Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Genuinely underrated

First playthrough of the game is with the Redux which improves QoL aspects of the game.

I dreaded playing this one for a while as I am traumatised by paying so much money for this as a kid and being stuck in the first 5 mins. But having a retro hand-held + hearing about this hack was a perfect time to revisit this.

Zelda 2 is honestly not too bad for the first half at least. Everything is balanced just right and you feel more powerful as you collect new items and level up. It's the latter part of the game where the quality falls badly. Pretty much everything is coming at you and sometimes it's straight up unfair. I would definitely recommend using a map guide for this game. There's some value to playing this game however as a lot of the series' roots stem from this game. And it's cool seeing all the things established here that were referenced in the later games.

This game was sooo bad
I couldn't even finish it

The Legend of Zelda was a masterpiece.
A game that changed videogames forever and that created a lot of basic points of game design that videogames for the next 40 years would have followed.
It created a legacy, and Nintendo wisely didn't let that legacy go to waste: less than a year later the acclaimed first game, they released Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, a game that tried to expand the series with a new gameplay, totally different from the first's one.
You can't exactly blame them for wanting to try something different: Zelda was a good game, but it had many cons that made it quite frustrating to play at times, and the hardware it was being developed for offered just as much possibility to evolve the gameplay of the first game without it being just too much for the console to handle.
Releasing a new game with a different map but the same, exact gameplay as the first one would have been too much of a bold move for a company that wasn't still dominating the market like they would have been doing years later with the SNES, so the most obvious answer to this was making a completely different approach to the same formula of gameplay.
Differently from what people may think, Zelda II doesn't change everything, as the core gameplay of navigating a vast world while searching for dungeons full of enemies and rewards are still there. You get to the dungeon, you complete it, you get a new cool item and a gem (which replace the pieces of Triforce). You do this 7 times, and you get your happy ending, just like in the first game.
The main differences from the first game are the dungeons themselves, which are now presented in side view (while the overworld is still in Bird view), and the game's world, which isn't as "open" as Hyrule once was: despite being able to decide where to go without having to follow a strict guide, the player will still face dead ends when he does not possess the right item, even more than in the first game where it happened only for specific dungeons.
These two changes make for a great shift in gameplay, but doesn't change the fact that the game still felt like "Zelda": there was a big adventure waiting for Link and the dungeons were still really challenging both for the sword and for the mind, although I must puzzles are not the main focus in dungeons anymore, as they are almost everytime the same (find the key, open the door).
But something kinda went wrong along the lines for many.

Now, it's okay to personally not like the direction Nintendo chose for this game. Many people really loved the possibility to do whatever they wanted in the first game, like immediately going to the final dungeon (just to be blocked because they didn't had the Triforce) or skipping every enemy to speedrun the game, but Zelda II is a much slower game. Besides dungeons, Link must also visit towns and other key locations to obtain informations, spells, items and so on.
There's backtracking, there are some places that Link MUST visit to proceed, and there's kinda of a more precise order to how the game must be played.
Most of the games must also be played only with the sword, which has a very limited range and deal somehow very little damage; Link Is even more fragile than before and the enemy AI is even more fucked up than before.
Like, we're talking about enemies with attacks that are near to impossible to avoid unless you have the reaction times of a computer; even with the Switch rewind feature, somehow I never managed to remain with a full health bar for more than 10 seconds!
Every encounter with an enemy (which now spawn in groups in the overworld and transport Link in a mini side viewed area to fight when engaged) Is a dreadful experience and the player would avoid them at any costs, even if they are not more rewarding than the first game as enemies now drop more items and experience points, which are required to upgrade Health, Attack and Magic.
The magic spells are honestly a great addition to the game, but their use is very limited as they waste TONS of magic points. The game throws many spells at you, but then gives you a very limited quantity of mana, forcing you to rely only on your short ranged sword and shield.
When dying, Link loses a Life; when you lose all your lifes, you respawn at the beginning point, just like in the first game, but are now forced to face hordes of enemies before you can return to the previous point; and sometimes enemies attacks are literally unavoidable, making dying and beginning from Hyrule's Castle the only option to go on.
An experience that's even more frustrating than the first game, as there's now even less freedom to avoid combat and so to keep your health high for the bosses; which are, unironically, easier to fight than normal enemies, as their movement patterns are easier to read and counter.

Graphics are good: great for a NES game (even tho Nekketsu Monogatari would have done way better two years later), but lack the charms of the original game. The soundtrack is on par with the first game, but there are almost double the tracks (22 instead of 12), a nice accomplishment for a NES sequel.

I don't think Zelda II is a bad game, but it's definitely and underwhelming experience when coming from the first Zelda game.
Of course, in hindsight, it was almost impossible for it to be as revolutionary and mind blowing as The Legend of Zelda was when released in 1986, but the over-difficulty (classic of a NES titles), slower pace, less interesting puzzles and much less original gameplay make it for an experience many would just find frustrating and boring.
It's still Is of the best adventure games on NES tho.

** REMASTER QUEST LOG **

▪︎ Hearts: 6 (2/3)
▪︎ Magic Power: 5 (1/3)
▪︎ Atk Lvl: 6
▪︎ Magic Lvl: 5
▪︎ Con. Lvl: 7
▪︎ Max. Lives: 4

▪︎ Spells: Protect, Jump, Heal, Fairy (Cuccoo)
▪︎ Sp. Attacks: Downward Thrust, Upward Thrust
▪︎ Items: Red Candle, Power Glove, Raft, Hammer, Fairy
▪︎ Treasure: Godess Statue, Mirror, Bagu's Letter, Io Flower
▪︎ Sp. Slimes Killed: 7
▪︎ Palaces Completed: 3

▪︎ Deaths: 66
▪︎ Game Overs: 7

This game is, to say the least, weird. It's presence can still be felt in a surprising amount of Zelda games considering no future Zeldas would be designed the same way. The RPG mechanics, side scrolling, and random encounters would be forgotten, but many of the names, the magic meter, and even Link's downward sword thrust would make appearances or even become series staples.

That being said... the game aged worse than the original. Way worse. Only play if you're like me and wanted to say you've beaten every Zelda.