be honest, most of the people there are useless pieces of crap. Remember the guy who says "I am error" and the woman who says "Sorry, I do not know anything", not needed Nintendo...
Luckily Nintendo did learn from their mistakes. Imagine what a Link to the Past would of been like if they did not. I really do not want to think about it because we all know how great the Legend of Zelda Link to the Past is don't we. I guess I and we can say that this game was more experimental to see what the gamers wanted so they could shape the rest of series. Or it could've been just different from the rest a little like how Majora's Mask was, however Majora's Mask was much better in my opinion.
Thank you for reading my review of The Legend of Zelda II. I hope you enjoyed this and if so feel free to rate it. It is also helpful if you gave your review on my review, this is just so I can improve because I really want to grow to be one of the top reviews on this site. Also if you have any suggestions, please let me know. That is also very helpful to me because I occasionally run out of review ideas.
Have a Nice Day!
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