There comes a time when a game must have a sequel due to it's popularity. I have seen some pretty good games out there, and some fair sequels, and some interesting sequels of sequels. Some, however, seem to make three really good games, then sell out with mini-game filled nonsense. A good example of this is Rayman. Three good games, then the Rabbids came *face of utter anguish* some more examples, although not entirely within the formula, are the Crash banicoot and Spyro games. Three great games, then the magic of the series seemed to have vanished. Luckly, such games as Castlevania, Super Mario Bros, and MegaMan rocket through that accursed three mark and become legendary gaming titles....although Super Mario Bros did suffer from some of these games, but recovered.

And what of the Zelda series? Well, they never got passed the third game. Technology, the furthest this game ever got was the second game: The Adventure of Link. So I don't count it in the formula. It doesn't matter anyway, as this series became a legend among legends in gaming history. So I am looking at the Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. It was a sequel to a pretty awesome game, so they were bound to make it pretty different to the first one. Some people call it a fun game, while others say it's too different and far too hard. Is it a flopper? Does it live up to normal Zelda standards? Get your green tunic on and grab that sword as we venture into The Adventure of Link.

A thing worth noting is that this is quite possibly the first and only full sequel to the Zelda games this series will know. It is the last game chronology. All the other games are either prequels, sequels of prequels, prequels of prequels, prequels of sequels, sequels of prequels that are at the beginning of prequels in a parallel universe, or prequels of sequels were the end leads to a sequel but in fact makes it a prequel to a prequel. But never just "a sequel". The timeline for the Zelda games is pretty screwed up. If you want a puzzle that's unsolvable but somehow seems solvable, and you want to keep yourself busy for the next three years, try piecing together the Zelda timeline. Tell me what you come up with when you done =P

Altogether thing to note is that this was one of the very few games to come out in a gold cart for the NES. Only three games had that honor: The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and Nintendo World Championships. Although the grey for the Zelda game is considered rarer as that was made after the gold carts and the marketing for them were more limited. Only three games? There has to be more. Surely there can't be just three selected games out of the 800 that were produced with the label on the gold carts....

Ok, onto the game. The story is that several years have passed. You are the same link, only 16. Impa tells you that Zelda has been cursed by a sleeping spell....only this Zelda has been sleeping for hundreds, possibly thousands of years....so what happened with the Zelda you saved in the first one? Impa gives you a chest with six crystals in it, and a piece of paper, which has writing that only the future king of Hyrule can read. Link can read it, so that must mean he's the future king. You must place the six crystals in six palaces to break the seal of the Great Palace and retrieve the last Triforce, The Triforce of Courage. This is were the Triforce of Courage originated, but why wasn't it in the first game? And why is it mentioned in all the prequels? If Link was the holder of the Triforce of Courage, then why does he have to go through all this in this game in order to get it? Although I like how they call it "The Adventure of Link", at least we know what it's about. The Legend of Zelda today is that she has been sleeping for hundreds of years. Some Legend.

And so your off! The first thing you notice is that it seems to be a side scrolling action game, but when you leave the temple, you'll see that the charm of Zelda is still there with an over view area to explore. Now nice ^^   They even have a road for you to follow. Like I'll follow that. I want to explore the area *runs into an enemy* Oh how very Paper Mario! The enemies appear randomly whenever you are off the yellow road. If they touch you, you enter a fight as a 2D platformer. At first, you'll fight things like bits (they're like little blob things, almost like slimes of Dragon Quest), and they give off exp. Once you get enough exp, you level up. You don't exactly choose what you level up in, you just either choose to level up, or don't. You can either take less damage from enemies, use up less magic, or make your sword stronger. Oh, and by the way, the sword does shoot lazer beams when your health in full ^^     But it's almost useless. It has terrible distance and doesn't work on all enemies. In fact, it only works on a few enemies. Way to go Nintendo =(

At first, there are only two towns you can go to.....and they're tiny! A lot of people have said this, I know, but honestly. Does Link shrink when he gets there? Or does the whole world grow? The towns folk must be terrified of new visitors. Anyway, the towns folk give you advice....or at least, a few of them do. Some just say "Hello!" as if you aren't on an epic quest to save Hyrule. Some heal you, some require an item, and some even give you a spell to cast. This can range from a simple shield spell to reduce damage, a spell which can make you jump higher, and a spell.....that can turn you into a fairy? What the....? This can't be real I-*activates Fairy Spell* Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! ^^    This guy that gives you spells looks a lot like the old man that gave you the sword in the first game. Does hitting him do anything? *Stabs old man* Awwww.....nothing. There's also this nice guy called "Error". Yeah, that's his name. Some people have speculated that his name isn't really Error, only his real name had a bug in it, which is why it reads Error. Some people think his name really is Error. What an odd name to call a child. He is needed later to talk to, so maybe he's called such an odd name because people will remember that name when it comes round to talking to him again.

you can also read the signs to know what town it is. I just read them because I can't cut them up yet =P     Wait......Water Town of Saria? Isn't she the Forest Sage? Town of Ruto? But that's the Zora Princess. Town of Nabooru? These towns are named after the Sages in Ocarina of Time. Where's the Town of Impa? Maybe this game inspired the Ocarina of Time.....Ok, chronology that doesn't make sense, but that';s what happens when you don't have a straight timeline. Maybe the Sages had towns named after them as a customary thing....or maybe Nintendo really did think about future games and prepared with this reversed-cameo styled town thing.....could that be possible?

Some things aren't explained properly like in the first game. People are telling me to get a candle, so I'm going back and forth towns to get this candle, as I'm told to go west, but the candle isn't in that town, so I go back. I talk to everyone again, and no new lead. I then say screw it and go to the first palace in the desert. I'll find the candle later. So a palace is like the dungeon of the first game. You have no map, no compass, and almost no sense of direction when you enter it first. So time to put this to the test. To the right all the time. This should help. The difficulty is taken up a flight of stairs at this point. You have these skull orbs that take a million hits to kill, these skeleton thinks that require you to duck to kill them, and then these orange knights that charge at you. These are called Iron Knuckles, and are a force to be reckoned with. They can block your attacks, and can still hit you. I find myself madly attacking high and low trying to kill them. they are murder the first time you meet them. So here's an easy way to kill them. Simple jump at them, and attack normally as you come down. That always seems to land a hit on the damn things.

I found the candle in this palace. Why didn't anyone just tell me? So much time could be saved, so many lives could beprevented from dying if people just gave a straight answer! Although it's not really in the spirit of an RPG game. Same deal with keys. You find a key, you unlock a door. There's a boss at the end of every dungeon, which aren't that hard to begin with. Most of their patterns are fairly easy to remember. The only problem with this is your bound to get a game over. This tells you "The Return of Gannon", which doesn't make any sense. But I later realized that if the followers of Gannon sprinkled Links blood over Gannons ashes, he would come back to life. That's pretty dark for an NES game. But getting a game over is a real pain, because if you choose to continue, your all the way at the beginning again! You still have your items, but your all the way back at the Temple with Princess Zelda. So you have to make your way back to the Palace and get back to the Boss room. At first, it's ok, but as you get further and further in the game, you have to travel further and further to get to the next Palace. Your going to be really annoyed when you get to the fourth and sixth Palace. What was so wrong with the first game, were you could re-spawn at the beginning of a dungeon?

When you defeat a boss, you get to put the crystal in the statue of the Palace....is that an Easter Island statue? Pop the crystal in and you get your health and magic fulled up, along with a level up! Then, when you have collected everything important in the Palace, it'll turn to a stone block and you are unable to go back in. Some items are only useful to get to the next Palace. There are these boots that can let you walk on water. pretty cool, huh? Well, you can only use these boots to walk on certain water, all to only go to the next Palace. You can walk on some other water around the bay of this Palace, but any other water source won't let you walk there. This is really annoying, as it could be used to walk over thin bits of river and save a lot of time in some places. Which reminds me. When all else fails, use fire. You can use this by pressing the A button in front of a piece of forest. This is needed later. I'm telling you, as you wouldn't be able to work it out with the information you were giving. I'm also annoyed with the fact you can still get hit and die when reading a sign or collecting an item.

The music in the game is pretty amazing. The title music is sweet and is worth listening to, while the over world music is a great tune to listen to as you explore, but is often interrupted by the random enemies that spawn off the road. So you might want to just listen to the whole thing by standing still. The music gets odder as you listen to it, but you never get bored of it. The temple music is a timeless classic, and is too on you won't get bored or annoyed of. I don't know how they do it. The graphics were pretty good at the time, but not nearly as good as some of the Mega Man games. The controls are slippery. Normally, this won't matter, but when your near a cliff next to some water or lava, you'll want to think twice before making that jump, especially if there's an enemy on the other side. When you learn to thrust your sword down, then the controls are easier to manage as you can kill then as you jump (and even skip some with a degree of skill ^^).

But all the difficulty in this is nothing compared to the last Palace. It is so hard, and a bit unfair that there are invisible floors you can fall through. I was lucky enough to make it to the end.....*gasp*.....erm.....I'll just let you find when you get there. I'm surprised at how much strategy you can have in this game. I'm a normal reckless fighter and just jump right in and hope for the best. But in this game, I realized that I need to do things a little differently in order to defeat this game. Doing something a little different have a huge impact on the outcome.

Overall, I give this game a 8.3/10    Some sequels suffer from two things. Either they are too similar to the first game, which makes people feel like they are playing the game game again (an example of this is the MegaMan games. Pretty much the same thing, only with little gimmicks to make it seem new). Or they are too different from the fist game, making people feel like they are playing a completely different game (a good example is the fist and second Rayman game, or the second and third, for that matter. An even better example is Red Steel I and Red Steel II). To get a fine balance of a different game play, but with the same charm and feel of the first one is no easy task. In fact, very few games have ever done this correctly (Castlevania II Simons Quest is one of them, but only just). Some people think this game is too different from the first one, but I disagree. Sure, it might not be like the first game, but the fight scenes topped over the overview of the world marks as a nice way of keeping the charm of Zelda, but trying something new at the same time. The RPG aspect of it is just the same as ever, and retrieve great satisfaction upon (yes, I have completed it). In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing a Zelda game similar to this one. This game is unique for a number of reasons. Most of them are pretty good.

I have come to realize that I know why it's called The Legend of Zelda. It is just that.  A Legend. It explains why the time line is so messed up. All of these games are stories. Different interpretations and variations of the same story. Like the one with the Ocarine, or the time Link split into four, or that time when a Skull Kid got control of a very powerful mask, they are all different ways the stories are heard. Which one is real is based on the perspective of you. Sure, you can piece together the time line if you want - and go insane in the process - but in the end, the legend of how Link saved Zelda will still be a legend, and the legend lives on. That is the Zelda Series.

I got to say you did a pretty good job, and in some respects surpassed my review. You went into more detail about several things, particularly with the story which I only briefly touched on. I also like what you were trying to do with the introduction, and that's largely what kept me hooked. It was a little clunky the first time I read it though, but it was still pretty good. It was a little cluttered at times and some places it rambled unnecessarily in some sections and some sections you sort of glossed over entirely (like no mentions of visuals/audio, and very little on controls), but on the whole...I really liked it, keep it up 

Redrunelord : =0 How could I forget about the music and graphics? Thanks for the constructive criticism! I'll have to add a paragraph about the music, graphics and controlls, as they really are something worth mentioning. And maybe redo my Megaman 2 reveiw while I'm at it.

I hated playing this game.  It was so hard and I had no idea on what to do in the game.  Good review though.

This game was hard but I liked it,nice review.I think you should get the RGR job so that way you can be a game reviewer

starwars293 : He already is one. LOLS

Marcmoney : I agree this is not really a fun game that I would say. I have to grind like a crazy man more than anything else to get anywhere. I really do not like this game that much.


Good review!