I Played Adventure of Link NES in 2023, and it was NOT What I Expected
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- Опубликовано: 26 май 2023
- Join me as I play The Legend of Zelda 2: Adventure of Link on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and review my experience as I complete the game!
For more Zelda videos in this same style of video format, look here!:
Zelda 1: ruclips.net/video/r6O6WlfM9Rw/видео.html
A Link to the Past: ruclips.net/video/mylRdMms-cY/видео.html
Link's Awakening: ruclips.net/video/m_y7PiOsEsE/видео.html
Crystalis next?!?
@@cascar7972 I up vote this.
Which did you enjoy more, Zelda 1 or Zelda 2?
@@guitarzilla555 it's close, but probably Zelda 2. Zelda 1 has better exploration, but the combat in Zelda 2 is one of the best out of all of the Zelda games that exist. Zelda 2 is also a little less cryptic.
You probably won't think of this in your first play, but what you really want to know is delay beating the castles until your experience is higher. While this means going through some of them twice, each time you place one of the gems it builds your EXP to the next level, so going through the castle a second time can be far less time consuming then grinding at the higher levels.
Nintendo - Makes miracles with 1MB RAM
RUclipsr: “Lazy game design”
"I used an exploit where I used the Reflect spell for an easy win."
That's...not an exploit. It's how you're supposed to fight that fight.
I would argue that even if it's intended it's still technically exploiting something.
Perseus exploited medusa to kill the kraken, so perseus hates women
@@OneMilian Not how the original myth goes, but that's take, I guess.
@@jordanjohnston2453 An exploit in IT and I guess in gaming means misuse in an unintended way
The exploit is shielding from the corner, though.
It's hilarious to me that you completely bypassed the up-thrust attack, which would have let you actually collect all those keys instead of having to cheese it with the Fairy spell.
There's a skeleton key at some point too, isn't there? If memory serves it might actually be needed to do one of the palaces without the fairy spell trick
Yeah, in New Kasuto you cast the “Spell” spell in the empty area at the end of the town. This opens a secret area where you get the Magic Key.
Well how the hell was I supposed to know that without a guide ?
@@jg2722 yeah, idk. When I played it with my aunt and grandmother back when the game was new, they just kinda did it. I don’t know, I was pretty young at the time.
I was surprised he got through that somehow, without obtaining that sword technique by the end of the video!
According to my grandmother in 1988, when Link go into the house with the woman, she just cooking him a nice meal.😅
Your grandmother must have cooked a lot of nice meals back in the day.
My grandmother said the same. She actually helped me beat the game in the final levels. We also played NES Willow together, a very under rated game similiar to Zelda 1. Bless her heart, and she died of Cancer when I was 16.
I was so naive that I think that's what I thought back then! I was like 11.
She eating dem hotdog
Something that I think most people don't think about, is that when this game came out, a lot of us only owned 1 or 2 NES games. So this was like... *ALL WE HAD*. So we naturally explored the crap out of this stuff and learned everything we could, because we didn't have a Steam Library full of games. Some points about not discovering things are probably valid, but remember that there was a ton of incentive for us to explore these games fully.
In addition to the upward thrust that you completely missed (you have to use the Jump spell in a town and go down a chimney), you can also cheese the palaces...jump over the stone slot at the end, exit stage right, and redo the entire palace, sans final boss. I did this on Palace 2 for a few hours to grind up a lot of levels and that helps *a ton*.
The upward thrust and the down attack helped kill and get good points from the flying glowing skulls
Oh man yeah. When I was a kid, we had a PS1 with only two games, Rayman and Tomb Raider. Rayman stopped me dead at Band Land, that level where you had to ride the rocket maracas, and I was never able to pass it, and I beat Tomb Raider so many times that I can do pistol-only no damage runs of it now. I spent most of my spare time playing cover disks lol
Yeah, I played the hell out of every game I had, even the ones that were not too good. If I didn't find the secret the first time, I'd get it eventually.
i got Link/Zelda 2 when it first came out, abt 2 yrs after i got my NES (probably my 10 or 11th game i owned) , and yeah it was somewhat difficult at times,(but not NEARLY AS HARD as 'Kid Icarus' was, lol). However, i either had some insights from either NINTENDO POWER, or a friend, i was able to beat the game after a reasonable amount of time. i was unaware of any 'glitches' (for the most part) for NES games when they first came out back in 80s.
As someone who was there in the old days, it is awesome to see younger folks go back and do it the same way we did.
I still have polaroid's from xmas 89 when I got this game. For some reason I thought I had to open the nes boxes from the bottom. I was 8 then. XD To think all that stuff in our xmas pictures then and how much there worth now.
it is still an awesome game! played it about a year ago first time, and I loved it
They dont do it like we did. We didnt have the internet so we learned by word of mouth from other players. Now, someone is stuck for a minute and they run to youtube and watch a playthrough
Came here to say this. Homeboy in the video did it about as legit as you can, pretty much.
@@totesFleisch if you watch this video, he played the game without strategies from the internet. Only game manual.
As an 80s/90s survivor, I feel its important to note that very few kids would've been able to survive this game using only the manual. Nintendo Power as a rule walked you through about half of each game, and kept printing strategies and hints in the issues moving forward, as many as it took before players stopped writing in for help. You could also ALWAYS call the Game Counselors, which believe me we did. That's why my whole age cohort of gamers are so obsessed with Nintendo Power, it was a literal lifeline.
Not all of us had a subscription to nintendo power, and my friends mostly had the snes or genesis. So I missed trading secrets.
Til this day, I don't know anyone who beat this game. I only beat it using save states and looking up the walkthrough. Like most players, I was stuck on getting the Thunder magic because I didn't find all the magic containers.
"calling the Game Counselors" was what rich kids did. That was a toll number that cost several dollars per minute. And Nintendo Power wasn't exactly a cheap subscription, either. Regular kids just used their brains, tried every item when we got stuck, and bombed every wall.
One thing to know about gaming back then is we weren't exactly going in blind. We kids shared discoveries on the playground. I think I learned NWSW in Zelda and about the minus world in Mario from my babysitter. And then there was Nintendo Power, which printed guides and answered reader questions; Zelda II got all kinds of coverage. Never think we all toughed it through the NES era without some sort of guidance on obtuse games like this or Castlevania II.
We all seem remember a lot of secrets as something that we have “just known about for forever now,” but if we search our memories a little deeper, we usually remember a friend, magazine, or in one case for me, the back of a Kraft macaroni and cheese box, that told us about something we were missing
Also don't forget the Nintendo Power Hotline.
Or we just randomly tried stuff and explored.
This game especially we discussed every morning at the bus stop. We were obsessed with beating it and we would all hang out at each others’ houses taking turns continuing the one save we were determined to beat it with. Gaming with friends was a lot different back then lol
reusing rooms is very common in any NES games, Zelda 1 does it, Super Mario Bros does it, Metroid does it a lot, etc. It's not that much of a design flaw it is just how they had to do to keep the size of the file small enough to fit in the cartridge. Most of the time when they reuse a room, they change color and items or enemies inside so it's actually never exactly the "same" at least.
Yeah, NES Metroid recycled rooms to a T even down to secret passages and Missile pickups. You had to memorize rooms based not on any one screen, but the _combination_ of screens that form the room as a whole.
the most relatable Zelda II run. Complained the whole way through, still give it a half way decent score
I've noticed that Zelda 2 has been getting a popular resurgence as of late. One that is definitely deserved. During the last decade it was 'fun' to hate on the game and others like it on the NES because of using very modern game designs and features that had been taken for granted. But how was Zelda 2 the best selling Zelda game until Ocarina of Time (Link to the Past did over take it, but it took until 1997 or 1998 for it to do so), if it was so bad?
In 1987, it wasn't bad, but was actually really good. Its missing a lot of elements we take for granted such as maps, indicators, on the head hints, and many UI elements to help guide you along as well as tutorials or micro-tutorials to show you how to use new abilities and such. The NES didn't have the memory space for much of that, and the design and introduction of said things would be another half decade away and a full decade before refinement.
Those of us who played these games from 1978 to 1990 did without and Zelda 2 was simply designed with that in mind. When we didn't have maps, we made our own and drew them. When we didn't have guides, we had friends who had (or shared it) the game and we bounced ideas back and forth, and when we didn't have tutorials we used trial and error to figure things out. I'm not saying it was better than modern interpretations. I'm just pointing out that the standards were different and thus so were the expectations.
Instead of wishing we had more modern features and design elements we had no idea about, we were glad to have the type of game that this was. So when playing some of these older games sometimes you have to understand the context. But I would argue that despite these limitations, these games are still incredibly fun games to play in their own right.
Well said. This was the first point in time where home gaming was overtaking the arcade. Arcade play was brutal, intense, and repetitious by dezign. (industry goal was 2min per quarter). Gamers were used to that, and actions oriented gameplay was typically the focus. So running around slashing enemies with the sword all the time was just how gaming tended to be. You were having fun with just the mechanics themselves. Story and progression were awesome too, but nowadays, it's more about the story in many people's minds. Less trash mobs, more progression.
I agree with most of your points here, but the actual reason that Zelda 2 sold more than the 1st or 3rd games is because of the hype that Zelda generated. Obviously people jumped on the sequel, reception to Zelda 2 was cooler, thus people were less excited for a 3rd game. That's just how sales trends work.
@@MisterMelvinheimer In 1987 sure. But 1997? That kinda falls off. 10 years for hype is long, even by Nintendo fan standards.
@@taemien9219 A link to the past was 91. That's a completely reasonable time span to have the previous games reception in mind when deciding whether or not you'd be interested in a sequel.
This isn't speculation either. The game just wasn't as positively received as the game before or after it.
Look at resident evil 4,5,and 6.
Re5 was capcoms best selling game for a generation, because of how popular and influencal Re4 was.
5 sold better, but reviewed worse and capcom learned the wrong lessons from that and put out 6. Nearly killed the franchise. Re 7 was their link to the past.
@@MisterMelvinheimer I agree to a point. I remembered getting Z2 first, and being a bit dismayed because I really wanted LoZ after seeing screen shots in every game magazine. But I played the hell out of Z2 and loved it. Went back and did LoZ afterwards and accepted it, but didn't enjoy it as much. So playing Z2 first probably cemented my love for it over LoZ.
Also, if they had not given it the Zelda name and called it something else, I have a feeling it would have received a more positive following, since it wouldn't have had any expectations. Z2 was a grandiose adventure that was outright amazing on the NES, and one of the first of its kind, but probably should have had a different name and slightly different story.
But that said, it's still a great game, and probably the one I play the most with all the various rom hacks and fan games. But it can be tough playing it blind with little to no hints on where some of the secrets are.
As someone who has played this game so much, there are so many things to say.
'
Palaces turn to stone to let you know you 100% completed it.
Fire is super useful. There are a bunch of enemies that can only be killed with it, and you will likely get punished when you just try to evade them.
You are not supposed to defeat any dungeons by using Fairy in place of keys. You missed the magical key.
I suspect that the "cheese strats" for Carock and Shadow Link were somewhat intentional. It wouldn't be hard for them to change the AI to make those strats not work, but they both come at the end of the hardest dungeons. You can either kick back and take an easy dub because you worked hard to get there, or you can play it straight if you want the challenge.
I like to describe this game as like a good professor - hard but fair. They set up the lessons, but you have to do the work for yourself, you have to learn. But as you do, the tools for your success become unlocked.
He didn't miss the magical key--you can see it in his inventory. He just didn't talk about it.
@@joeseibert652 He basically "missed" the Key for the time it was relevant. (Mostly 20:14.)
If the semi-final boss didn't require a spell he didn't have he would have finished without it.
By that point he had no use for the Key, but grabbed it during his backtrack from the end
since it was in the town with the last Magic Container and a Spell.
The combat and platforming are hard but fair. Actually finding out where to go is anything but. Luckily Nintendo had a hotline and a magazine.
Using the reflect spell on that boss is the intended strat. The boss isn’t broken, that’s how it’s supposed to be.
"Broken" in the sense that you can just squat in the corner
after using that spell and the Boss pretty much can't touch you.
That's neither Broken nor "Broken". It's clearly the intended solution to a puzzle.
@ It's one thing for the solution for be "use this spell to do damage",
but it _shouldn't_ result in you being able to just SIT in 1 spot for the rest of the "fight".
Once you activate the spell that Boss doesn't change its behavior and literally _kills itself._
It just teleport spams the _entire_ time. That's just poor design.
@@King_Luigi No, it's great game design.
It makes the player feel clever for figuring out a trick, the trick makes perfect sense given the boss' behaviour so it doesn't feel cheap and it relies on finding a spell that can be missed so it acts like a soft ability gate. It's perfect really.
@ The problem is that it feels more lazy and boring than anything.
_It's literally just a larger version of a regular enemy, it doesn't do anything different._
If they made it like, "reflect its attack to make it temporarily vulnerable"
and changed its attacks during that phase that'd be _something_ at least.
Having an "ability gate" for a Boss in this game is terrible, and only adds extra frustration to this.
Just reaching them is a hassle and if you get there _without_ that spell, then your only option is to die
and do a ton of backtracking just to leave the area (even more if that was your last life).
If there was some kinda fast travel/teleport spell to get you outta there
and back to the Boss quickly this would be much less of an issue.
To this day, I still remember the thrill of the 10 years old me (there was no internet, no guides, nothing!), who spoke no English whatsoever (so I could use none of the clues the game was giving to me), as he saw a big ass door emerge from the ground in Kasuto after randomly casting Spell at a dead end! I replay the game every now and then just for that moment
If you continue to talk to that sleeping slime in the village, you eventually wake him up & he talks to you.
Impressive that you managed to beat the game without getting the up thrust sword technique 👏👏👏
Yeah that added a lot of hassle apparently.
I am glad you liked the game, and finished it despite some difficulties. Yes, when I first replayed the game as an adult, even I missed the Magic Container in Maze Island and had to look it up. If you had gotten the spell from New Kasuto (which you need 7 Magic Containers to get), you would have gotten the Spell spell. With that, you can get the hidden item out of New Kasuto, the Magic Key. That's what the game expected you to do for the hidden palace. You also missied Upstab in Darunia. But you managed without these things. Good job!
Yeah, back in the day I remember getting stumped on where to find the hidden village (and 6th palace). I remember struggling to reach the Great Palace WITHOUT any ability to see the invisible ghosts, then discovering (the hard way) how the game won't let you enter (trying to pass through the barrier will kill you).
wow, your play-thru , commentary,, and observations is probably one of the most honest, best overall reviews of Link (Zelda 2) that i have ever watched or heard. its quite amazing that you seemed to have discovered so much about the game all on your own , with little or no help or assistance, such as NINTENDO POWER, or ' a friend', and to be able to advance and progress thru the game , esp after so many deaths/ game overs , is very impressive. great job, thanks for sharing your experience.
Wow. Brute forcing palace 6 with fairy. I'm impressed
palace 6 with fairy is also how i originally beat the game lol I had collected everything in the game at that point except the skeleton key.
at 25 39 , after you get that spell, i think you have to the end of his town and use the spell and a secret monument will arise with a door and you go inside and get something
Cartridge space was really limited. The options were to reuse assets or no Zelda 2 for you. Almost all late-stage NES games used reusability to some extent.
An example being Megaman 2. They used a system that represented a block of tiles. I think in that one every "tile" in a level was actually a 2x2 block instead of the normal 1x1 tile. Made each level about 1/4 of the cartridge space it would otherwise require.
Raoru is the name of a sage too. Sage of light, as well as the King of Hyrule
And rauru is a hylian being in oot
And Rauru is a Zonai being in TOTK
@@haruhisuzumiya6650And he was an owl in OoT as well but he used a different name in that guise for some reason.
@@BJGvideos and was in Links awakening
It seems that Zelda repeats itself just not exactly
@@haruhisuzumiya6650 Not in LA. _That_ Owl was part of the Windfish.
The owl has a different name. Where do you get the idea that it's Rauru?
The trick to beating Zelda 2, is to grind XP as much as possible, early in the game. Also, after you reach attack 8, if you keep clicking on Attack, after maxing out, there is a small chance you’ll activate a game bug and get Attack 0 (which is really Attack 10). Nearly all the enemies, except bubbles and Dark/Shadow Link get demolished in one, including the 6 palace bosses and Thunderbird. 😂
A lot of those enemies that take multiple hits can be defeated easier with fire. Also, it is not lazy game design. It was just making the most with limited memory for graphics.
Especially the hopping Tektites on the eastern map, who can ONLY be defeated with fire.
@@Stratelier "when all else fails... use fire"
@@JayOwinFull Burn it. *BURN IT ALL!*
@@Stratelier This guy's main strategy seemed to be to avoid fighting most enemies which is why he was under-leveled at the end but also explains why he didn't realize what the Fire spell is for because if you're skipping every enemy that doesn't die in one or two hits, you're not exploring if there is a more effective way to fight them.
I wish they would make another one in this style. That could be really cool with all the advances in game design and user experience.
It's a gem. Solid as they come.
It also has one of the most epic intros to any NES game.
(I absolutely hope you make more videos like this. It's really cool watching someone experience OG classics while giving your general thoughts about the game as you play)
I've been playing this game off and on since it came out on the NES and I finally beat it about a month ago.
There is a really good fan made Zelda 2 PC enhanced version that recently came out. Check it out sometime.
And all that without getting the Upward Thrust!
Good show
How does someone miss the up stab? Hmm
I purchased this game in 1988 and it was $99 at Specs. We had no cheats or walk throughs and it took about a year to complete. Also, this was the first game I played that you had to grind exp to level up. I spent many hours in the swamp grinding.
Tip for everybody who wanna playthrough easier. dont collect the dolls (lives) before the last dungeon. practice the dungeon and if you feel you nearly can beat it, continue again and collect all lives before.
Never thought of that before but good tip.
@@amerk6601 that is how i beat it. I think you can get 4 or 5 extra lives
I find it funny that I can tell when you are excited about something in your playthrough. Pressing the down button repeatedly. Never gets old.
I’m 44 years old, and I know a lot of younger players use the internet to figure this out, but we OGs beat this game with no internet, no strategy guide, just straight grinding.
Get the Power. Nintendo Power. That's how I beat the game.
Zelda II came from a time when game sequels didn't know what they were, and it very much was an experiment in trying to be everything at once - an RPG, a sidescrolling adventure game, and an open-world exploration game, and almost a psuedo fighting game all in one package! It was a lot of systems to balance, that's for sure.
Personally, I'd change the EXP for gold and make upgrades available at towns, along with 1up purchases; and one four-way cave that linked the beginning of the game to a cave near Levels 2-3 (blocked by a boulder), the plains near Levels 4-5 (blocked by the river in the south) and the southeastern part, blocked by the Spider Demon for fast travel purposes; but that's about all I'd change.
PS: 11:00 This cave with the Hammer in it is supposed to be Level 9 from the first Zelda game, hence the location near the "twin rocks," and the statue heads at the beginning.
How were you supposed to know to find Baggu? You'll love this. You keep poking the sleeping slime, "that serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever", and he eventually wakes up and tells you where to find his master (Baggu).
Using the reflect spell to defeat the Carock (essentially a wizzrobe) is not an exploit, it is the only way to damage the boss.
8:28 Even back in the NES days, I think most people never figure out on their own that you have to keep on pestering the slime to rudely wake it up and start let it talk a hint. (I think the method to wake the slime up is much more cryptic than the solution to the hint)
The sleeping bot and ache in the villages tell where you to find things if you're persistent enough. The ache literally says, "you are persistent... find heart in ocean N of the palace."
I could tell you decided to stop talking to villagers eventually. "When all else fails, use Fire" is an early game hint that indicates that you use fire on the enemies that don't take damage from any other source. They are great sources of experience and are everywhere so a quick Fire spell gets you tons of XP you otherwise have to grind for. There's also villagers that give you hints on using the flute on the "River Devil" and that there is a "secret" at the end of the hidden village which is the Magic Key you never picked up.
Once I saw you in the final temple without the Thunder spell though, my heart really went out to you, knowing that you'd have to eventually leave the Great Palace and would probably resort to a guide to confirm it was necessary. I actually never knew you needed all those magic containers to get the Spell and Thunder abilities. I knew where the magic containers were though. It wasn't until much later in life I resorted to a guide to find the final Heart container though (again, another villager tells you it's east of three eyed rock).
Tons of props for conquering this one though. I've done it many times since but I've gotten it all memorized by now and I save all those Link Dolls for my final run on the Great Palace. Because seriously why do they not reappear after a game over?
Yes, save the dolls, and delay beating some of the earlier castles. It's easier to go through them a second time then grinding 9000 EXP, and those gems will bring you to the next level, no matter how far away it is.
Yeah I didn't understand it when he called the Fire Spell useless when it destroyed certain enemies and made grinding easier lol
This player is just a standard kid who can't understand old game design. These games just aren't for ppl like this.
You should play Air Fortress. It was a HAL Laboratories title who, also, were responsible for the entire Kirby franchise. It starts out easy, then draws you in for quite a while when the difficulty about halfway through the game REALLY ramps up exponentially. I have only gotten to Air Fortress 14 of 16 and still have not beat it to this day; I first played it when I was 11 years old and i'm 38 now (and was pretty damn good at most of these types of games as a kid). Its a real ball-breaker.
I've always loved this game. I almost beat it once as a kid, but every time I try to revisit it i can't get very far. Another one that felt similar to this, but wasn't a Zelda game, was called Faxanadu. I highly recommend this one and that.
oh MAN,i rented that game as a kid.... frustration city cuz i was young like seven and totally lost my head trying without the instructions
@@brandansampsan lmao there were instructions? I only had the cartridge. Same with Zelda 1, I didn't know that there was a book with a map until I was an adult lol. No wonder i never managed to finish either of them...
I am impressed you managed to find the mirror. Don't remember how I found it on my first playthrough.
that was fun hearing a young person play through Zelda 2 for the first time. You missed the up attack ability :P And Reflect was the intended way to beat the wizard, so you did it the right way. Grats on beating one of the hardest NES games ever
It's refreshing to hear from someone who didn't grow up with Zelda 2 actually not hating on it. Good on you! :)
"Barba" is actually Volvagia. In Japanese they have the same name (although Volvagia in OoT adds an extra subtitle after the name).
Way back in the day, I actually played this Zelda game before the first one. It was all about which friends had which games compared to my own. I knew the first two were very different from one another, but I don't think it had quite as much hate back then. It was challenging and cryptic, but damnit if you didn't get every penny's worth out of it for replay value! Plus it was also fun learning about the secrets in the games from other people at recess at school. It was motivation to be sociable and friendly, hehe.
I think the hate started after A Link to the Past came out. I don't remember any hate before that. This game was very popular when it came out. But ALttP brought back the original top-down Zelda Style. And since it was considered the best Zelda game of the three, many newer fans who gave the first two games to try, preferred the first one and started to hate the second one. And then that reputation just kept spreading throughout the years.
I also played this one first. I initially hated Z1 as a result: “you mean to tell me I can’t just jump over this water in the dungeon?”
Came for the Zelda playthrough....
....stayed for the Cap'n Crunch.
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the music in this game has always been unique and haunting, probably best music on American NES along with Castlevania games
The best music to me is from Blaster Master. Squeezed every ounce of richness out of those 4 tracks.
First thing's first - you did great for going in blind. Growing up in Rural Canada, I did not have any resources for helping me complete this game...it was all about just trying everything.
That said, I do not understand the hate for this game - this was one of my favorite NES games of all time.
I remember grinding for levels before we had a word for it. One exploit I remember finding was near the hidden town where you could walk around in the nearby desert to draw enemies to you. On the sidescrolling screen, you would wait for both enemies to be on the screen at the same time, then use Thunder to vaporize them for 300 XP. Go back to the hidden town, refill your magic, and repeat. Once you got magic up to 8, Thunder only took half your magic bar, so you could do it twice before refilling.
i totally loved zelda 2 as a kid. It was a total gem
Me 2!
Totally.
Interesting to see people objectively be wrong and be proud of it.
not my fault if the game was too hard for you @@delpullen730
One of my favorites of all time. I still play through it several times a year.
I don't know if you ever noticed but when you place a crystal you automatically get experience up to the next level so if you are close to leveling up it can be a good idea to go grind to the next level then go back and place the crystal for a free level. Sometimes i actually don't actually place the crystals is any of the early palaces because they are fairly easy to get through again later on and place those crystals for the last few levels i need to max out.
The upward stab is situationally handy.
This is the hardest Zelda game ever. I have this game on my Nintendo GameCube. Love this game but it's very hard. Everyone should buy/play this game 🎮🎮
8:25 if you talk multiple times with the slime they eventually give a clue of where you can find bagu
I’m really enjoying the new types of videos
It makes total sense that the towns are named after all of these characters and prior places from other games because remember this game actually takes place far in the future from other Zelda games timeline-wise. These things were named according to the legendary things from their world's past.
Thank you for also interpreting it this way! I cringed when I heard another RUclipsr claiming that the seven sages in Ocarina had been named after these towns. 🤦🏼♂️
The best part of the second play through. There was a way to defeat a boss in quest 2, then while the XP is counting up, quitting out and loading up a different character would give that character the remaining XP. It’s been a while, and I was in 6th grade (1987/88)
Banger video, definitely deserves more views
You can grind for XP at the red castle or any other castle that can spawn an iron knuckle when you hit it's statue at the entrance.
You're supposed to get the magic key in Kasuto before going to the Hidden Palace. It opens all doors in the game. I guess the game never makes that obvious.
The fact that it's a dungeon item is pretty obvious
@@bezoticallyyours83 It's not a dungeon item. It's in the town of Kasuto.
Shit. I accidentally posted on the wrong video. This was supposed to be for TLoZ
It's obvious when you go into the palace and can't open any of the doors. The fairy trick wasn't well known back in the day, and is obviously not the intended way to complete it.
@@tmike2552 I think it's obvious at that point that you've missed something, but I don't recall anything pointing you towards what you've missed. But it's also one of those things I've known about for 30+ years at this point, so I don't remember having a problem.
Love this video format
I really enjoyed this one! I've tried a few times ot play Zelda II, but I never got very far, so I learned a ton about the game here. I know how much the RUclips algorithm hates channels changing up their formulas, but I would totally watch more videos of this style in the future!
I remember my cousin getting this game when it was newly released, and it was so incredibly difficult to make progress because the internet wasn't quite there yet and there just wasn't a lot of support for these games unless you were lucky to have a Nintendo Power subscription.
There’s still a horseshoe over the door to my childhood bedroom with a hand written note saying “Do not enter if you don’t know how to defeat the horse” which I put there as a 5 year old because of the first palace boss from this game!
Excellent video🎉
Awesome vid! Impressed with your willingness to go truly old-school and experience these games as us genX gamers did.
One thing to note: the duplicated areas is not lazy game design. It's storage space saving technique. ROM space was relatively expensive so the sizes of game carts was typically pretty small. The encoding scheme for level data had to be small. Fun fact: a PNG screen shot of SMB1 is larger than the entire SMB1 cartridge space!
The first Zelda wasn’t even made for the cart, it used the floppy drive Japan had for the Famicom. The NES didn’t have much space at all.
You missed the skeleton key which is what the Spell spell was for at the end of the town you get it from lol also the up thrust from the church lol I won't lie I cackled when I saw you go to the great palace without the Thunder spell lolol
Very insightful video 🧐
The Jump spell actually makes the last boss (the angel thing, not dark Link) harder. Without it your peak jumping height puts you exactly where the head needs to be hit with your sword.
This was one of my only games when I got it, so I managed to find everything through A LOT of trial and error. I think it took me a couple years. I would try every spell, attack, and item on every pixel of the game to see what happened.
I didn’t know you could beat it without getting one of the sword thrusts. That surprised me.
I replayed it 20 years later on the 3DS eShop, and found most of it easier than I remembered….except for the hardest parts, which I found impossible. I resorted to save states and still never found my way through the last temple. I didn’t want to use a guide, so it remains unbeaten to this day.
2:10 that’s hilarious I couldn’t tell what a forest was
I also beat Zelda II for the first time blind a few years back. I think the only things I needed to look up were the last two optional health upgrades. That was how I learned that you had to talk to the sleeping slime multiple times to get a reward. Somewhere, there's also an up-stab attack that lets you break overhead blocks.
Yeah, it's in the village of Darunia. Much like the down-stab technique, there's a small trick to entering the house to meet the NPC who teaches it.
Glad you enjoyed it. Brings back some good childhood memories. One of my favorite Zelda’s of all time.
After watching just curious, you mentioned finding the downward stab attack, did you find the upward stab attack…
I went back and played through and FINALLY beat this game in college years ago, still on the NES. It was fantastic.
Great video!
What a great video. Great job.
Zelda 2 is great. Haters just angry that they got filtered.
I'm a 40yr old guy and I played this before school every day in like 1st grade.
Zelda 1 the first time I ever rented it I spent my first weekend w it not able to get past the very first screen bc my young mind to that point only knew side scrollers and I could not comprehend that it was an overhead perspective. After realizing that the second rental period around I went up entered the cave and got my sword. Off to the races from there.
Both of those games.. legend of zelda and zelda 2 inspired my love of adventure.
7:25 As a kid, I never recognized that this was an angel statue. It always looked like a double axe head to me 🤣
Fun fact: The very south portion of Death Mountain in Zelda 2 is the entirety of the map from Zelda 1. There are lots of images online that show how it ties in.
One of the best Zelda games ever! The flying flashing skulls give you a good amount of points for leveling up. Also, getting the slash up attack helps a lot. Now imagine how it was for some of us that beat it and got through it all with out the existence of the internet.
Damn, I had no idea that that many character names from Ocarina of Time came from this game, of all games. That’s an amazing Easter egg that most people who never played Zelda II never realized.
I like to think it was Nintendo foreshadowing Ocarina of Time later on lol
@@RyoUrawa777or just reusing shit for Easter eggs
@@bezoticallyyours83 impossible OOT wouldn't release until 98
@@RyoUrawa777 Wtf are you on about? I don't really engage in conversation with trolls.
The old guy is the guy that gave you the triforce
27:20 I saw a twitch stream of the zelda 2 ending where the console was glitching out so you could see thru the curtains. She sidesteps him and just friend hugs.
The sleeping Blob tells you about Bagu if you wake him up by talking to him 3x.
Please do more of these!
Fairy through doors is an unintended exploit they patched out in the PAL version. You should have the skeleton key near the end.
Thanks for that info. I've had the PAL version for nearly 35 years and was shocked to see you can fly through keyholes with the Fairy. I thought I had missed something for decades there.
I adore this game. Great music!
The last palace in this game, the orange tiles/walls remind me of the candy called PEZ. look at the orange tiles/walls in the last palace and then look up PEZ candy. I actually have a Mario head PEZ candy 🍭🍬🎮🎮
Nice video. I’d like to see you publish a video on the second quest too.
You even missed the upward thrust! And the final heart container which is straight to the right of the triple rock palace on the beach.
One of the best Zelda games! Beat this back in the 80's. You had to duck in the corner to fight dark Link
The ganon laugh is sped up into the boo laugh in mario.
Dont place the stones in the palace until the end. It triggers a free level up, which require a lot more xp at the end.
Also i remember calling the Nintendo hotline for the mirror
Id love to see more videos like this on older games.
Play some of the greats, like final fantasy, punch out, faxanadu, legacy of the wizard (lol, nah, that will take you literally months), blaster master, Guardian Legend... there are so many great NES ganes.
Thank you for your service.
The Ganon laugh reminds me of a sound effect from the game Kung Fu on NES.
10:57 This portion is actually the overworld of Zelda 1
Zelda II doesn't get the respect it deserves. Is it hard? yes. Is it frustrating? yes. But that feeling you get when you accomplish something in it is second to none. For example, when the game starts and health is very low and your not powerful at all, you'll find yourself avoiding fights and enemy confrontations. As the game goes on and you rack up more XP, and Link discovers new moves like the Upward and the Downward Thrust and many different magic spells, you'll find yourself going out of your way to find fights! This is my favorite Zelda after Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. Personally, I'd love to see some the enemies and bosses from Zelda II make a return in Tears of the Kingdom. Goriya's, Daira's Iron Knuckles, and Fokka's and even the evil Thunderbird would be awesome additions to Zelda releases today.
Where's our HD-2D remake of Zelda II? This game, as you mentioned, is perhaps the least underrated and least appreciated in all of the series. Which is really sad, because it's perhaps one of the best.
Zelda 2 gets a lot easier once you figure out how to game the experience system. For example, use the fact that placing a crystal at the end of a temple gives you an automatic level-up to milk it for maximum experience, especially for the expensive attack power upgrades.
Something else that also helps is knowing that damage scales somewhat exponentially, whereas monster health doesn't really. Level 8 does 4x the damage level 4 does.
He had level 7 HP and Magic but only 6 attack. The game becomes significantly easier if you rush attack before defense
My first and second fav zelda, behind oot
real cool review! I enjoyed it a lot. I'm a big fan of your high effort majoras mask music videos, as "people playing music on video-game instruments" is one of my very niche interests... that is very hard to look up, lol