Zelda II: The Adventure of Link retrospective: Hyrule warrior | NES Works
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- čas přidán 22. 11. 2022
- We end NES Works 1988 here with a game that (probably) actually shipped before December 1988 in scarce quantities. Aw, it's Nintendo's very first high-demand holiday rarity! They certainly would return to that well over the years.
It's hard to say where to place this release in the ’88 timeline, because Nintendo originally announced Zelda II for a release early in the year but ended up kicking this particular ball down the road over and over again, and games media reporting didn't have much to offer back then. This episode deals with the whys and wherefores of its delays and the tantalizing nature of this long-promised Zelda sequel.
Did Zelda II turn out to be worth the wait? Well... feelings are mixed on that one. Zelda II stands alone in the Zelda franchise for many reasons-its side-scrolling perspective, role-playing elements, limited lives, and the fact that it's the one entry in the series to demand genuine skill and dexterity-but you can't deny the influence it exerted on later entries in the series and on games as a whole. Despite some questionable design choices and a slight reliance on nebulous clues from NPCs for progression, Zelda II pretty much defined how the action-RPG would work!
Of course, since its localization ended being delayed for nearly two years after its Japanese debut, American kids experienced Zelda II's best ideas through games that other companies designed in its image. Oh well.
Production note: NES footage captured from @analogueinc Mini. Arcade footage captured from MiSTer FPGA cores; special thanks to @MiSTerAddons. Video upscaled to 720 with XRGB Mini Framemeister.
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Fitting end to this with Link losing health as he collects a heart piece. Brutal game.
Thanks! To the game's credit, I will say that it never registers damage from that hit (which is good since it seems practically unavoidable-that Goriya spawns on the opposite side of the Heart Piece from where you enter the area and tends to appear only after you've mentally committed to grabbing the upgrade).
yeah it seems like the animation of picking up the heart container extends if you take damage so the fill up effect can restore the kaizo-esque trap coupled with the goriya taking a bit longer to throw
@@JeremyParish Fun fact (I promise I'm not trying to "um, actually" you here): it does deal damage but because of the "refilling" nature of the health refresh it simply continues to heal past it! Magic refills from the red potion items work the same way, and it's totally abusable. As a kid I discovered that if you're out of mana you can pick up a red potion, wait for some of your MP to refill, then cast a spell (such as heal or shield (or both!)) and your MP will continue refilling well past the point where it would otherwise have stopped. Interestingly, it doesn't just keep refilling forever until you run out of spells to cast, it WILL "run out" eventually. I suspect that it is set to simply refill 128 mp (a full set of 8 units, each worth 16 mp) and stop if it hits a wall before that. Because of this limit the trick actually becomes *less* useful as the game progresses and you have a larger base pool to work with, but in those first 3 or so palaces you can actually get a TON of mileage out of what would otherwise be a relatively small refill.
An interesting quirk since there is no pick-up animation/pose in JP version. Maybe it is an oversight that the dev team was willing to take during translation process.
Hearts are supposed to be bad. Generally they are the most likely thing to attack and kill you.
I remember my Mom managed to get a copy of Zelda 2 in 88' for Christmas. I still don't know how she pulled it off to this day. She also manged to get me an early copy of SMB3 because she met an importer at a trade show in vegas one year. I was a poor kid, so these moments really stick out in my memory.
yes my mother came home in December 1988 with TWO new NES games for me as a 5 year old...Zelda 2 and SMB 2
was she a pross?
@@videoluvr4204 good times man. Good times.
This dudes video looks like it was filmed in 88....
What a cool mom! Damn she hooked you up.
I still have my copy of Fun Club for Zelda II. Thanks for closing out 1988, looking forward to what’s coming up!
That was, shockingly, my own childhood copy you saw in the video as well. A very resilient little magazine.
Funny enough, the later pressings of Zelda I in a gray cart still have the plug for Nintendo Fun Club on the map.
@@repussifiedyeah they never reprinted the map. You could include a mint copy of the map from the grey cart with the original 1987 5-hole copy and nobody would know the difference and collectors would consider them matching components.
You've somehow crafted the definitive Zelda II retrospective video. This is a must-watch for any fan/casual that wants a proper overview of the game's features and how it impacted everything around it. I feel like so much was covered here versus much of the other content on CZcams that basically amounts to "this game is weird and then ALttP came out."
Yeah, when they don’t outright lie by saying it was so reviled that it bombed, supposedly for “changing a formula” that had yet to fully come together. Not to mention all the self-appointed “experts” criticising the game’s non-adherence to modern (2010s onward) design philosophies as some inexcusable faux pas.
Back then I was more excited for this than I would have been for a top down game. Now the sheer difficulty of this one might be an issue but the graphics and the puzzles were a huge improvement over 1. Not exactly full of bombing and burning everything here.
@@CaptainRufus
Were they really an improvement? The sprites, sure. But the background graphics were bad even by 1988 standards. Compare this to Blaster Master and Life Force, or Famicom releases like Olympus no Tatakai: Ai no Densetsu, and there's no comparison.
At least Zelda 1 has some charm that helps with how dated it is.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 By 1987 standards you mean in which, yeah. And the games you mentioned afterwards all came out well after Zelda 2.
On their own they look perfectly fine except for the overworld looking dated.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 ...and this game has as much charm as the firt. Moreso, I'd say, but it depends on your experoence with it.
I vividly remember the birthday I got Zelda 2. For some reason my family was super busy that day so I got to play all day uninterrupted. It was fantastic.
Don't you mean You hated it because it was so 'weird and different' and you wondered why it wasn't just a carbon copy of the first game?? I know, I'm kidding because I was there. Nobody disliked Zelda 2 when it came out.
This is one of my favorite Zelda games: It had quite a deep combat system with high/low/up/down thrusts and shielding. But the thing I loved most was its atmosphere. It is truly a more grown up and grimmer adventure.
I miss that atmosphere. It felt like it was set in a fantasy version of medieval Europe. Probably the closest Zelda got to a true Tolkien vibe.
And great music...
I played this game last year..beating this game was so satisfying.. finding the guy who has a permit cross the bridge . I could not find that guy .. so I needed help from internet that only time .. otherwise I completed game without any help and I died so many times Final boss and there was 2 boss also but finally after so many tries I beat them.
Zelda II has long been one of my favorites in the series. Always nice to see it explored in the context of its contemporaries.
Beating this game without save states on original hardware is one of my most satisfying gaming moment. Skills. Patience. Perseverance.
It’s not bad if you plan some routing and grind a little. It’s definitely brutal blind though.
I am 44 and trying to do that... it's like grinding in Dragon Warrior 2, just enjoy it and get in the zone.
I used to struggle with it. Now I can beat it in one continue in 94 minutes.
11 year old me had a lot more patience and perseverance than 44 year old me.
But did you use Estus Flasks?
Zelda II was definitely available in November, a family friend had it Thanksgiving weekend in 1988, and we spent many hours using grid paper maps created through trial and error (no pun intended) to find the path to get the Hammer, the time spent that weekend led it to be at the top of my Christmas want list (and I got it that year).
Random story here, but my mom was remarried on January 1st, 1989, and I was 7 at the time. I had just realized that I could record video game music to a cassette if I put our boombox near the tv, and then I could listen to it anywhere. This was easily the coolest thing ever and so I tried, over and over, to convince my mom to play my recorded zelda 2 music in her wedding, but she didn’t go for it.
Point being, I can confirm having the game before their January 1st, 1989 wedding. I would bet I got it somewhere in late December, as I wasn’t too far in at the time of the event.
That is some great nostalgia
Oh, that puzzle to find the city hidden in the woods hindered me entire months in my quest to end the game...and I could only find the solution it in a NES strategy book.
I had the same issue, except I had to wait six years, going from seven to thirteen, to get access to the solution. I can’t tell you how good it felt to finally overcome the last challenges of one of my favourite NES games.
Hands down one of my favorite games of all time. I’ve got great memories of playing Zelda II with my Dad after dinner when I was a kid. I even remember going to Toys R Us to pick up the game right when it came out. Used to love Toys R Us’ video game dept. back in the late 80’s early 90’s.
My first Zelda I remember truly playing was Link to the Past although I definitely played Zelda and Adventure of Link. This video is a total nostalgia bomb and makes me want to play through this game from start to finish finally
As a kid I couldn't get into it... the side-scrolling parts were weird and it was too hard for me. But I was only 10, who knows.
I definitely appreciate learning more about the historical context of this game, especially as someone born over a decade after its release. It's definitely difficult to sorta visualise what games had revolutionary design, even moreso than what games had revolutionary technology, with so much distance and time. So, super interesting to watch.
I remember when I was a kid in Harlem our place wasn't big so my dad picked up a copy of this game for my brother one day and our only TV was in the living room. Late on a friday night, I stayed up playing this game from like 11pm to 2am and I was so caught up in it. I was doing really well the first playthrough ever until my character died. The image and the laugh of Ganon when it said "GAME OVER, THE RETURN OF GANON" with the black image and dark yellow background scared me so bad, I dropped the controller, ran to my room, shut the door behind me, blocked it, and went under the covers trembling until I fell asleep. Mind you our TV was all the way on the other side of the entire place by the front door so for me it was a far run. Then later that morning, my dad got mad at me for leaving the nintendo and TV on all night haha. My brother still brings this up. He bought me a used copy of this game for my 30th birthday too lol. Memories....
This takes me back. Zelda II was too difficult for me to penetrate as a 9 year old; but it sparked so much imagination and play (my step sister still remembers me chasing her around the yard with swords). Especially fuelled by all the coverage in Nintendo Fun Club, Nintendo Power, and The Official Nintendo Player's Guide--all of which I still have.
I also appreciate you highlighting the story elements: back when instruction manuals served as rich troves of lore. That truly was THE Legend of Zelda. The third Triforce, the wizard cursing the original Zelda, the royal family naming princesses in her memory, plus the threat of Ganon's resurrection with Link's blood. It was only in adulthood that I realized, "Hold on. That means there's two Zeldas. Well that's awkward."
My parents had a tough time finding SMB 2 for Christmas. Dad and Mom both went to stores upwards of 60 miles away before they finally found it.
I eventually sold off most of my NES collection but I have still held on to my original copy of SMB2 in part because I know my Dad had to have had a hell of a time acquiring it at launch.
Zelda II is definitely one of my favorite NES games, and the help of save states, I finally beat it this year. Shadow Link is actually kinda easy to defeat, Thunderbird is definitely a tough penultimate boss. So far, I've only checked toy store ads in the NY Times for the first week of December 1988, and the most recent games shown are Konami's Life Force and Tengen's Pac-Man so it definitely bears out that chip shortage essentially makes some release dates online in late 1988 almost meaningless as you say. And looking forward to the Master System episodes.
Try beating it without save states =). It's one of those games that feels so satisfying to get good at. And then run Zelda 2 Randomizer for it =). It lets you find a new way to love something you already love.
@@deusprogrammer_thekingofspace I was able to get to Thunderbird but not beat it when I was a kid. I wouldn't have known how to beat Shadow Link as a kid but I definitely know how to now. I don't play on PC so I probably won't ever play the Zelda II randomizer but I usually watch Vinny Vinesauce play that every year.
Fun fact for Thunderbird. Casting reflect makes your hit box smaller.
I beat this game in 1989 when I was 11, it was the only game I had at the time so I got all the strategies down, great game
Imma say it: Before BOTW, -this- was my favorite Zelda game. Eff the haters.
Thanks for doing a retrospective of this one
My three favorites are Link to the Past, Zelda 2 and Twilight Princess, so definitely not hating on ya here
Great history lesson, it brought back so many memories! I was 7 when Zelda II came out and all I knew at the time was that it was something *sacred* to the one kid in my school that owned it. He wouldn't let anyone touch, borrow, or play it, no matter what we were willing to trade. The chip shortage puts that all in perspective decades later.
I remember seeing my first in-the-wild copy up for sale in Woolworths and my heart skipping a beat. I didn't finish it till I was 11 (no guides and that final Palace was HARD) but years later I'd amaze my college roomate by blasting though it like a pro. As unpopular as the opinion may be, it's still one of my favorite Zeldas (along side ALttP, Link's Awakening and BotW).
I love this black sheep of a game
This brings back a lot of memories. I remember reading the players guide, fun club, and other mags promoting the game and desperately wanting to play it. By the time it finally released we didn't have enough money for new Nintendo games, so I would walk to my friends' house a couple blocks away and take turns every continue. I played Little Nemo and other games there also, and it was some of the most fun I remember having back then. Nintendo was everywhere so even growing up poor in the 80's you could still find a way to play the latest games as long as you had a friend or two. 🤗
It's expected these days, but I'd once again comment I love your presentation and how you've kept it consistent over years.
It's a marvelous feat!
Man, I still remember looking out my porch at the time in my denim outfit eating an apple on my birthday in 1988. Early. About 6am, before school. My mom storms in, and apparently cross with me, and said " open your birthday present." A box was a handed to me and my heart pounding I tore it with beastly fervour. It was a gold box, plastic wrapped Adventure of Link. Still my personal favorite Zelda. You wouldnt believe all the art from the time I still have. My beloved neighbor at the time drew me the image of Link, that monochromatic image that Jeremy had here of Link,and armed walking the path, full color. He went on to paint for the Vatican. I could go on and on about Zelda 2.
It's cool you mentioned the gem trick for late game leveling up. It allows you to play through the game without grinding. Another useful trick is to save all of the overworld extra lives, I think there are 6, for the last level.
This is the game that got me back into gaming. I could never beat it as a kid and that bothered me.
I beat this game in the fall of 1989 when I was 11, my cousins were all jealous because I was the only one skilled enough to beat it, lol
@@twostop6895 I could never find that town in the woods as a kid. I'm surprised that I never bothered to pick up a nintendo power.
@@riggel8804 I didn't have Nintendo Power but my spoiled friends did, I borrowed magazines and information about the games secrets flowed everyday at school, word of mouth was huge in the 80s
My mother, who plays approximately no video games except Tetris and Mrs. Pac-Man, was able to get all the way to Dark Link(!!!) before my wide-eyed almost two-year old self mashed that power button while she was focused and she could never do it again. Later on when I bought the GBA version, I had a brief issue with the Wizzrobe boss, and I relayed that to her and she said "Oh him? He's easy! Just stay in one place and crouch."
Of all the things for my mother to absolutely school me on, that was quite a deep cut. I still have no idea how she's able to play it as well as she does and be so bad at basically most other games.
While this is a difficult game, I do think the difficulty is often a bit overstated. I wouldn't put it as difficult to the point of *needing* modern amenities to complete, though they can certainly cut down on some frustrations for people.
I find it odd how rarely people mention that getting a game over in the Great Palace has you continue from the Great Palace. You only have get through it once, and then you have infinite attempts at it, so it's a much tougher palace to explore.
Fantastic documentary. I have fond memories of Zelda II, mostly because I played it with my dad (who I otherwise had little in common with).
OK, so thank you for this video. I never truly understood the reason why Zelda two was so amazing and now I do. Thank you.
Well... I just NEED to see a longer clip of that orchestra 😁 Amazing episode, as always.
I remember when Zelda 2 came out. One of the kids brought a copy of the manual to the arcade and we all took turns looking through it on a pool table in complete awe.
The first Zelda game I played and still one of my favorites.
This is the most amazing series on CZcams! Thank you for all your hard work.
Nothing brings more nostalgia from my childhood than this game. It was so dang, but hard, to play with my brother. I tried to rlly beat it at 18 but ended up beating Friday The 13th NES game instead. Got mad and couldn’t get past the damn creatures constantly throwing rocks at me near the end.
For better or worse my 80s childhood is often times remembered in terms of great games. The volume of information provided by Nintendo on Zelda II years in advance of the game's Dec 88/ 89 release made the wait SO painful. Being a devout Zelda I kid this game ofc was a huge deal and the difficulty made passing it as a 9 year old an equally huge deal. I loved the swordplay and experience aspects. The linear progression was harder to accept after the extremely open design of the first Zelda but i still loved it.
Thanks for the nostalgia!
Another great vid. Zelda II has arguably the best dungeon music in the series. Would love a reimagining of this game
I remember that my parents couldn’t find a copy of Zelda II in the fall of ‘88, but a friend at school snagged a copy January 8th, 1989 by importing the French/English Canadian version distributed by Mattel and paying over $100 for it. He was the first to get it at my school and let me borrow it for a week. It worked fine on my United States NES. I must say it was unusual to see a French Canadian version of a Nintendo game in the 1980s and I own a pristine Mattel copy of this game today due to this experience.
One of my top 5 Zelda games, believe it or not. Something about it just keeps me coming back, probably the combat system. And that palace theme.
For those who find this game too difficult, I recommend Hudson Soft’s Faxanadu. Very underrated game.
I find it a little dubious to recommend Faxanadu over Zelda II where difficulty is concerned, since Faxanadu tends to be somewhat more challenging right out of the gate and a little more cryptic overall.
Its two main drawbacks are, on the one hand that the combat and the hero’s manoeuvring range are a lot stiffer than Link’s, and on the other hand that the art style can make it hard to distinguish regular towns from dungeons.
Yet, once you get accustomed to the game’s quirks, especially regarding the vast amounts of different types of keys you carry around in case you have to re-enter a dungeon (😅), you get a really rewarding little adventure. I found it a tad easier to navigate the world compared to The Battle of Olympus.
I'm just a few minutes into the video but I already must congratulate you on your level of preparation and knowledge. I cannot even name another video like this where the chip shortage of 87-88 was mentioned. But it's such an interesting topic to explore! Weird, too. It was a real war for a while, and some of the compromises and bargains that were made in order to fix the situation would never fly in the modern day. A guy I knew back in Kharbin who was a subcontractor for certain cartridge parts back in the day said this was the era he loved his job the most as at times he felt like a movie super spy. Made him feel powerful. If it weren't for those pesky NDAs you could've made an actual Bourne Identity type thriller out of it and only exaggerate a little.
Discovered retronauts whilst renovating my house and have been lucky enough to find these videos now that I've finished. I can sit back and watch these too. No channels have this much depth and knowledge on the subject. Length of the videos is just right too. Keep up the great work Jeremy!
I don't always remember the experiences of both _longing for_ and _obtaining_ a game, but Zelda II is one that has immediate recollections for me.
It wasn't long after finishing the original NES Zelda that I first got the Official Nintendo Player's Guide and got my first look at Zelda II. I remember taking it to school with me so I could ruminate on how it might play during lulls in the day, and being really, REALLY anxious for the game to finally arrive in the States. That fall, I still remember calling up Wal-Mart (back when I had none of the anxiety of using a phone that I do these days, for some reason, and would frequently call up Toys R Us (I even had the number memorized) or other retailers to ask if they had a given game in stock. I was absolutely SHOCKED to find that this Wal-Mart DID have Zelda II in stock, and I asked them to hold it long enough for my mom and I to get down there. (My mom, in those days, understood that if you didn't get some of the in-demand items when the opportunity presented itself, you likely wouldn't get them at all...especially in the fall and early winter), and sure enough we got there and got the game. One of the few times that sort of thing has worked out. (A very similar thing would happen with Ocarina of Time a good decade later.)
Sorry for the verbose response. It's just these are the experiences I love to recall and recount when the moment is right.
Having played through Zelda II on the new Game & Watch during Thanksgiving weekend last year, I can confirm that it makes for a perfect Thanksgiving game.
Yeah, I definitel remember the wait for this one. I was very eager to pick it up as a kid back in the late 80s, but it kept getting delayed week after week. My dad had some connections in the tech industry, and he was finally able to secure a copy after we had waited a month or two. The catch was we had to travel all the way to the closest big city - San Luis Obispo in California - which the freeway sign from my home town said was at least a good 120 miles away. I went with him on that day, picked up it, and waited as patiently as I could while he conducted the other business he had gone out there to do. So, yeah, this game has a lot of personal importance to me, and I never understood the hate it is claimed to have gotten. It was different, like Super Mario 2, it got good coverage in Nintendo Power, and the general consensus in my home town was it was tough, but nobody disliked it. Certainly didn't stop several of them from borrowing my copy.
Your dad is a hero. Zelda II's weird arbitrary puzzles, extremely difficult late game combat, and bizarre departure from its prequel were all things that were par for the course back in the late 80s. People are more bothered by those things now, the farther we get from the 80s. It's just a game that ages worse than every Zelda that came after it so it gets less love now than it did then. In context, it was fantastic and a huge hit.
I still got this game and it’s one of my most replayed games ever. This and Mario 2. Live them both.
I just finished your entire nes works chronology playlist having them play during my work shifts, and now Im sad I have to wait until late 2023 for this to continue :( well I guess I'll check out your other ones in the meantime
Great review. Zelda one was one of the first nes games I got back in 87. Was so hype for Zelda 2 and loved that game. Still like once a year would get the game out and play it for a few days.
My Favorite NES game.
Zelda 2 and Rambo had what I regarded as a perfect exploration gameplay approach, which consisted of a lot of 'where the hell am I' situations that made it so satisfying to delve. The lack of an internet in that era definitely helped, but the way the games were designed with a loose directive flow, forcing you to assemble where things are and what you're dealing with, encouraged a lot of my creativity and imagination in the way that modern games cannot hope to do. These games had subtly distinctive areas beyond the usual contemporary ice, fire, sewer levels... Zelda 2 had the ghost town, the weird lizards pitching stones from the high wall, the open deserts that were more than just blank sand, swamps, etc. Rambo had acid bubble bridge, the enemy camps, the boat ambush, etc. You felt like you were really traveling through a strange land with little explanation. Heck, I might even put Rygar in this category. The games weren't entirely linear or sandbox, but this tantalizing exploration heavy journey filled with all kinds of strange locations and monsters.
This along with the original Legend of Zelda were the third and fourth games I ever got for my NES back in around June of 1989 I believe. It was definitely the summer of 89, that's for sure. Specifically speaking about this game, I love that the aspect of a more adult Link. I love the music and I love the sound effects. But it was emotionally draining at times not knowing exactly where to go or what to do or to find which items in order to progress so in those days we would hunt down any information possible and would listen to tips through word of mouth. I even called Nintendo gameplay counselors for help. I consider it one of the greatest games of all time and still have my original copy to this very day.
Irem makes me cry I love it so much! So much of my childhood is dependent on them! Metal storm was the NES game I played to most.
Thanks for this. I love that you continue to do what you do and somehow make it better everytime. You're a wordsmith and seemingly obsessed with the same era of gaming I am.
I know this video was made before the release of Tears of the Kingdom, but I am catching several things such as the town named "Rauru" as well as the villagers who turn into enemies (Yiga Clan). I kind wonder what other similaries there may be? I think the idea of Gannon's Resurrection perhaps might also be one that we see in TOTK. I would love to see a Zelda 2 remake with all of the flaws fixed. However, I'm not sure that it would be quite the same. The brutal difficulty was both seen as a weakness and a strength at the same time. This game demands your respect.
25 years later and this game still intimidates me
Love this game...always will. I'd be curious to see what they'd do with a remake/update, whether literal or spiritually. As someone who played it in sequence, it was an awesome, epic, creative challenge, full of puzzle elements and advancement. It was tough, but manageable, and friends all seemed to know the secrets.
amazing video. I still remember getting this game from my Nana for my 4th birthday. She called me up the stairs and handed me this gold box. My life was forever changed, I am 37 now, and this game will always be iconic to me.
I loved Zelda 2, and still like It. Brutally difficult, but so fun that I replayed it recently on NSO
I was honoured to have been able to beat the fan-translated FDS version of Zelda II with a lot of use of rewind and save states, but I can't possibly see myself play it for enjoyment. I'd even be cool with that the player is teleported back to Zelda's shrine every time you have to continue(although still the player should be teleported to the dungeon entrance), but I can't get over how way too many enemies(especially the Dark Nuts) are way too good at combat.
It's like the AI was specifically written to be flawless and perfect: No matter how much you guard and try to stab them, the AI makes zero mistakes and completely unjustly takes shots at you that you have no way of anticipating or deflecting, and your miniscule health pool gets ground down after 3-4 hits. It's immensely unfair and I can't see how this can be a mark of good game design. Obviously these were the parts I had to rewind on the most. I know that there's a "jump-and slash the sword at them" strategy which lets them put their guard down, but I don't know if this was intended by the developers and I just see it as an exploit. I didn't even know it was there. If the AI had been rewritten to be just a tad more permissible, I'm certain that would improve mine and many other people's thoughts on the game. So at the very least, I'm happy with the "Zelda 2 Redux" hack, which while it doesn't back down the relentless fighting AI, does increase your health pool, magic and adds all sorts of QoL features. That hack's the only way I play Zelda II nowadays.
Other than that there's a lot of things I like about Zelda II. I like that there's a lot more backtracking and utilising uncovered info and villager rumours(I definitely kept a paper with notes during my playthrough), and the couple of times that you could find hidden things like stuff hidden under a table was pretty nifty, although you had to learn that this was even an option in the first place. And even then I was so angry that some hidden secrets like finding those hidden towns and cots in unspecified points in a forest left you with no prior indication. You have to use a walkthrough. It's complete bollocks and it felt like the devs tried to echo the obscurity of "Zelda 1" but in the most hostile way. Zelda 1 could at least telegraph some secrets like have that one tree or a rock that feels oddly out of sync with the rest of the environment, while Zelda II doesn't even do that.
And just like in Zelda 1 everything feels vaguely apocalyptic and even more eerily desolate here, even in spite of the inclusion of villagers, and I think that's a fitting reflection of the game's difficulty. It feels like everybody is cowering, teetering on the edge of survival and are barricaded inside their homes. That there's a common fan joke that the young women in the villages sell their bodies to Link just adds to it. It feels like a hopeless world, the music is sombre and resigned, and there are still so many unresolved mysteries that were brought in this story: Just what's with the Babylonian/Egyptian motifs surrounding the last dungeon? What entity is that boss guarding it, and what connection do they possibly have with Ganon? Just who is Shadow Link? None of these questions are answered and that's something I both fear and tremendously respect in this game.
The secret to fighting Iron Knuckles is to realize that once they take damage they enter a sort of “rage mode”, in which they relentlessly stab at you making it near impossible to strike back without taking damage yourself. When they do this you just have to focus on blocking for a while until they calm down. The AI really isn’t as unfair as you describe it, there is always some trick to every enemy.
I am entirely grateful that when my family got this game, we also had the issues of Nintendo Powers that had all the coverage for the game. It eliminated so much of the guesswork in deciphering the clues and figuring out where to go, and I never found the combat that unfair or exceedingly challenging compared to other game of the day. Easily my favorite NES game of all time, and my #2 of all time overall.
Embarrassing today, but dude, I was at a K-Mart, of all fuckin' places, when I suddenly saw 7 or 8 copies of it for sale.
I FREAKED OUT, RAN back to my parents who were like 50 or 60 paces behind back toward the entrance, and when we got back to the video game department, 3 or 4 of them had been sold.
totally got it though. ALways loved it. Still Do.
This video connects a lot of things I already knew in a way that introduces a lot of things I never thought about or connected together. Wonderful.
Eagerly looking forward to this one, although I won’t have free time until much later. This channel is fast becoming the third pillar in my gaming retinue; SpawnWave for gaming news, DigitalFoundry for tech analyses, and here for thought provoking retrospectives. Keep up the excellent work🫡
My bro and I were luckily enought to get it in November 1988 at Lionel Playworld. I believe they had got some copies, but the Toys R Us and KB did not. Unfortunately, the cartridge failed a couple days later when we were on the 2nd Palace. Lionel was willing to exchange it when the new stock came in. Called every week to see if it was in... it was definitely into the new year when we finally got our new cartridge. I know school was back in session because my friend Mike and I ditched a couple days to play it,. We were up to the 6th Palace area when we got stupidly greedy and decided to just go home after lunch one day. Obviously, we got caught that time. Of course, one of our consequences was grounded from NES. Finally beat it a couple after getting NES back.
This video made me remember Mystery Quest for the NES as something that was similar.
Hated that game.
Little brother loved it.
I'm glad your channel is doing so well these, great content as always.
Replayed this game in anticipation of your video. I beat this for the first time in 2020 and every time I return to it I think it gets better. The learning curve is definitely too steep but once the game starts opening up and once you get that downward stab leveling becomes exhilarating and that combat system never stops being fun once you get the hang of it.
6:46 Zelda II was insanely influential. There are still games being made with a similar style.
Excellent as always!
Weirdly, Zelda II is the game I come back to the most now. I've finished Zelda I so many times it almost feels easy, but Zelda II is always a challenge. Plus, the weight and momentum of Link's movement in the side-view sequences both feel _really good_! It's up there with Castlevania, I think, as the best weapon-based combat gameplay on the system.
I've mentioned this multiple times in various places, but Ironknuckles have a trick to beating them. It turns out that the game's code cheats a bit when it updates them. It watches the player's controller inputs directly to determine where to put their shields, and unlike the player, Ironknuckles can attack at a height at which they aren't blocking. This makes them infuriating opponents, who can always put their shield exactly where you're attacking, but aren't beholden to attacking from behind their shield. And, weirdly, the underthrust move you learn doesn't work on them. The trick is, if you jump, and slash while on the way down, sort of like you're slashing through the enemy knight's helmet, it always hits. This has to be an intentional choice, and makes Ironknuckles MUCH easier opponents to fight.
Later on you fight Dinofols in some overworld scenes who are similarly as frustrating as Ironknuckles are, yet the head-slash trick is not as effective on! To attack them reliably, you have to do a short hop, and attack low in the air, to attack their midsection. It can be done consistently, but it's a lot more frustrating to do if you're not employing speedrun-level tricks. And then, of course, there are the Fokkas in the last dungeon (unfortunate name there), which ultimately the only really good way to beat them is to use the upthrust move, but is frustratingly precise with the exact place you stab them, meaning, you often just leap into them as they pass overhead and get hurt.
Another note about Ironknuckles. That Zelda Game & Watch handheld system that Nintendo released last year not only has emulated versions of Zelda I, II and Link's Awakening in it, but it also has a playable clock mode based around Zelda I, and a playable stopwatch mode based on the combat scenes in Zelda II, that asks you to defeat as many monsters as you can during the time you set. (If you don't touch the controls an AI player plays, but you can take over and go for a high score yourself.) Both of these modes show so much attention to detail that I presume they're using a hacked-up version of the original games' engines, but... the Ironknuckles in Zelda II's mode are immune to the helmet-slash trick! It just doesn't work on them!
After a bit of play, it seems to me the only consistent way to beat them is: when the Ironknuckle is stabbing, it cannot change the height at which it blocks, You have to thus wait until it attacks, then stab it where its shield isn't. If it's stabbing at a height different from where it's blocking then you'll be open to attack yourself when you attack it. It really puts your reactions to the test in a way that Nintendo mostly doesn't do any more.
I feel like I should mention the Great Palace in Zelda II, which is ludicrous. The original release of Zelda II in Japan was on the Famicom Disk System, of course. Side One was the boot side and the side where saved games were stored. On starting, the game immediately asked the player to insert side B, where most of the game was stored. Nearly the entire game was held on side B, UNTIL... when they got to the Great Palace, players were asked to put side A back in. The only gameplay on Side A was that Palace! It's ludicrously big, and most of it is devoted to non-essential rooms, including an entire route with no purpose other than to be a huge red herring!
One thing about the Japanese version's experience system is, if you're daring enough to go all-in on Attack, you can easily get to Attack 5 by the end of the first palace. Experience levels, since you can lose them on starting a new session, are much cheaper in the Disk System version, and you can get to Attack 8 before the end of the first continent, during the first half of the game. Enemies also tend to score you somewhat higher experience awards in the Japanese version. The upshot is, if you don't run out of lives, getting all 8s by the end doesn't require milking the crystal placement bonuses. If you DO run out of lives of course, all the levels you didn't build evenly are lost, but it does make for an exciting way to play. The early game really penalizes players who build Magic early, since in the first two palaces the only spells you have are Shield and Jump.
The rental store near me in Jupiter Florida had one copy of super Mario bros 2 and Zelda 2. They would not hold it when it was returned so it was first come first serve. I suffered through several substitutes while waiting such as wizards and warriors and other PTSD inducing "games". Finally got copies of my own on my birthday in 1990
It has been 0 days without a Tower of Duraga reference in this channel.
Zelda II was a brutal game, but I think one of the things that kept it fun was the fact that the controls worked rather well, so you could keep fighting the enemies instead of fighting the input (as opposed to some games that are difficult primarily due to clunky controls or input lag). I went back and replayed it recently, and combat itself was just plain fun!
I started to follow your work around June. I was so sad that you hadn't cover this game yet back then. Now I'm really happy. Fantastic jornalist you are, sir.
I adored this game as a child, and I still love it to this day. I think I beat it when I was probably around eight years old. It was hard, but it was worth every day that I put into it. I think I played every Saturday night. For a couple hours at least before bed. My mom would join in with me. For all of those who complain that it’s a hard game, it’s not a hard game. It’s just a game that doesn’t hold your hand like modern games too. Modern games, treats players like children. Old school games treated us with respect and made it hard so we were challenged and didn’t beat a game in just a few Hours Leaving us with nothing to do until our parents gave us permission to buy another game. Old school games made us think. They made us try to think outside the box and see how far we could get. They made us communicate with others to get help whether it be with our parents or with our friends or siblings. And as someone who used to work with children for many years, I always had older kids who would come to me and ask me to help them with a certain level. Old school games were amazing and still are because they show what happens when you don’t baby your audience. You get people who beat a game and in the end, they feel the satisfaction that has no words to describe. That we went through an epic journey and put our heart and souls into it.
“The original Zelda abstracted role playing concepts into an action format”
I might argue that the role playing concepts are the abstraction that these NES games sought to embody.
My first game I played on the Zelda franchise, fell in love ever since lol. Definitely loved the music first I herd it I was hooked on it lol.
Took weeks of trading the controller back and forth with my best friend playing the Zelda Collector's Edition on Gamecube but finishing that final temple was glorious!
I loved this game, but found it harder than Dragon Warrior; I never beat it as a child. I think this is one of those titles that many definitely needed the strategy guide in NP to have any hope of completing.
It's by far the hardest of the Zelda games.
They accidentally released it in Hero Mode. 😉 I’ve beat it once on the default difficulty-that’s plenty for me.
How did he make this upload look like from the 80's? That's amazing
I never beat this game before despite playing it since it released. This game is brutally nes hard. The way you have to grind every continue is unforgivable
Thank you SO MUCH for demonstrating the real way to fight Ironknuckle!!! Fighting him is so fun! He's the best part of the game.
So many Let's Players do the stupid jump trick, and even have the temerity to bitch about how "annoying" Ironknuckle is, because "you have to just keep doing that jump move..."
It's really upsetting how the best part of the game, the dueling, is practically unknown.
How do these people beat Ironknuckles before getting the down thrust??
@@JeremyParish Well, I mean the on-foot ones, not Ribonak the boss. You can't unhorse him without the downthrust. But what you CAN do against on-foot Ironknuckle, to my and probably the developers endless agony, is jump and strike at just the right moment, and you're sword will always hit him. No dueling required.
And it's because, if you jump in front of him, he puts his shield in the low position. Simple coding error. He should've been set to keep it high.
Impeccable timing on this video, Jeremy. Thank you so much. I'm replaying Zelda II for the umpteenth time currently and have a bunch of other reviews of this game queued up but of course this one comes first. Maybe not my favorite game, but certainly my most nostalgic. Also one of the only games that my Dad has beaten, somehow.
I love this game, even recognizing all its flaws. Played it on the Zelda Collection on my Gamecube all those years ago.
Excellent review. Love these videos and I will happily continue to buy the books as they release!
Wondering whether the Zelda II title music used in the background for this video has the balance right. That FDS channel for the melody is loud!
I've tried Zelda II even as far back as 1990, but never got very far in it. This video is the first time I ever got an interest to actually give it a serious attempt for once.
I was waiting for this one. Nice job as always Jeremy. Love Zelda 2.
You always bring a fresh perspective A+
You have become my favourite creator. I really look forward to these videos. I have profound memories of all these games. Great work on your research and opinions.
It's understandable how someone would be disappointed with this game when they thought it was going to be exactly like the first one. That's actually how I felt when I first played this. But it quickly became my favorite game on the system and still to this day is among my all time favorites.
Zelda II has continued to influence games even to this day- Chronicles of Teddy (the actionised sequel to the point-and-click adventure game Finding Teddy) is an open homage to Zelda II, with the same high-low combat system and use of up-stab and down-thrust attacks.
You know, the more of these videos I watch, the more sad I get. They just take me back to a time when gaming was cruder, simpler, but also just plain better, when I actually _enjoyed_ gaming more than I do today, when these simple 8-bit graphics and bleepy chiptunes would fill me with wonder, where today's billions of polygons and fully-orchestrated soundtracks barely evince a raised eyebrow. Call it childhood nostalgia if you like, but back then gaming was FUN. Where did all the magic go?
Just started the video...and was so happy. Its my favorite nes game
I found a lot of the sword fighting in skyward sword reminded me of Zelda 2. Particularly the fights with Girahim where he seems to be able to parry every damn sword strike if you aren't skilled.
Imagine if Zelda 2's side scroll style had really succeeded and become the norm form the next generation. I love Links Adventure for all the innovative ideas and played it later in 1989. The larger areas and characters felt like a huge evolution in such a short time. Some of the cryptic statements from townspeople felt like I was playing Jeopardy with only one hemisphere of my brain working. Great job, Mr Parrish, as always. Fonder memories of NES I could not ask for.
I was born in November 88! When I grew up we had this, so I think dad bought it and played it while I was a yung newly spawned build
As overlooked as it is, Zelda 2 and the games that inspired might actually be my favorite type of game: the not-quite-Metroidvania adventure side-scroller with light RPG mechanics and overly-simplistic combat (where some grinding is required, but the rewards for it are immediately noticeable)
I used to have Zelda II for my NES back in the early 2000's, (2000 to 2001).
This is wonderful. Thanks so much
0:11 for a second I thought this was John Denver from that Christmas special with him and Julie Andrews.
I am %100 certain I rented this game in November 1988, because my birthday is the 30th. I rented it before that, and subsequently, it was all I wanted for my birthday. I didn't get it, because my parents couldn't find a copy in stores. I got it a month later for Christmas. I remember it well, because it was the first game I got to choose, and it is still my favorite NES game. I beat it a few times a year, for funsies.
As a kid it felt like Zelda 2 was NEVER going to get released. Especially after reading so much about it in the early Fun Club magazines and later Nintendo Power. I remember my parents said they had tried to find a copy of it in time for Christmas 88 but instead my sister and I had to wait until Easter of 89 before we were able to play it.
Much like is said in the video it was quite different from the original Zelda both in good and bad ways. While I played the heck out of it for months and finished it a couple of times it wasn't a game that I went back to very much after a while. My sister lost interest fairly quickly because of many of the leveling quirks and the increased difficulty as mentioned in the video.
Still though, it was quite the memorable game and I'm glad it got an entire video devoted to it here!
Me too. Nintendo was such a tease with their magazine.
Zelda II will always be my favorite Zelda game. I speedrun it for a reason haha
With your look and the white noise as the channels change, even your voice, I'm always reminded of Matt Frewer (if not Max Headroom outright.) I always loved Battle of Olympus, similar as the style was to the sidescrolling part of Zelda II, much more than that game.