I loved Zelda 2 enough to notice there are some factual inaccuracies in this video… some that stood out the most: - Tears of the Kingdom wasn’t the first direct sequel of a Zelda game. Phantom Hourglass was a direct sequel to Wind Waker, and Spirit Tracks was a direct sequel to Phantom Hourglass. - You don’t collect the crystals from the palaces. You get all of them at the beginning and place them in the palaces. There’s a picture of Impa giving Link a chest with the crystals in it in the manual. - Square didn’t return the favor by putting Link’s grave in Final Fantasy. Enix made Dragon Warrior/Quest before Square and Enix merged, so it was a reference, not a reply
The "Here lies Link" thing could be viewed as both a reference and a reply. That line isn't in the original NES version of Final Fantasy. It came in later versions. I'm not for certain if it came about pre or post Enix merger though.
@@shockthetoast And Link's Awakening was a direct sequel to A Link to the Past. However, A Link to the Past got an even more direct sequel in A Link Between Worlds. Also the Oracle games are either sequels or prequels to Link's Awakening depending on the timeline version.
My mother made elaborate, hand-drawn maps for the default quest of *Zelda* -- she loved that game as much as I did. I remember coming home from school & waiting for her to get home from work so we could work on the 2nd quest together. That was '87-'88. I had to buy her a replacement NES in the early 00s so she could keep playing Zelda, & she still had it when she died last year. I am 45 years old & playing the Legend of Zelda with my mother in the 1980s is what kids call a "core memory".
That's awesome. I remember playing NES games with my dad, we beat Metal Gear back around 1990 when I was 9 or 10 years old. Another favorite of ours was River City Ransom. Also have strong memories of playing Zelda 1 and 2, Mike Tyson's punch out, Ninja Gaiden, Master Blaster, and several other NES games with my friends as a kid in the late 80's.
I love this comment. I thought I was the only one who played this game with my mom. Ten year old me and my mom playing this game until dawn, red eyed and extremely frustrated at the difficulty, while also basking in the rewarding feeling of partnering to complete a palace like this was a two player game are indelible memories that I will treasure for the rest of my days. Cool to know someone else knows that very feeling. Cheers!
God bless both of your dads 🥲 They are great men. I’m one of those dads as well and it is so incredibly life affirming to hear the next generation appreciate what we, at the time, experienced as earth-shattering, ground-breaking innovation and awesomeness.
My dad has never been big on videogames, but my mom used to try them a little. I loved this game and seeing Kung Fu Master in this video sure sparked memories! Those were the happy days of childhood.
OMG me too! Only it was a hand drawn map of the Zelda 1 over world. And he called the help line when he got stuck in 2 To funny. My brain still has the maps for 1, 2 and Link to the Past hard coded.
I have fond memories of this game. Yes it was darned hard trying to beat this as a child, but you kept going and learned from your mistakes until you were good at it. Then you beat it.
Yeah that was a somewhat painful but great experience. You were given the game with a manual containing the story and some basics, and the rest was left to you to figure out. Not exclusive to Zelda 2 as most NES games were made that way, but Zelda 2 stands out because of the difficulty and the amount of riddles and problems you had to solve.
My friends and I used to play this game and then share how we’d get past the hard parts. One friend would get clues from Nintendo Power, but we were all forbidden from calling the hotline. Good times
As an 11 year-old, it never explained to me what I was doing, beyond basic combat. I felt like there was something I needed to know but had no idea about. I never felt I was actually playing it. I had no problems figuring out any other popular NES game.
The insane difficulty worked heavily against the idea of exploration too. There are hidden things all over the map, but you'll only find them if you throw caution to the wind and start checking every tile. This is extremely dangerous in areas like the graveyard, so kids never did it, and they would miss some of the best stuff in the game. Games for kids should not actively try to discourage exploration like that.
Yeah exactly. Felt like taking a test without even knowing the subject matter. Used to get so freaking angry at this game until I finally threw it against the wall and broke it.
This. It's a real shame because I wanted to love the game. And with all those NPCs in the towns one should've given more practical advice/guidance to a new player.
The King set up 6 challenges that only the one chosen by the Triforce could clear. When Link clears one he sets a stone in the statue there to signify it’s been cleared and the barrier in front of the great palace weakens.
Right? There were a number of inaccuracies like this. Also it's not quite so linear. Many people go to Death Mountain and get the hammer and life spell before doing palace 2. There were a lot of technical inaccuracies.
At 3:10 the clue "Eastmost Penninsula is the secret" is actually a huge clue, and lets you complete the game while only getting the magic (12 heart) sword. At the very North East corner of the overworld map is a two screen penninsula, with a cave with an orc that bribes you ("It's a secret to everybody") with 100 rupees. It's one of the few, or maybe only, bribe that you can get without a bomb, flame, power bracelet, etc, and getting here with only 3 hearts and no weapon is difficult. Once you have the 100 rupees, you can buy a blue candle. This becomes your main weapon for a long time. You can use the candle to kill creatures that drop bombs. And then, you can use the bombs and flames to reveal more bribes and heart containers. You can then start clearing dungeons because some bosses were able to be killed with the bomb or flame. You can eventually get the red candle (cast more than once per screen) which REALLY helps you progress, and I THINK the bow and arrow. Eventually, you can get your 12th heart container and pick up the magic sword - never using the brown or white sword. At that point, it's fairly simple to clear the remaining dungeons and finish the first quest. And if you're really pro, you can do all of this without dying or getting either magic ring. (I played a lot of Zelda 1 as a kid)
My biggest memory of this game was finding a level where enemies would just spawn and fly at you. I had a controller with a turbo button so I just walked to the edge of that level, turned around and taped the button down. Then I went to bed. The next day when I got home from school, the game wasn’t so hard anymore. 😂
The first Super Mario Bros was so popular, & the original Zelda was so popular, the logical thought for Nintendo, was "turn Link into Mario." Proud to say I've beaten this game on original hardware!
Game Genie was available on original hardware. Just saying. I don't think they had any intention of turning it into SMB, especially since those games are drastically different. To even suggest that seems to indicate you've forgotten how experimental games were back then, and how even something as simple as a platform game was still being figured out (just look at the differences between SMB and SMB3).
Loved it as a kid.... all school kids were stuck at the end of the village where you had to cast spell to get the magic key. I remember finding it out by chance at a friends house. At age 9 video games were everything. This game gave me so much pleasure. I didn't have zelda 1 and I remember so many other kids ripping on zelda 2. I also had never had a game like this before and thuoght I was buying a platformer similar to wizards and warriors. At the beginning I was confused and disappointed, but after a week or 2 absolutely loved it. I also remember having a painful tetnis booster shot around that time. Playing it with a very stiff arm. The things we associate
Same here, so much so that I had wished they added a mini 2 player vs mode in the main menu that allowed you and a friend to square off with each other as link vs shadow link. For an 8-bit game the fighting mechanics were incredible.
I second that, it's funny how polarizing this game is, either people absolutely hate it or people absolutely love it. That's probably one of the games I did the most in my life, even 30+ years later I still beat this game at least twice a year, will never get enough of it
@@Glendaal_RAdude same here! I bust it out every year or so. And even after 35 years of playing it, I waste those enemies easier every time. F that jumping ironknuckle!!
This game hold the special distinction of truly being one of a kind. There are side scrollers platformers similar but they do not play like Zelda 2 at all that also has overworld and village elements. There are extremely well polished hacks out there like Amida Curse, Resurrection of Ganon, Shadow of the Night, Remake etc. Very well loved game to this day.
It’s more similar to games like Kid Icarus than LoZ which I think is brilliant. Action-adventure RPGs can be amazing if done well and none do it better, especially the combat, than Zelda II imo. The combat is literally perfect. It’s super tight and fluid in a way no other game is. It takes a lot of practice but once you get it down it feels very fair. Faxanadu and The Magic of Scheherazade are other really good examples too.
Zelda 2 is actually my favorite game of all time. It was my first Zelda game and the first game I ever beat. I don't really play video games anymore, but my daughter has a Switch, and I play this and Link to the Past every now and then. Zelda games are the only ones I'll still play.
I must have been 8 or 9 when i got this game and was able to beat it on my own. Games from this era were so hard. You had to be a gamer to beat these games.
Yeah back in school I was often the only kid who beat games without using cheats, often times people wouldn't believe me and I'd have to actually do it in front of them lol.
@@Waisted_Girdle Yeah, I refuse to do the duck int he corner strat (and I didn't even know about it until like 20 years after). That said while I did beat him fair and square several times I can't honestly say that it's a skill thing and more just a wail blindly and hope you get lucky thing. That said IIRC I had relatively good success by jumping, duck-stabbing just before landing, immediately jumping, and duck-stabbing before the sword reaches their 'upper' body. It still blocked it most of the time but it was far more successful than any other attack
the down thrust is still my favorite move. NO OTHER game has it. (DarkSouls and GoW can suck some linked balls) 5:02 it is not a failure. it is still one of my favorite game of all time; great rpg, great exploration, great story, great action.
I was maybe 7 when I got this game. I’ll never forget unboxing it and beholding that golden cartridge. I’ll also never forget just how punishing the difficulty was.
I bought at NES with paper route money in 1986 (I think). And I played and beat both Zelda 1 and 2. And while I like them both, I like Zelda 2 better. To this day, the music from Castle 7 is amazing. And for those inclined, search YT for reviews of the new Zelda 2 remake. And then go play it. The additions made by the designer make a fun game much more fun.
Without this game, we never would have gotten the CDI Zelda games (which used a similar, side scrolling design) I don't think anyone wants to live in a world without those wonderful cutscenes!
Exactly 👍 , , ""Legend of Zelda faces of Evil"" is a very underated game , yet the cutscenes look like someone on LSD tried to recreate the effect in a video game 😂😂 LoL
@@jhoughjr1 well Zelda 2 was a brave step forward , however the insane difficulty level just sucks especially because of vital important information deliberately hidden from the player , , , I mean after all an 8 year old kid is reasonably Smart in 1987 but there's no way they would have even a shadow of hope to defeat Zelda 2, , , I can't defeat Zelda 2 even today but I love it because of so much time I put into it attempting to beat it , and it's connection to the "Super Mario Bros Super Show" on TV when I was in elementary school , , , 🤔🎃🤔👍👍
@@prototype8137 CDI "Zelda faces of evil" is the only canon Zelda game even all the way to today in 2024 😂😯 some hacker should port it to a SEGA Genesis ROM just for fun and bragging rights 😎🏆👍👍
If you think about it, The Legend of Zelda is actually 2 games in 1. Regarding the 2nd quest, practically everything has been rearranged. The location of the Labyrinths and other needed items, like the swords, have been relocated, and the difficulty has been kicked up several notches. As for the Labyrinths, they too are much harder. Now, you must walk through walls, if possible, to obtain hidden secrets, items, and rooms. There are the Red Suns, as I call them, and they permanently disable your sword. That is, until you touch a blue one. And that could be a few screens away. I recall completing the 1st and 2nd quests when I was in my early teens. It was a long, treacherous, and dangerous road to the end, but in the end, I felt like I accomplished something I set out to do.
@@mathieudoucet1446 I know it is not Zelda II because that game has one quest and one quest only. If you actually took the time to read what I stated, you will discover that I was referring to the original LoZ.
@@verityvinyl8540 If you would have actually read the entire paragraph, you would have realized that I stated that. For your reading enjoyment, allow me to reiterate what I said. “There are the Red Suns, as I call them, and they permanently disable your sword. That is, until you touch a blue one.”
After playing it again as a 49 year old, with the help of walk through guides, maps, plus the Switch's ability to go back in time a few seconds to fix your mistakes, I don't know how I finished the game as a kid on a regular NES. Especially avoiding turning into an eggplant. Still love the game and is one of my favorites.
I remember getting a NES advantage, setting Link up at the edge of the screen where bats would attack, and putting a weight on the attack button with turbo on while I was at school to level up. Each bat was worth 2 XP. Good times!
I played Zelda 2 before Zelda 1. I thought Zelda 1 was very basic in comparison to the more complex XP and "heart / magic" system in play in Zelda 2. I think it's better in virtually every way.
I had a friend who felt the same way back in the 90s, that was the only one he liked to play. I like the game, sometimes more than the others but you want to play the Japanese version as ours is broken.
I still have my gold copy of Link and my NES. My Zelda copy is gray though because I had sold the gold one when I was little after my older brother sold his NES because I didn't have my own console at the time yet.
I liked Zelda 2 and actually preferred it to the original. It felt more alive and immersive. The first time I walked into a town and could interact with the PCs and enter buildings in that perspective, I was amazed at how alive it felt as compared to the original. I was a child and you have to look at the game in the context of the time. This was pretty new. It wasn’t until years later that I played Faxanadu, and if not for having played Zelda 2, I don’t think I’d have stuck it out and ended up enjoying that side-scrolling RPG.
Zelda 2 was one of the first games I ever had. I had a neighbor and over the summer we figured out most of the game. Down stab really helped to get through the bosses. We couldn’t figure out how to get to the last castle. Everyone from school I talked to had the same issue. I was in a store and saw they had a Nintendo magazine. I looked through it and it said to play the flute in the middle of the 3 rocks. Was able to finish the game. I swapped it with a guy from high school to try the original Zelda. He had maps and notes. Was able to follow and complete the game. He told me Link was too easy and didn’t like it. He couldn’t wait to swap it back.
I cannot stress how important it was to jump, hold the down button, and hit your attack button right at the mid-level of your enemy (to the toughest ones w/shields) was to my strategy playing this game.
From what I remember I couldn't get past a certain area because the town had invisible ghosts. And being young wasn't that fun constantly dying. But glad so many others liked it, cause i didn't
That town was Old Kasuto, once you discover New Kasuto which is hidden under a bush LOL in the top right of the bottom map, you get a spell that lets you see the ghosts in Old Kasuto. How I remember this I do not know LOL
My friend next door got this in summer of 1989. We didn't like it at first but started to get into it and eventually became one of my favorite NES games.
Its funny Legend of Zelda og was my favorite game by so much as a kid, and I was sooo confused why this game was so different. I think I was just too young/bad at games, because I couldnt get anywhere in this game at all. (That or just hated how different it was.) I am really glad you made this content because this question has been unanswered for me for 30 years.
Maybe because the next logical step was to create a sequel that felt like an upgrade? I remember playing the Zelda and did not necearily like the overhead view but somehow the game was engaging and better than a lot of the overhead games out there at the time. I then played Zelda II and the graphics or presentation definitely felt like an upgrade, the only major problem was that it was extremely difficult and that was the reason it was not as popular. Remember when Zelda II came out there was no franchise there was no overhead predetermined way games should be, it was only the second game so they could have taken it any way they wanted to, had the second one been more popular then the overhead one would have been the odd one out of the bunch and they probably would not have returned to that style for the SNES one.
I too resorted to the 1-900 hotline to beat Adventure of Link. It cost my dad $90 in 1989 money. The besting relented a tad after my dad realized it wasn’t a phone sex line, but $90 was $90 and a beating was compulsory at that price point.
As a huge open world RPG fan, I absolutely LOVED Zelda II. Its up there with the Final Fantasy series for me, its was THAT good. I spent so many hours playing that game.
Right! I loved gaining experience, those flying (kinda bouncing) skull things were the best, they gave you A TON of points & weren't that hard to kill (compared to the amount of exp pts they gave : )
Spirit skulls and gaming the palace xp reward mechanic were the way to go. You could walk out of the first palace with 7 swords in only a couple hours, and hit nine by level three without any obscene grinding. But it breaks the game, much more fun and challenging to follow normal progression.
I loved Legend of Zelda as a kid. When the second one came out, of course I bought it. And noticed right away how different and difficult it was. That didn't stop me from playing it. But I did want more of the same. Which is why Link to the Past was my favorite.
Same. I was a little guy when Zelda one came out and remember doing all-nighter game nights with my mom. We loved it so much we were excited when Zelda 2 came out, and when we bought it we were so let down. And we were a check to check borderline poverty family back then, so it was a serious investment buying NES games. Left a major bad taste in our mouths. Luckily every Zelda game since has been amazing
I got Zelda II for my birthday as a kid… all my friends came over and we played it for hours and couldn’t get past the second level. Over the next week I grinded away and didn’t make it very far so I quit and went to another game. I didn’t actually finish the game until I was an adult. This game was very challenging and in all honesty not very good. I’ve played through about half of the final fantasy series of games so I’m all about grinding but Zelda II was different… it was hard just to be hard instead of being challenging. Simons Quest, TMNT and Metal Gear were also surprisingly hard.
I remember getting Zelda 2 for Christmas when I was little and was SO excited, with the gold cartridge and everything, it was also impossible to get. But the game only worked a few times before the cartridge totally stopped functioning. I was so devastated and dreamt of it for weeks. It would take several months for my folks to secure another copy of it for me. Hands down this was one of the most iconic games of my whole life. Thanks so much for covering this. I loved that you mentioned Dragon Warrior also!!!
I beat Zelda too when I was eight years old. I loved it. It was and still is one of my most favorite games. I love the dark atmosphere, I love the lack of humor, I love how you explore and at the same time, you are driven forward. it was and still is a great game. I don’t know why people say it’s so hard. I was eight when I beat it. And that was before the Internet. So I couldn’t get online and look stuff up. I still remember when I got it. I came home from school and I see this golden Nintendo game sitting on my kitchen table with a note from my mom saying do my homework and then go and play. So I did my homework and house chores and other stuff and then I sat down to play and immediately I was hooked.
I remember playing "The Legend of Zelda 2" as a kid and thinking, "Why is this so different from the first one?" my favorites at the time were the Super Nintendo release in the Game Boy release.
I loved Zelda 2. It brings me so much nostalgia. The music, the graphics, the gameplay. It takes me back to 1988-1989. I could never beat it as a kid. I could only get past the first couple of dungeons. I played it again as an adult, and now I can beat it every time.
I got Zelda 2 with a NES for Christmas so it was my first game. Never played the first. I played the hell out of this game and loved it. It was difficult and frustrating, but I didn't have anything to compare it. My Dad was there when I finally beat it and I think he was more excited than I was. Loved this game, hearing the music is super nostalgic.
Zelda II broke my brain 😂 I was a live and die Zelda fan. Ordered Zelda II as soon as it could be ordered and, before I received my physical copy, got the latest edition of Nintendo Power featuring Zelda II… what a gaping chasm between my expectations for the game and what it actually was. By the time I received the copy (pre-ordered from Kay-Bee Toy Store) I was so profoundly disheartened it was worse than having the game at all. Suffice to say when A Link to the Past hit for SNES I was back in seventh heaven.
'the calliest of duties' floored. I appreciate this essay and respect Z2 a bit more for what they were trying to do here. My favourite might be Oracle of Seasons and Link to the Past but we got some good elements that had tier seeds in 2.
That was the first Zelda game I saw -- I played part of it at my cousin's house while visiting from out of state so I didn't play much of it. When I later played Link To The Past, to me it seemed like the world had shrunk from a country to a theme park. That's because in Zelda II, I interpreted the top down portions as a map mode with each tile representing a large area (based on how towns and encounters were entered), so I imagined it as a large country -- while what I saw in Link To The Past looked obviously literal, so the world must be small.
I played Zelda II for the first time in like 30 years (battery still works!) I started a new game, and like every other middle-aged adult who picks up this game again, Death Mountain was a breeze. First time, blew right through it, got the hammer, got $200, etc etc. Like every other kid in the 80s, Death Mountain was the bottleneck slog like the Marsh Cave for Final Fantasy. Somehow it got easier between now and then, because my gaming skills have not improved over the past few decades in the slightest.
I have a Zelda II that is over 35 years old and the battery "still works", but that's impossible. I think what's really going on is that it's a backup battery if power is lost during a save. The manual says to not turn off the power while saving and to hold the reset button down when you power off. It's likely that the battery is there to be a backup to the procedure.
I remember my brother and I sneaking into the Xmas wrapped game, taking it out, replacing it with an old game like Duck hunt. Binged the next 3 weeks that game was SO hard. But so worth beating if your age is single digits.
I could not wait for Zelda 2 to come out after playing through the first. I vividly remember the wait seeming to go on forever. The Official Nintendo Player's Guide had a partial walk-through in it but was out way before the game released in North America. I must've read through that thing thousands of times imagining what it would be like to play it. Every month when the new Nintendo FunClub Newsletter and then Nintendo Power for any updates on the "chip shortage" and when we'd finally see it in stores. When I played it I loved it and don't understand all the hate it gets as the Black Sheep of the series.
One of my favorite memories as a kid was me, my dad and my mom all having our own files on the OG ZELDA game and each of us beating it. I was hoping to repeat this with ZELDA II, but the changes were too radical to get my parents in to it. I have tried revisiting it a couple of times over the years, but I still can't get into it. It's not bad by any means, but definitely feels a bit clunky.
I just remember CONSTANTLY checking Toys R Us for Zelda II and it CONSTANTLY being out of stock. I think my Jedo (grandfather) finally found it for me for Christmas since his Christmas was Jan 7th, and the stores restocked and slowed down after Dec 25 Christmas.
The perspective expectation seems to be interesting here. Loads of people who say they didn't like Zelda 2 had played the first one and was expecting more of the same. Meanwhile those who love it are often saying it was their first Zelda game they played.
7:55 lmao it wouldn't have even helped! Can you imagine being the kid to call for the pre-recorded message to be like "use the downward thrust on the knights helmet" and being like "yeah but how do I get past these insane combinations of spastic enemies with enough life tho?"
I was 8 to 10 when i beat this game. I loved it from day one and still love it to this day. I came home from school when i saw this on the kitchen table. Mom left it and after homework, i was in love. I had my game systems hooked into our 14 speaker surround sound system with a 32 inch Sony monitor…..and this game was amazing on it. I loved hearing the laser sound of links sword loudly flying from one side of the house to the other. I became hooked. It was awesome. I spend many nights as a little kid startling on this game despite having an snes and genesis. This game was hard and captivating. I loved even as a kid, how empty and dark this world was. The castles were dark and sad, as if they weren’t just castles but, hiding some horrible mysterious events from the past. By the time i beat this game, shit……it was such an epic adventure that mom and I celebrated with ice cream. lol.
9:23 Exactly! Way too many people approach this from the completely wrong angle. They look at the list of Zelda games in 2024 and say "Huhhh, why did they make only this one different?!" But back in 1986 there was no such thing as "this is what a Zelda game is supposed to look like!" - There was only one. Nothing was set in stone. You could bring another good example for this entire topic: Super Mario World 2, which most people just call Yoshi's Island at this point. It's a complete departure from the original in almost every aspect but it ended up as one of the most popular SNES games of all time and sparked an entirely new series of its own. In way you could say that this even marked the beginning of the whole concept that Mario is not just a single franchise but a whole "family" of characters with their own unique games which has defined Nintendo as we know it today. And it only happened because people were willing to try something different.
This was actually my favorite game growing up, as I did grow up during the era. I loved the changes compared to the original, and since I have beaten almost every Zelda game made. I am actually replaying this one for the first time in 20 years
Your comment about incurring charges reminds me of the time that I called a game hotline dozens of times to get help on a PC game called Goblinssss. It was a kiddie game but had some hard puzzles. But I was in so much trouble because of the high phone bill. 😅
I remember when this first came out, i felt like it was IMPOSSIBLE to beat back then. I didn't play it for like 20 years, and then tried it again, and was able to beat it without too much difficulty. Knowing where you are supposed to go and what your supposed to do helped a lot, lol. When I first played it in the 80s though, i felt like it was just so difficult that it wasn't even fun. Now it's one of my favorite Zelda games of all time.
Fitting that it was set in the end of the Fallen Hero Timeline, it's kind of fitting. I wish I could get into Zelda 2 but let's just say that it's complicated as hell. Also the "Spell" spell has a secondary function.
Beating Zelda 2 required a repetition and perfection of the areas leading to shadow link I don't think I've seen since. The final journey was maddening but the payoff ticked a box that I look at to this day with pride. Also the cartoon ran with the SMB Super Show and Zelda was a hottie lol
My first experience with this game was a rental in the late 80s. No instruction manual, just saved game progress, and no clue what to do. A few years ago I gave it a good try and got to level 5. Very hard and frustrating game!
It's way easier to be a polymath spinning out seminal work when you're in an unexplored genre. You see this very beautiful spring-like feeling in new genres and music scenes as much as, being a late gen x'er, there was something special about these pixelated 'not quite real' but very iconic pieces of visual art with haunting eight bit music. This game, Dragon Warrior, Faxanadu, original Shadow Gate, even to a degree Double Dragon II, Bionic Commando, etc., there was a moodiness and whimsy to the production style itself that seemed to largely leave once games aimed for more mimicry of 3D worlds. The makers of the Game Cube Metroid series seemed to try quite hard to keep the awe, wonder, alienness, and even solitude of original Metroid, Ocarina of Time was also quite a special Zelda for 3D gaming, but past that it seems like the pursuit of realty in games lead more in the Grand Theft Auto direction - which isn't bad but it's the creation of a completely kind of environment and aesthetic and appealed to a different kind of gamer.
Zelda 2 is my favorite NES game and one of my all time Zelda games. I love how weird and difficult it is. And once you get the combat basics down, it can truly be fun and rewarding to figure out how to beat each enemy the most effectively. The game has much more replay value compared to Zelda 1 because of this.
I paid like $80 at the time for this game, got a bootleg from Canada at a local video store. Could not have been more excited. To this day I've never beaten it. The final run to the last palace is almost impossible and it requires perfection. Then the palace, then your shadow and then that last enemy. I threw many a remote at the TV on this one. I tried playing it again a few years ago and quit at the Island palace. Same frustrations, almost 35 years later. But I still think the game was groundbreaking in its story and visuals. I'm shocked to hear what the creators thought of it! It was though, way too hard. Then again, I found the final bosses in the last 2 Zelda to be too easy so....
As a little kid I loved this game! After playing this one first I later played the first one for the NES and was disappointed it didn't have such a cool fantasy world to explore. Zelda II took inspiration from the overarching fantasy epic movement in Hollywood at the time with movies like Willow, The Neverending Story, Conan The Barbarian, and The Dark Crystal.
Zelda 2 was the first game I bought with my own money. I absolutely loved it. Yeah, it was harder than the first game, but I enjoyed the changes and felt it really expanded on Hyrule and the whole story. It remains one of my favorite entries in the series.
I loved Zelda 2 as a kid. With Nintendo Power, the main challenge I had was the final dungeon. I usually burned 1 life getting there. If I had realized that you could continue from there, that would have made it a lot easier.
The shiny golden cart was so much at odds with how cripplingly difficult the game was. I remember downthrust and fighting a knight in a castle thats it. 😅😅
Beating Zelda 2 and Dragon Warrior in elementary school before any of my friends made me a rockstar. Lol. Now I'm a genX dad with a young son who loves retro games.
Not too bad of a production, despite a couple of errors. You've earned a new sub, though, because you put a lot of thought and effort into it! Zelda 2 was actually the first Zelda game I ever played when I was around 10 years old in the early 90s. Despite its difficulty, I had a really fun time playing it and I would rent it as much as I could from the local video store. I didn't beat the game until much later in my mid 20s.
00:31 It only sold that many because we thought it was going to be awesome like the first one. You notice it only sold 4 million, that's because 2 million people played their friends copy and was like "hell no"
I was the only kid I knew of that beat Adventure of Link. It cost my dad $90 to the 1-900 tip line (in 1989 money) and I caught a beating when the phone bill came. The beating let up a tad when I proved I DIDN’T call a phone sex hotline, but $90 was still $90, and a beating was compulsory at that price-point.
I loved this sequel! It’s not too hard to beat if you’re willing to grind for about 4-5 hours and max levels out. I personally used the floating eyeballs in the forest for this.
Oh you have a golden copy of 2? That's pretty neat, I have the grey one myself. Alot of folks dunno the grey cartridge for this game is actually rarer to have then the gold one. They made the grey at a 10: 1 ratio... meaning for every 10 gold ones only one grey was made.
I feel like Zelda II influenced the series far more than people give it credit for. The side-scrolling gameplay never returned, but stuff like the "adventure formula" of going to a new area, visiting a town, doing some sort of small objective for an NPC to gain access to the dungeon, beat the dungeon, move onto the next area got its start with this game and has pretty much been used by the series ever since. Definitely a divisive game for the series, but still an important, foundational one for all the ones that came after.
I'm old enough to have experienced both Zelda 1 and 2 waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when they originally came out and i was completely hooked on both....so much so that my gaming addiction stopped with the completion of part 2.... i went cold turkey and never went back...
I loved Zelda 2 enough to notice there are some factual inaccuracies in this video… some that stood out the most:
- Tears of the Kingdom wasn’t the first direct sequel of a Zelda game. Phantom Hourglass was a direct sequel to Wind Waker, and Spirit Tracks was a direct sequel to Phantom Hourglass.
- You don’t collect the crystals from the palaces. You get all of them at the beginning and place them in the palaces. There’s a picture of Impa giving Link a chest with the crystals in it in the manual.
- Square didn’t return the favor by putting Link’s grave in Final Fantasy. Enix made Dragon Warrior/Quest before Square and Enix merged, so it was a reference, not a reply
You are correct, sir! Pinning this comment and thank you.
The "Here lies Link" thing could be viewed as both a reference and a reply. That line isn't in the original NES version of Final Fantasy. It came in later versions. I'm not for certain if it came about pre or post Enix merger though.
Majora's Mask was a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time. It did take young Link into a different world, but it is the Link from the end of Ocarina.
@@shockthetoast And Link's Awakening was a direct sequel to A Link to the Past. However, A Link to the Past got an even more direct sequel in A Link Between Worlds. Also the Oracle games are either sequels or prequels to Link's Awakening depending on the timeline version.
@@AlmostSomething subbed for this 👍👍
My mother made elaborate, hand-drawn maps for the default quest of *Zelda* -- she loved that game as much as I did. I remember coming home from school & waiting for her to get home from work so we could work on the 2nd quest together. That was '87-'88.
I had to buy her a replacement NES in the early 00s so she could keep playing Zelda, & she still had it when she died last year.
I am 45 years old & playing the Legend of Zelda with my mother in the 1980s is what kids call a "core memory".
That's awesome. I remember playing NES games with my dad, we beat Metal Gear back around 1990 when I was 9 or 10 years old. Another favorite of ours was River City Ransom. Also have strong memories of playing Zelda 1 and 2, Mike Tyson's punch out, Ninja Gaiden, Master Blaster, and several other NES games with my friends as a kid in the late 80's.
What an awesome, priceless set of memories that you will keep forever. Thank you for sharing, Matthew 🙏
I love this comment. I thought I was the only one who played this game with my mom. Ten year old me and my mom playing this game until dawn, red eyed and extremely frustrated at the difficulty, while also basking in the rewarding feeling of partnering to complete a palace like this was a two player game are indelible memories that I will treasure for the rest of my days. Cool to know someone else knows that very feeling. Cheers!
My parents got me this game with my NES. It was the first one that I played in the franchise. I loved it, and still do.
My dad had hand drawn paper maps of all the dungeons, probably my fondest memory of the NES.
I remember staying up waaaaaayyyy past my bedtime as a kid, watching my dad play this game. It was his all-time favorite, and it’s my favorite Zelda.
God bless both of your dads 🥲 They are great men. I’m one of those dads as well and it is so incredibly life affirming to hear the next generation appreciate what we, at the time, experienced as earth-shattering, ground-breaking innovation and awesomeness.
@@spaceburger80 some of my best memories of my dad are from he and I playing Nintendo together. 1988 sticks out in my mind vividly.
My dad has never been big on videogames, but my mom used to try them a little. I loved this game and seeing Kung Fu Master in this video sure sparked memories!
Those were the happy days of childhood.
OMG me too! Only it was a hand drawn map of the Zelda 1 over world. And he called the help line when he got stuck in 2
To funny.
My brain still has the maps for 1, 2 and Link to the Past hard coded.
I have fond memories of this game. Yes it was darned hard trying to beat this as a child, but you kept going and learned from your mistakes until you were good at it. Then you beat it.
Yeah that was a somewhat painful but great experience. You were given the game with a manual containing the story and some basics, and the rest was left to you to figure out. Not exclusive to Zelda 2 as most NES games were made that way, but Zelda 2 stands out because of the difficulty and the amount of riddles and problems you had to solve.
My friends and I used to play this game and then share how we’d get past the hard parts. One friend would get clues from Nintendo Power, but we were all forbidden from calling the hotline. Good times
As an 11 year-old, it never explained to me what I was doing, beyond basic combat. I felt like there was something I needed to know but had no idea about. I never felt I was actually playing it. I had no problems figuring out any other popular NES game.
Good summation
Exactly this!
The insane difficulty worked heavily against the idea of exploration too. There are hidden things all over the map, but you'll only find them if you throw caution to the wind and start checking every tile. This is extremely dangerous in areas like the graveyard, so kids never did it, and they would miss some of the best stuff in the game.
Games for kids should not actively try to discourage exploration like that.
Yeah exactly. Felt like taking a test without even knowing the subject matter. Used to get so freaking angry at this game until I finally threw it against the wall and broke it.
This. It's a real shame because I wanted to love the game. And with all those NPCs in the towns one should've given more practical advice/guidance to a new player.
He isn't collecting the crystals he's placed the crystals.He started his Adventure with them
The King set up 6 challenges that only the one chosen by the Triforce could clear. When Link clears one he sets a stone in the statue there to signify it’s been cleared and the barrier in front of the great palace weakens.
Right? There were a number of inaccuracies like this. Also it's not quite so linear. Many people go to Death Mountain and get the hammer and life spell before doing palace 2. There were a lot of technical inaccuracies.
@@Gideon_Judges6 How were they able to do that?
At 3:10 the clue "Eastmost Penninsula is the secret" is actually a huge clue, and lets you complete the game while only getting the magic (12 heart) sword. At the very North East corner of the overworld map is a two screen penninsula, with a cave with an orc that bribes you ("It's a secret to everybody") with 100 rupees. It's one of the few, or maybe only, bribe that you can get without a bomb, flame, power bracelet, etc, and getting here with only 3 hearts and no weapon is difficult. Once you have the 100 rupees, you can buy a blue candle. This becomes your main weapon for a long time. You can use the candle to kill creatures that drop bombs. And then, you can use the bombs and flames to reveal more bribes and heart containers. You can then start clearing dungeons because some bosses were able to be killed with the bomb or flame. You can eventually get the red candle (cast more than once per screen) which REALLY helps you progress, and I THINK the bow and arrow. Eventually, you can get your 12th heart container and pick up the magic sword - never using the brown or white sword. At that point, it's fairly simple to clear the remaining dungeons and finish the first quest.
And if you're really pro, you can do all of this without dying or getting either magic ring.
(I played a lot of Zelda 1 as a kid)
@4:10 the Ganon laugh is also the Soda Popinski's laugh in Mike Tyson's Punch Out th-cam.com/video/FATJGWLd8A4/w-d-xo.html
that's what I hear every time lol
Japanese version of Zelda 2 The adventure elite Gannon isn't even mentioned once
My biggest memory of this game was finding a level where enemies would just spawn and fly at you. I had a controller with a turbo button so I just walked to the edge of that level, turned around and taped the button down. Then I went to bed. The next day when I got home from school, the game wasn’t so hard anymore. 😂
Where? Got a guide?
Green castle the flaming eyes would fly constantly if you carved out the right place in the blocks. 50 points each I think. Level up pretty quickly
I love finding exploits like that 😂
The first Super Mario Bros was so popular, & the original Zelda was so popular, the logical thought for Nintendo, was "turn Link into Mario." Proud to say I've beaten this game on original hardware!
A lot of people have beaten this game on the original hardware.
I'm one of them, because this was all I had as a child.
no.
@@verityvinyl8540 “original hardware” is just a fancy way to say you’re probably 40🤷🏿♀️
Game Genie was available on original hardware. Just saying.
I don't think they had any intention of turning it into SMB, especially since those games are drastically different. To even suggest that seems to indicate you've forgotten how experimental games were back then, and how even something as simple as a platform game was still being figured out (just look at the differences between SMB and SMB3).
Loved it as a kid.... all school kids were stuck at the end of the village where you had to cast spell to get the magic key. I remember finding it out by chance at a friends house. At age 9 video games were everything. This game gave me so much pleasure. I didn't have zelda 1 and I remember so many other kids ripping on zelda 2. I also had never had a game like this before and thuoght I was buying a platformer similar to wizards and warriors. At the beginning I was confused and disappointed, but after a week or 2 absolutely loved it. I also remember having a painful tetnis booster shot around that time. Playing it with a very stiff arm. The things we associate
Zelda II is my favorite NES game of all time.
Same here, so much so that I had wished they added a mini 2 player vs mode in the main menu that allowed you and a friend to square off with each other as link vs shadow link. For an 8-bit game the fighting mechanics were incredible.
It's def one of my favs, I've replayed it so many times growing up.
I second that, it's funny how polarizing this game is, either people absolutely hate it or people absolutely love it. That's probably one of the games I did the most in my life, even 30+ years later I still beat this game at least twice a year, will never get enough of it
@@Glendaal_RAdude same here! I bust it out every year or so. And even after 35 years of playing it, I waste those enemies easier every time. F that jumping ironknuckle!!
Glad somebody likes it. I hate it.
This game hold the special distinction of truly being one of a kind. There are side scrollers platformers similar but they do not play like Zelda 2 at all that also has overworld and village elements. There are extremely well polished hacks out there like Amida Curse, Resurrection of Ganon, Shadow of the Night, Remake etc. Very well loved game to this day.
It’s more similar to games like Kid Icarus than LoZ which I think is brilliant. Action-adventure RPGs can be amazing if done well and none do it better, especially the combat, than Zelda II imo. The combat is literally perfect. It’s super tight and fluid in a way no other game is. It takes a lot of practice but once you get it down it feels very fair. Faxanadu and The Magic of Scheherazade are other really good examples too.
Zelda 2 is actually my favorite game of all time. It was my first Zelda game and the first game I ever beat. I don't really play video games anymore, but my daughter has a Switch, and I play this and Link to the Past every now and then. Zelda games are the only ones I'll still play.
I must have been 8 or 9 when i got this game and was able to beat it on my own. Games from this era were so hard. You had to be a gamer to beat these games.
This was a hard one for sure, i was able to beat it as well. That shadow fight was rough
I just beat it again last year at the age of 44 and it was still frustratingly difficult.
Yeah back in school I was often the only kid who beat games without using cheats, often times people wouldn't believe me and I'd have to actually do it in front of them lol.
@@Waisted_Girdle Yeah, I refuse to do the duck int he corner strat (and I didn't even know about it until like 20 years after). That said while I did beat him fair and square several times I can't honestly say that it's a skill thing and more just a wail blindly and hope you get lucky thing. That said IIRC I had relatively good success by jumping, duck-stabbing just before landing, immediately jumping, and duck-stabbing before the sword reaches their 'upper' body. It still blocked it most of the time but it was far more successful than any other attack
@@Ghalion666 the jump and duck stab is how i did it as well
Majora's Mask was also a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time
the down thrust is still my favorite move. NO OTHER game has it. (DarkSouls and GoW can suck some linked balls) 5:02 it is not a failure. it is still one of my favorite game of all time; great rpg, great exploration, great story, great action.
DuckTales has it. You can use Scrooge's cane to pogo enemies to death. That's the only other one I can think of though
*Shovel Knight has entered the chat*
Maybe but I sure wish Kratos had been around to teach Link to jump-climb a long time ago.
I was maybe 7 when I got this game. I’ll never forget unboxing it and beholding that golden cartridge. I’ll also never forget just how punishing the difficulty was.
Back then nobody said unboxing. Remember how we just said opening?
I bought at NES with paper route money in 1986 (I think). And I played and beat both Zelda 1 and 2. And while I like them both, I like Zelda 2 better. To this day, the music from Castle 7 is amazing.
And for those inclined, search YT for reviews of the new Zelda 2 remake. And then go play it. The additions made by the designer make a fun game much more fun.
Thank you for telling me there is a remake, fellow Gen X-er!
Without this game, we never would have gotten the CDI Zelda games (which used a similar, side scrolling design) I don't think anyone wants to live in a world without those wonderful cutscenes!
Exactly 👍 , , ""Legend of Zelda faces of Evil"" is a very underated game , yet the cutscenes look like someone on LSD tried to recreate the effect in a video game 😂😂 LoL
Idk how i feel. Like its an infohazard.
No zelda 2 is good regaedless
@@jhoughjr1 well Zelda 2 was a brave step forward , however the insane difficulty level just sucks especially because of vital important information deliberately hidden from the player , , , I mean after all an 8 year old kid is reasonably Smart in 1987 but there's no way they would have even a shadow of hope to defeat Zelda 2, , , I can't defeat Zelda 2 even today but I love it because of so much time I put into it attempting to beat it , and it's connection to the "Super Mario Bros Super Show" on TV when I was in elementary school , , , 🤔🎃🤔👍👍
@@wyldelf2685I had the Phillip's cdi and the zelda games were awful. I owned them.
@@prototype8137 CDI "Zelda faces of evil" is the only canon Zelda game even all the way to today in 2024 😂😯 some hacker should port it to a SEGA Genesis ROM just for fun and bragging rights 😎🏆👍👍
If you think about it, The Legend of Zelda is actually 2 games in 1. Regarding the 2nd quest, practically everything has been rearranged. The location of the Labyrinths and other needed items, like the swords, have been relocated, and the difficulty has been kicked up several notches. As for the Labyrinths, they too are much harder. Now, you must walk through walls, if possible, to obtain hidden secrets, items, and rooms. There are the Red Suns, as I call them, and they permanently disable your sword. That is, until you touch a blue one. And that could be a few screens away.
I recall completing the 1st and 2nd quests when I was in my early teens. It was a long, treacherous, and dangerous road to the end, but in the end, I felt like I accomplished something I set out to do.
Not Zelda 2
@@mathieudoucet1446 I know it is not Zelda II because that game has one quest and one quest only. If you actually took the time to read what I stated, you will discover that I was referring to the original LoZ.
@@kbramlett6877settle down, Good Doctor
The Red Bubbles permanently disable your sword until you touch a blue bubble
@@verityvinyl8540 If you would have actually read the entire paragraph, you would have realized that I stated that. For your reading enjoyment, allow me to reiterate what I said. “There are the Red Suns, as I call them, and they permanently disable your sword. That is, until you touch a blue one.”
After playing it again as a 49 year old, with the help of walk through guides, maps, plus the Switch's ability to go back in time a few seconds to fix your mistakes, I don't know how I finished the game as a kid on a regular NES. Especially avoiding turning into an eggplant. Still love the game and is one of my favorites.
I remember getting a NES advantage, setting Link up at the edge of the screen where bats would attack, and putting a weight on the attack button with turbo on while I was at school to level up. Each bat was worth 2 XP. Good times!
Experiencing Zelda 2 after adoring the first game was one of the biggest disappointments of my childhood.
I had the opposite reaction
I played Zelda 2 before Zelda 1. I thought Zelda 1 was very basic in comparison to the more complex XP and "heart / magic" system in play in Zelda 2. I think it's better in virtually every way.
First preference bias.
I had a friend who felt the same way back in the 90s, that was the only one he liked to play. I like the game, sometimes more than the others but you want to play the Japanese version as ours is broken.
I still have my gold copy of Link and my NES. My Zelda copy is gray though because I had sold the gold one when I was little after my older brother sold his NES because I didn't have my own console at the time yet.
I liked Zelda 2 and actually preferred it to the original. It felt more alive and immersive. The first time I walked into a town and could interact with the PCs and enter buildings in that perspective, I was amazed at how alive it felt as compared to the original.
I was a child and you have to look at the game in the context of the time. This was pretty new. It wasn’t until years later that I played Faxanadu, and if not for having played Zelda 2, I don’t think I’d have stuck it out and ended up enjoying that side-scrolling RPG.
Unpopular opinion, but Zelda II was the Dark Souls of the NES era. Playing it as an adult is honestly highly satisfying
This is the hardest Zelda, and therefore my favorite. Nintendo should have explored this format more.
Zelda 2 was one of the first games I ever had. I had a neighbor and over the summer we figured out most of the game. Down stab really helped to get through the bosses. We couldn’t figure out how to get to the last castle. Everyone from school I talked to had the same issue. I was in a store and saw they had a Nintendo magazine. I looked through it and it said to play the flute in the middle of the 3 rocks. Was able to finish the game. I swapped it with a guy from high school to try the original Zelda. He had maps and notes. Was able to follow and complete the game. He told me Link was too easy and didn’t like it. He couldn’t wait to swap it back.
I hated it because Zelda 1 was so great and it was so different.
Just a release of a new map with more boards woulda been great.
The game was so hard with invisible enemies and invisible drop offs and the bosses oh dear man one of the few games I just couldn't finish
I cannot stress how important it was to jump, hold the down button, and hit your attack button right at the mid-level of your enemy (to the toughest ones w/shields) was to my strategy playing this game.
This!!! Not enough ppk know. Thats how to cheeze most of the game!
From what I remember I couldn't get past a certain area because the town had invisible ghosts. And being young wasn't that fun constantly dying. But glad so many others liked it, cause i didn't
That town was Old Kasuto, once you discover New Kasuto which is hidden under a bush LOL in the top right of the bottom map, you get a spell that lets you see the ghosts in Old Kasuto. How I remember this I do not know LOL
I think the cross was the item that allowed you to see ghosts. You had to get that from one of the castles.
4:10 the gannon laugh is almost identical to the laugh of the fourth floor end of level boss of "Kung Fu'.
and all the Mike Tyson Punch Out adversaries, when you lost
@@dms75Soda Popinski
Zelda II was my introduction to Zelda!
Same!
My friend next door got this in summer of 1989. We didn't like it at first but started to get into it and eventually became one of my favorite NES games.
Its funny Legend of Zelda og was my favorite game by so much as a kid, and I was sooo confused why this game was so different. I think I was just too young/bad at games, because I couldnt get anywhere in this game at all. (That or just hated how different it was.)
I am really glad you made this content because this question has been unanswered for me for 30 years.
Maybe because the next logical step was to create a sequel that felt like an upgrade?
I remember playing the Zelda and did not necearily like the overhead view but somehow the game was engaging and better than a lot of the overhead games out there at the time.
I then played Zelda II and the graphics or presentation definitely felt like an upgrade, the only major problem was that it was extremely difficult and that was the reason it was not as popular.
Remember when Zelda II came out there was no franchise there was no overhead predetermined way games should be, it was only the second game so they could have taken it any way they wanted to, had the second one been more popular then the overhead one would have been the odd one out of the bunch and they probably would not have returned to that style for the SNES one.
I remember having to call the hotline in order to find the mirror that was hidden under a random bed. The only time an item was hidden under a bed
Damn. How much did that cost your parents ??
@ whatever it was it was a bargain for me to keep my sanity
I too resorted to the 1-900 hotline to beat Adventure of Link. It cost my dad $90 in 1989 money. The besting relented a tad after my dad realized it wasn’t a phone sex line, but $90 was $90 and a beating was compulsory at that price point.
I think it was under a table.
I really enjoyed Zelda 2, I don't enjoy the 3D ones. 🤷♀️ I also own 3 Tinkle games for my DS. Yeah, these people exist. 😅
For me there is no Zelda after a link to the past
@@mathieudoucet1446 i felt that way until I played the DS and 3DS title.
Breath of the wild is great tho.
Have you played minish cap. That's a great Zelda game (2d)
Dungeons feel a bit more linear but I don't mind that it's a great game
I didn't know until now there were ppl who didn't like this game, literally never met a person who didn't like this game (if they knew of it : )
As a huge open world RPG fan, I absolutely LOVED Zelda II. Its up there with the Final Fantasy series for me, its was THAT good. I spent so many hours playing that game.
I spent 40 plus hours killing blobs to build experience.
Right! I loved gaining experience, those flying (kinda bouncing) skull things were the best, they gave you A TON of points & weren't that hard to kill (compared to the amount of exp pts they gave : )
Spirit skulls and gaming the palace xp reward mechanic were the way to go. You could walk out of the first palace with 7 swords in only a couple hours, and hit nine by level three without any obscene grinding. But it breaks the game, much more fun and challenging to follow normal progression.
The thing i didn't loke about thelose floating skulls is you had to hit them almost a hundred times. @ianallen738
Time wasn't worth much to a genX kid.
There are much better ways to do that.
I loved Legend of Zelda as a kid. When the second one came out, of course I bought it. And noticed right away how different and difficult it was. That didn't stop me from playing it. But I did want more of the same. Which is why Link to the Past was my favorite.
The only thing I remember about this game was hating it, and putting Zelda 1 back in my NES.
Came to comments to say this. Was a major ick compared to first and later.
Same. I was a little guy when Zelda one came out and remember doing all-nighter game nights with my mom. We loved it so much we were excited when Zelda 2 came out, and when we bought it we were so let down. And we were a check to check borderline poverty family back then, so it was a serious investment buying NES games. Left a major bad taste in our mouths. Luckily every Zelda game since has been amazing
I absolutely loved Zelda 2!
@ Hats off.
Same
I got Zelda II for my birthday as a kid… all my friends came over and we played it for hours and couldn’t get past the second level. Over the next week I grinded away and didn’t make it very far so I quit and went to another game. I didn’t actually finish the game until I was an adult. This game was very challenging and in all honesty not very good. I’ve played through about half of the final fantasy series of games so I’m all about grinding but Zelda II was different… it was hard just to be hard instead of being challenging. Simons Quest, TMNT and Metal Gear were also surprisingly hard.
I remember getting Zelda 2 for Christmas when I was little and was SO excited, with the gold cartridge and everything, it was also impossible to get. But the game only worked a few times before the cartridge totally stopped functioning. I was so devastated and dreamt of it for weeks. It would take several months for my folks to secure another copy of it for me. Hands down this was one of the most iconic games of my whole life. Thanks so much for covering this. I loved that you mentioned Dragon Warrior also!!!
Talk about nostalgia! I remember spending hours playing Zelda and Dragon Warrior. It was an obsession.
I beat Zelda too when I was eight years old. I loved it. It was and still is one of my most favorite games. I love the dark atmosphere, I love the lack of humor, I love how you explore and at the same time, you are driven forward. it was and still is a great game. I don’t know why people say it’s so hard. I was eight when I beat it. And that was before the Internet. So I couldn’t get online and look stuff up. I still remember when I got it. I came home from school and I see this golden Nintendo game sitting on my kitchen table with a note from my mom saying do my homework and then go and play. So I did my homework and house chores and other stuff and then I sat down to play and immediately I was hooked.
I remember playing "The Legend of Zelda 2" as a kid and thinking, "Why is this so different from the first one?" my favorites at the time were the Super Nintendo release in the Game Boy release.
Zelda 1 RULES
The best part was the last castle…that was quite a challenge to figure out without any help.
I remember this game fondly, sure it was a big departure, but it also had a very unique atmosphere and was an epic adventure.
I agree. Unique and nostalgic.
I loved Zelda 2. It brings me so much nostalgia. The music, the graphics, the gameplay. It takes me back to 1988-1989. I could never beat it as a kid. I could only get past the first couple of dungeons. I played it again as an adult, and now I can beat it every time.
I got Zelda 2 with a NES for Christmas so it was my first game. Never played the first. I played the hell out of this game and loved it. It was difficult and frustrating, but I didn't have anything to compare it. My Dad was there when I finally beat it and I think he was more excited than I was. Loved this game, hearing the music is super nostalgic.
Zelda II broke my brain 😂 I was a live and die Zelda fan. Ordered Zelda II as soon as it could be ordered and, before I received my physical copy, got the latest edition of Nintendo Power featuring Zelda II… what a gaping chasm between my expectations for the game and what it actually was. By the time I received the copy (pre-ordered from Kay-Bee Toy Store) I was so profoundly disheartened it was worse than having the game at all.
Suffice to say when A Link to the Past hit for SNES I was back in seventh heaven.
Great video, have watched a lot of Zelda history and lore videos but still learned lots of new interesting stuff. Can't wait for more content
'the calliest of duties' floored. I appreciate this essay and respect Z2 a bit more for what they were trying to do here. My favourite might be Oracle of Seasons and Link to the Past but we got some good elements that had tier seeds in 2.
That was the first Zelda game I saw -- I played part of it at my cousin's house while visiting from out of state so I didn't play much of it. When I later played Link To The Past, to me it seemed like the world had shrunk from a country to a theme park. That's because in Zelda II, I interpreted the top down portions as a map mode with each tile representing a large area (based on how towns and encounters were entered), so I imagined it as a large country -- while what I saw in Link To The Past looked obviously literal, so the world must be small.
I played Zelda II for the first time in like 30 years (battery still works!) I started a new game, and like every other middle-aged adult who picks up this game again, Death Mountain was a breeze. First time, blew right through it, got the hammer, got $200, etc etc.
Like every other kid in the 80s, Death Mountain was the bottleneck slog like the Marsh Cave for Final Fantasy. Somehow it got easier between now and then, because my gaming skills have not improved over the past few decades in the slightest.
They use dollars in Hyrule?
Wait, the save state battery still works??
I have a Zelda II that is over 35 years old and the battery "still works", but that's impossible. I think what's really going on is that it's a backup battery if power is lost during a save. The manual says to not turn off the power while saving and to hold the reset button down when you power off. It's likely that the battery is there to be a backup to the procedure.
@@michaelfornes1479no the nattery is there for seam. I wouldnt dismiss it so wuickly.
I remember my brother and I sneaking into the Xmas wrapped game, taking it out, replacing it with an old game like Duck hunt. Binged the next 3 weeks that game was SO hard. But so worth beating if your age is single digits.
I could not wait for Zelda 2 to come out after playing through the first. I vividly remember the wait seeming to go on forever. The Official Nintendo Player's Guide had a partial walk-through in it but was out way before the game released in North America. I must've read through that thing thousands of times imagining what it would be like to play it. Every month when the new Nintendo FunClub Newsletter and then Nintendo Power for any updates on the "chip shortage" and when we'd finally see it in stores. When I played it I loved it and don't understand all the hate it gets as the Black Sheep of the series.
One of my favorite memories as a kid was me, my dad and my mom all having our own files on the OG ZELDA game and each of us beating it. I was hoping to repeat this with ZELDA II, but the changes were too radical to get my parents in to it. I have tried revisiting it a couple of times over the years, but I still can't get into it. It's not bad by any means, but definitely feels a bit clunky.
I just remember CONSTANTLY checking Toys R Us for Zelda II and it CONSTANTLY being out of stock. I think my Jedo (grandfather) finally found it for me for Christmas since his Christmas was Jan 7th, and the stores restocked and slowed down after Dec 25 Christmas.
The perspective expectation seems to be interesting here. Loads of people who say they didn't like Zelda 2 had played the first one and was expecting more of the same. Meanwhile those who love it are often saying it was their first Zelda game they played.
This video was astoundingly good. It makes me feel like I need to give this game another chance.
Also.. give us some quizzes in the Community tab!
Its worth it imo. One you get downward and upward thrust you can stomp through most things faster, easing the grind
"If all else fails, use fire." I love this game
This was the first Zelda game I played. By the time I got my hands on Z1, I found the lack of towns/people to talk to eerie.
7:55 lmao it wouldn't have even helped! Can you imagine being the kid to call for the pre-recorded message to be like "use the downward thrust on the knights helmet" and being like "yeah but how do I get past these insane combinations of spastic enemies with enough life tho?"
I was 8 to 10 when i beat this game. I loved it from day one and still love it to this day. I came home from school when i saw this on the kitchen table. Mom left it and after homework, i was in love. I had my game systems hooked into our 14 speaker surround sound system with a 32 inch Sony monitor…..and this game was amazing on it. I loved hearing the laser sound of links sword loudly flying from one side of the house to the other. I became hooked. It was awesome. I spend many nights as a little kid startling on this game despite having an snes and genesis. This game was hard and captivating. I loved even as a kid, how empty and dark this world was. The castles were dark and sad, as if they weren’t just castles but, hiding some horrible mysterious events from the past. By the time i beat this game, shit……it was such an epic adventure that mom and I celebrated with ice cream. lol.
9:23 Exactly! Way too many people approach this from the completely wrong angle. They look at the list of Zelda games in 2024 and say "Huhhh, why did they make only this one different?!" But back in 1986 there was no such thing as "this is what a Zelda game is supposed to look like!" - There was only one. Nothing was set in stone.
You could bring another good example for this entire topic: Super Mario World 2, which most people just call Yoshi's Island at this point. It's a complete departure from the original in almost every aspect but it ended up as one of the most popular SNES games of all time and sparked an entirely new series of its own. In way you could say that this even marked the beginning of the whole concept that Mario is not just a single franchise but a whole "family" of characters with their own unique games which has defined Nintendo as we know it today. And it only happened because people were willing to try something different.
This was actually my favorite game growing up, as I did grow up during the era. I loved the changes compared to the original, and since I have beaten almost every Zelda game made. I am actually replaying this one for the first time in 20 years
Your comment about incurring charges reminds me of the time that I called a game hotline dozens of times to get help on a PC game called Goblinssss. It was a kiddie game but had some hard puzzles. But I was in so much trouble because of the high phone bill. 😅
I remember when this first came out, i felt like it was IMPOSSIBLE to beat back then. I didn't play it for like 20 years, and then tried it again, and was able to beat it without too much difficulty. Knowing where you are supposed to go and what your supposed to do helped a lot, lol. When I first played it in the 80s though, i felt like it was just so difficult that it wasn't even fun. Now it's one of my favorite Zelda games of all time.
This is my favorite game. I still go back and play it all the way through every couple of years.
I was totally one of those kids who had no grip on the game at all but it was still my favorite game. It was also GOLD.
Fitting that it was set in the end of the Fallen Hero Timeline, it's kind of fitting. I wish I could get into Zelda 2 but let's just say that it's complicated as hell.
Also the "Spell" spell has a secondary function.
I mostly loved this game, but the holes in the floor of the hidden palace got me every time.
I definitely remember playing The Legend of Zelda, but only vaguely remember playing it's sequel. This game wasn't nearly as memorable to me.
Beating Zelda 2 required a repetition and perfection of the areas leading to shadow link I don't think I've seen since. The final journey was maddening but the payoff ticked a box that I look at to this day with pride. Also the cartoon ran with the SMB Super Show and Zelda was a hottie lol
My first experience with this game was a rental in the late 80s. No instruction manual, just saved game progress, and no clue what to do. A few years ago I gave it a good try and got to level 5. Very hard and frustrating game!
It's way easier to be a polymath spinning out seminal work when you're in an unexplored genre. You see this very beautiful spring-like feeling in new genres and music scenes as much as, being a late gen x'er, there was something special about these pixelated 'not quite real' but very iconic pieces of visual art with haunting eight bit music. This game, Dragon Warrior, Faxanadu, original Shadow Gate, even to a degree Double Dragon II, Bionic Commando, etc., there was a moodiness and whimsy to the production style itself that seemed to largely leave once games aimed for more mimicry of 3D worlds. The makers of the Game Cube Metroid series seemed to try quite hard to keep the awe, wonder, alienness, and even solitude of original Metroid, Ocarina of Time was also quite a special Zelda for 3D gaming, but past that it seems like the pursuit of realty in games lead more in the Grand Theft Auto direction - which isn't bad but it's the creation of a completely kind of environment and aesthetic and appealed to a different kind of gamer.
This just unlocked so many memories I had forgotten about!
Zelda 2 is my favorite NES game and one of my all time Zelda games. I love how weird and difficult it is. And once you get the combat basics down, it can truly be fun and rewarding to figure out how to beat each enemy the most effectively. The game has much more replay value compared to Zelda 1 because of this.
I paid like $80 at the time for this game, got a bootleg from Canada at a local video store. Could not have been more excited. To this day I've never beaten it. The final run to the last palace is almost impossible and it requires perfection. Then the palace, then your shadow and then that last enemy. I threw many a remote at the TV on this one. I tried playing it again a few years ago and quit at the Island palace. Same frustrations, almost 35 years later. But I still think the game was groundbreaking in its story and visuals. I'm shocked to hear what the creators thought of it! It was though, way too hard. Then again, I found the final bosses in the last 2 Zelda to be too easy so....
As a little kid I loved this game! After playing this one first I later played the first one for the NES and was disappointed it didn't have such a cool fantasy world to explore. Zelda II took inspiration from the overarching fantasy epic movement in Hollywood at the time with movies like Willow, The Neverending Story, Conan The Barbarian, and The Dark Crystal.
Zelda 2 was the first game I bought with my own money. I absolutely loved it. Yeah, it was harder than the first game, but I enjoyed the changes and felt it really expanded on Hyrule and the whole story. It remains one of my favorite entries in the series.
I was too young to play these games, but I remember them to the point that I can smell this video. I want to go back.
I loved Zelda 2 as a kid. With Nintendo Power, the main challenge I had was the final dungeon. I usually burned 1 life getting there. If I had realized that you could continue from there, that would have made it a lot easier.
The shiny golden cart was so much at odds with how cripplingly difficult the game was. I remember downthrust and fighting a knight in a castle thats it. 😅😅
my brother and i got an nes and z2 for christmas. we were so pissed at how hard it was compared to the last one.
Beating Zelda 2 and Dragon Warrior in elementary school before any of my friends made me a rockstar. Lol. Now I'm a genX dad with a young son who loves retro games.
Not too bad of a production, despite a couple of errors. You've earned a new sub, though, because you put a lot of thought and effort into it!
Zelda 2 was actually the first Zelda game I ever played when I was around 10 years old in the early 90s. Despite its difficulty, I had a really fun time playing it and I would rent it as much as I could from the local video store. I didn't beat the game until much later in my mid 20s.
00:31 It only sold that many because we thought it was going to be awesome like the first one. You notice it only sold 4 million, that's because 2 million people played their friends copy and was like "hell no"
So the 8th best selling nes game was because people hadn't played it. Meanwhile the 6th best was og zelda.
I dont think your logic works
Then they are idiots because this was an amazing game.
I was the only kid I knew of that beat Adventure of Link. It cost my dad $90 to the 1-900 tip line (in 1989 money) and I caught a beating when the phone bill came. The beating let up a tad when I proved I DIDN’T call a phone sex hotline, but $90 was still $90, and a beating was compulsory at that price-point.
I loved this sequel! It’s not too hard to beat if you’re willing to grind for about 4-5 hours and max levels out. I personally used the floating eyeballs in the forest for this.
Oh you have a golden copy of 2? That's pretty neat, I have the grey one myself. Alot of folks dunno the grey cartridge for this game is actually rarer to have then the gold one. They made the grey at a 10: 1 ratio... meaning for every 10 gold ones only one grey was made.
I feel like Zelda II influenced the series far more than people give it credit for. The side-scrolling gameplay never returned, but stuff like the "adventure formula" of going to a new area, visiting a town, doing some sort of small objective for an NPC to gain access to the dungeon, beat the dungeon, move onto the next area got its start with this game and has pretty much been used by the series ever since. Definitely a divisive game for the series, but still an important, foundational one for all the ones that came after.
I'm old enough to have experienced both Zelda 1 and 2 waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when they originally came out and i was completely hooked on both....so much so that my gaming addiction stopped with the completion of part 2.... i went cold turkey and never went back...
I was confused by how different it was when I first got it. It really few on me though. I love it now