I’ve been determined to finally beat Zelda II and determine that I would do it without save states and without a guide.

I know Zelda II is considered a black sheep somewhat but I really think in some ways it’s more fun than the original although I’d still pick Zelda 1 over II.

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    3 years ago

    You really are a hero. I got stuck in Death Mountain and just haven’t gone back. That is not an easy game.

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      6·
      3 years ago

      I could never find Bagu and get Riverman to open the bridge to get that far as a kid. I actually found the hint accidentally trying kill the blue blob in town. Lol.

      Zelda II definitely was one of those games where they made it hard on purpose to lengthen the game. I’m doing some research for my review of this game and the director admits as much.

      • mercano@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        3 years ago

        There was a lot of that in that era. Arcade games had financial incentive to be hard as players would tolerate to eat as many quarters as possible. The home ports carried this difficulty over, and many console originals picked up on it. (See Battletoads.)

        • ch00f@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          3 years ago

          For the home market, there was an incentive to make the game hard to beat before you had to return it to Blockbuster.

        • somethingsnappy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          3 years ago

          Battle toads can eat a schlong. Actually good games like kid icarus, etc were just as hard but actually fun to play.

  • Kühlschrank@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    3 years ago

    One of my proudest moments as a child was beating this game. Incidentally, fighting the end boss was the first time my parents caught me swearing.

  • Bibliotectress@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    3 years ago

    That game is impossible. I can’t believe how many people in the comments say they’ve beaten it. I never beat it as a kid, and when I tried it again on the switch a couple of years ago, I still couldn’t make it very far.

    • ook_the_librarian@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 years ago

      I never beat it as a kid either. I barely played it. I thought it was cryptic and punishing, although 9-year-old me wouldn’t have used those words. Just a simple “This game is dumb.” worked.

      In fact, I thought it was pretty universally reviled. I’ve since learned that this is due the to fact that a child’s gaming social-sphere in the 90s could be quite limited.

      About 5 years ago, glancing across a bookshelf, a certain game cart happened to catch my eye. I couldn’t tell you why it was this particular game cart that my attention ;) but I really started to think about it. I don’t actually know anything about Zelda 2 (other than “This game is dumb.”). So then I thought, maybe it wasn’t for kids. Nine-year-olds are pretty ego-centric. The NES was one of our toys. No adults were playing these things. Did I mention my social-sphere?

      It then occured to me: I’m a blank slate. I know next to nothing about the progression, the map, or anything. Of course along the way, I found things familiar, and I knew things like >!Shadow Link was the final boss!< but I didn’t know >!how to cheese the Shadow Link fight!<.

      So I gave it an honest, no-help-other-than-the-game’s-original-manual playthrough. Yadda-yadda-yadda, Zelda 2 is one of the best games on the NES, and in my book, that makes it one of the best games ever.

      In hindsight, Zelda 1 is cryptic af. “The 10th enemy has the bomb”, “gumble gumble”, “shaka when the walls fell”, wtf? If you’d like to know what the 10th enemy thing is: >!hopefully someone below explains drop counts because I’m sure as fuck not going to!<. How was a kid or adult going to figure that out?

      My Z2 playthrough took days, maybe 10, but my memory is fuzzy. I got pretty stuck >!looking for the mirror!< and I wondered around for a full day with no progress although I felt like I understood where the game wanted me to go. About halfway through the next day, I read the manual. I didn’t actually think when I started that I was going to do a no-help-other-than-the-manual playthrough. I thought of as a no-internet-on-an-80s-game playthrough. After the realization that the manual wasn’t outside help, I did use the internet for that. Well as soon as I learned >!hammers can chop down trees!<, I was on my way. The rest of the playthrough went smoothly, apart from being hard as fuck.

      • f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 years ago

        10th enemy has the bomb

        They’re explaining how enemy’s loot isn’t totally random. If you kill nine enemies without getting hit and kill the tenth enemy with a bomb, you are guaranteed to receive more bombs from it.

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      9·
      3 years ago

      “I love this dumb game” is the experience in a nutshell. Every time I’d get a game over and Ganon would do his stupid laugh I’d think I’m done and then go right back to grinding it out some more!

  • Phattybluntz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    3 years ago

    Absolutely one of my favorite NES games!

    If you liked this I highly recommend checking out Hoverbat’s PC enhanced port, Link the Adventuresome. It’s an enhanced expanded version of Zelda II that even has a second quest. Plays just like the classic with additional content on par with the original.

  • MelodiousFunk@kbin.social
    5·
    3 years ago

    Congrats! It’s good to see some Zelda II love. It took me years to beat this as a kid, and you bet your ass I got some tips from Nintendo Power lol. To this day it’s still one of my favorite NES games.

  • FrostKing@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    3 years ago

    I was startled by how dated Zelda 1 is. I know, obviously it’s very old, but people talk about it as if it still holds up today… It doesn’t. Maybe I could try Zelda 2 now.

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      6·
      3 years ago

      Zelda II is very much a product of its time. It lacks modern sensibilities even more-so than LOZ. I think the platforming and combat is more fun than the original but if you don’t like or have nostalgia for the way games used to be made, Zelda II will just get frustrating

    • Mkengine@feddit.deEnglish
      3·
      3 years ago

      You could try this

      From their description:

      "Celebrating the 35th Anniversary since the release of the original Legend of Zelda on the Famicom Disk System on February 21st, 1986; and continuing over from the Zelda II Redux hack, The Legend of Zelda Redux (or Zelda 1 Redux) aims to tackle some of the odd designs and programming decisions from the original NES classic to revitalize and give new life to the beloved and cherished classic.

      This hack tries to address a lot of points to make the game fit with the rest of the series (and Zelda 2 Redux) by doing some rebalancing and QoL changes, and also some visual flare into the game, without compromising the original game’s design."

      There is also this if you want a complete overhaul of the graphics.

      • FrostKing@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 years ago

        Thanks a lot, I’ll definitely look into that!

        And also wow, that graphics hack actually looks pretty good. I don’t tend to be a fan of pixel art graphics packs, cause they make them look weird and smooth, but that one is well done.

  • bunnyfc@kbin.social
    3·
    3 years ago

    Wow, I finished it with my SO last year - but in the last temple, we needed a guide (the map is wtf levels of traps and dead ends) and save states to retry the boss combo. We wouldn’t have been able to finish it

    • CarlsIII@kbin.social
      1·
      3 years ago

      Apparently “down and to the right” gets you through all the maze-like parts of that game (except maze island)

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      3 years ago

      Yeah the great palace is a crazy labyrinth. I spent my first set of lives just wandering and game-overed without making any headway, happened to fall through the floor on my second set of lives and lucked into finding the right way.

  • kellyaster@kbin.social
    1·
    3 years ago

    I remember this one. Yeah, that one was tough, I never bothered to pick it up again after I beat it. The og Zelda and LTTP for sure, multiple times, but not Zelda II. I mean, I remember liking it, but it just didn’t scratch that itch the way the top-down adventuring style did, ya know?

    That said, congrats! A hero is you!