To describe Zelda II as "arduous" would be an understatement, or perhaps we should look to Zelda II as the arduous game.
I actually quite enjoyed the first hour or two, but it dropped the ball pretty hard when it got to the cave south of Ruto Town where it introduced the boomerang enemy; utterly merciless and TAS-like reflexes required to progress without facemashing into him and losing most of your health. The best part is, it's only the beginning, that marks at most the 1/5 point of the game. I forget if this is verbatim but I could've sworn one of the NPCs in Ruto said not to go into the caves before getting the candle, what they don't tell you is the candle is through a cave in the temple on the other side LOL.
Needless to say I spammed the shit out of rewind, even with that everything past the like 1/3 point was utterly grueling and obtuse as hell to progress. There's a couple key moments late in the game where there's "hidden walls", and your only clue they exist is one NPC that says "The palace has a false wall"; doesn't specify where, or how you'd find it, and the wall he's referring to is up 1 tile so you can't even walk into it; you have to be jumping.
Listing each enemy that just unfairly bombards the player later in the game would leave me writing an entire wiki entry so I'll refrain, but it does only get worse for combat design. The enemy designs themselves are kind of neat, but in practice they're usually frustrating and blatantly unfair. The last couple of temples are just giant mazes that deliberately reuse room patterns (not like, individual rooms, but sections of rooms to throw the player off and make them lose their bearing) ugh.
If the OST wasn't such a banger (albeit a little repetitive as this is a relatively long NES game and there's only so much they can do) I'd likely have dropped it. SPOILERS kinda: To Zelda II's credit it also introduces one of the most iconic Zelda moments (Dark Link) and the general interactivity with towns and their NPCs, complete with a couple or so sidequests.
Fortunately a lot of what I moan and groan about here is answered by the tasteful Zelda 2 Redux romhack, I strongly recommend playing that version instead (retranslated NPC dialogue, tweaked enemies etc.), though core problems still exist like the late game temples just being a chore; you may need to keep notes still but at least the game provides you the information to do so now lol.
I actually quite enjoyed the first hour or two, but it dropped the ball pretty hard when it got to the cave south of Ruto Town where it introduced the boomerang enemy; utterly merciless and TAS-like reflexes required to progress without facemashing into him and losing most of your health. The best part is, it's only the beginning, that marks at most the 1/5 point of the game. I forget if this is verbatim but I could've sworn one of the NPCs in Ruto said not to go into the caves before getting the candle, what they don't tell you is the candle is through a cave in the temple on the other side LOL.
Needless to say I spammed the shit out of rewind, even with that everything past the like 1/3 point was utterly grueling and obtuse as hell to progress. There's a couple key moments late in the game where there's "hidden walls", and your only clue they exist is one NPC that says "The palace has a false wall"; doesn't specify where, or how you'd find it, and the wall he's referring to is up 1 tile so you can't even walk into it; you have to be jumping.
Listing each enemy that just unfairly bombards the player later in the game would leave me writing an entire wiki entry so I'll refrain, but it does only get worse for combat design. The enemy designs themselves are kind of neat, but in practice they're usually frustrating and blatantly unfair. The last couple of temples are just giant mazes that deliberately reuse room patterns (not like, individual rooms, but sections of rooms to throw the player off and make them lose their bearing) ugh.
If the OST wasn't such a banger (albeit a little repetitive as this is a relatively long NES game and there's only so much they can do) I'd likely have dropped it. SPOILERS kinda: To Zelda II's credit it also introduces one of the most iconic Zelda moments (Dark Link) and the general interactivity with towns and their NPCs, complete with a couple or so sidequests.
Fortunately a lot of what I moan and groan about here is answered by the tasteful Zelda 2 Redux romhack, I strongly recommend playing that version instead (retranslated NPC dialogue, tweaked enemies etc.), though core problems still exist like the late game temples just being a chore; you may need to keep notes still but at least the game provides you the information to do so now lol.
worm_bagged
1 year ago