Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1989/NES)

Now that it's finally weekend i'll be reviewing the next Zelda game.

Title Screen!!

Yeah that's right, Zelda II: The adventure of Link. The second and last Zelda game for the NES. This game has something that other Zelda games these days don't have.

This game starts off with an intro that scrolls by Star Wars style. Once you've seen this the actual game starts. You start off in Hyrule Castle with Zelda, who is sleeping because of Ganondorf. You leave the castle with your sword and shield and enter Hyrule City. Hyrule city looks quite nice with trees, deserts, caves and mountains. You have the trusted overhead view but you're terribly small. Strangely there are 2 types of views overhead and from the side.

The first Zelda had this awesome overhead view and suddenly they decide to change it all and make the battle sequence a side-scroller. Well technicly there wasn't a standard yet. There's one with overhead and now one that includes sidescrolling gameplay. The good thing about this is that you basicly never get lost. Keep walking to the right until you reach the end of the level. The villages are alot smaller, and no backdoors. In every village lives a wise man that gives you magical powers. With magical powers i mean you can use special attacks, or higher jumps or better protection. Everytime you use magic power, it lowers your 'Magic' in the top left corner. You can easily fill it up in a village and it's free! In total you can have 8 heart containers and 8 magic ones.

You're just as big as a whole town :O!

So when you are just chilling in the overhead world, it may happen that 3 things come walking up to you. This means you're gonna enter the battle sequence. You enter a side-scrolling mode fighting your way through your enemies to the end. There's 2 type of battle sequences, weak and strong. If you walk into a weak one , you get weak and easy to kill enemies. Strong the opposite. You see the side of link fighting enemies in deserts, swamps or graveyards. When you encounter an enemie you can attack him with your sword, there's more than just an attack you can also use your magic power, like i've talked about before.

No overhead view, just left and right.

Zelda 2 is the only Zelda game that uses a level system. Every mob you kill gives you some experience. Once you have enough you level up. When you level up you can choose between 3 things to power up. Attack, Magic or Life. These are all on 1 with a total of 8. The higher your attack the greater your strength. When you upgrade your Magic you can do more magic for less costs. Upgrading your Life means ou can take more hits. This game is hard, but that's known for Zelda games. But this game is almost unfair, first of all you lose all your gained experience points when you die, and when playing this game you will die alot. There's no checkpoints in battle sequences.


The controls of this game are not what you are used to. The control just don't feel like playing a Zelda game. You won't be able to play this game immediately, you should definitely read a manual or jump around for some time.

Nice name bro.

The graphics are not bad but the overhead view is just too small. You seem to be just as big as a whole town which is kinda strange. The sidescrolling graphics are pretty good and everything is easy to tell from another.

The storyline of the game is fairly easy. Zelda is under a sleeping spell and you have to wake her up. You have to get 6 crystals from each palace in Hyrule, once you do, you save Zelda.

If you want a challange you should definitly play this game (if you don´t have a NES you can use an emulator) but beware, this game is extremely hard. There is just one way to beat this game, keep playing it until you have!

Conclusion, This game is very hard and a good challenge for you Zelda fans out there, for the average gamer, you will have a hard time beating this game. The overhead view is a bit weird and the side scrolling is a little different from what you would aspect from a Zelda game.

This was MrBunni, see you next time.
MrBunni out!