14 Jan 1987
14 Jan 1987 - Family Computer Disk System
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22 Nov 2012 - Nintendo 3DS
06 Jun 2012 - Nintendo 3DS
04 May 2016 - Nintendo 3DS
01 Jan 1970 - Nintendo Entertainment System
01 Dec 1988 - Nintendo Entertainment System
26 Sep 1988 - Nintendo Entertainment System
04 Jun 2007 - Wii
09 Feb 2007 - Wii
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09 Feb 2007 - Wii
12 Sep 2013 - Wii U
11 Sep 2013 - Wii U
26 Sep 2013 - Wii U
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is the second major installment in The Legend of Zelda series and the direct sequel to the first game. Like its predecessor, it features dungeons that must be located in the overworld and searched for an item that will prove useful. However, the game presents many very important gameplay changes compared to the previous one, affecting especially the movements and the combat. Moving around the world map involves encounters with enemies that take place on a side-scrolling playfield rather than the top-down perspective for which the series became known.
Several years after the events of The Legend of Zelda, Link has just turned sixteen and discovers a strange birthmark on his hand. With the help of Impa, Zelda's nursemaid, Link learns that this mark is the key to unlock a secret room where Princess Zelda lies sleeping. When young, Princess Zelda was given knowledge of the Triforce of power which was used to rule the kingdom of Hyrule, but when a magician unsuccessfully tried to find out about the Triforce from Zelda, he put her into an eternal sleep. In his grief, the prince placed Zelda in this room hoping she may wake some day. He ordered all female children in the royal household to be named Zelda from this point on, so the tragedy would not be forgotten. Now, to bring Princess Zelda back, Link must locate all the pieces of the Triforce which have been hidden throughout the land.
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.