Originally posted by Racer Xeo

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I think its a matter of who's played it, back in the day. Most people I know who played it growing up (myself included) love Zelda II to death, but those who never did ... can't seem to go back and say its fun.

... Wait, no. Those people just suck. Zelda II is amazing no matter what.

Different, sure. But its a top of the line A++ NES title in my book.

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Originally posted by Kasdarack

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Link's always been a lefty.

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Originally posted by Racer Xeo

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Oh the show ... the terror! Well, its great to watch with a big group of friends.

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Originally posted by NintendoFB

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The game is beautiful, I saw my friend play it in envy. But after he fell asleep I played all his games on the Wii. It kicked so much ass.

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Originally posted by Rydain

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I voted meh because my opinion is a mixed bag. I think Zelda II is a decent game, but it could stand to be more player-friendly.

Back in the day, I liked Zelda II enough to put in a ton of play time. I enjoyed the exploration, I looked forward to finding the new ability in each town, and the Freakytown glitch was good for hours of fun. I never beat it because the one time I got to Thunderbird, I was on my last life and went kersplat. Also, the core game engine is well-programmed. The hit detection and controls always felt solid to me. That's a major improvement over other NES platformers I've played.

With that said, Zelda II has characteristics that annoyed me then and would certainly annoy me now. The difficulty curve is unforgiving. In my opinion, the very beginning of a game should be easy. The first dungeon in the first Zelda game was a piece of cake, as it should have been. I remember renting Zelda II and getting through the first castle enough to get killed by the orange Ironknuckle. Of course, once I knew how to spam high and low attacks and crouching jump attacks to get around his shield, he was easy, but to a new player, he seemed invincible. As someone pointed out in the other topic, you don't get healing for a while, and when you do, it gobbles up a crapload of MP. MP is oftentimes in short supply because you have to refill it from random enemy drops or statues that you can only hit once during that particular dungeon crawl. There are way too many instant death pits and far too few extra lives, and those extra lives can only be picked up once in that entire game save. You can grind 1-ups once you max out at least one level (every 8000 points gets you one), but that only works late in the game, and it takes forever.

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Originally posted by Rydain

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Originally posted by Alastor the Stylish

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Learning curve? Learning curve? You mention Iron Knuckles, but that's silly; many enemies are hard in many zelda games before you learn what to do (lol boss fights). Iron knuckles are merely the first hurdle. Not a problem at all.

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Why is it silly to expect the first dungeon of the game to be easy (up until the boss), especially because the first dungeon of the original Zelda was an absolute joke designed to ease players into the process of dungeon puzzle solving? It's good to introduce more difficult enemies as the game progresses, but I thought Iron Knuckle was overkill for the very first dungeon, especially because I remember him being more annoying than the dungeon boss, who didn't move as quickly and was easier to dodge and hit.

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It's not even like it's the only Zelda that plays that way - Lord knows the 3D zeldas have plenty of running up and attacking and backflipping out of the way, and they have platforming, and they have...

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The 3D Zeldas don't have instant death pits. There are pits that hurt you, but given the ample supply of health in those games, they were never that aggravating to me. As I just mentioned, the 3D Zeldas also have much more opportunity to stockpile and refill health, and they give you an easy way to get back to the point you were at when you died. The dungeons are designed so that when you unlock the boss door, you can quickly get back to the boss from the entrance of the dungeon, so getting killed by the boss doesn't set you back at all. Even if you want to leave to go fill up your fairy stash, there is some sort of warping feature available to lessen your travel time to and from. In Zelda II, if you get to the boss and lose your last life, depending on which boss you were dealing with, it can be a hell of an ordeal to get back there. I never beat the game because I didn't feel like going all the way back through all those passages to the Great Palace and finding my way through the palace all over again.

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Originally posted by Moppy

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I have to say, though this game strays from the typical "Zelda model" (which, mind you, consisted of only one game at the time), it's still one of the most enjoyable NES games out there. Bottom line: It took skill and practice to play Zelda 2 decently. While this is true of many NES games, it was usually a result of frustrating controls, senseless restrictions, or just general programming laziness. Zelda 2 suffered from none of these, but it still took time and practice to become good at it. Zelda 2's control flexibility (Upthrust and Downthrust were a nice touch), nearly flawless combat engine (Dark Link is the only thing I can think of offhand that I'd consider "bugged"), and wide range of overall difficulty (Level 7 anyone?) make it stand out in my mind, not as the mistake of the Zelda series, but as one of the few NES games I can still stand playing for hours on end.

I do have a few issues with the game, though. The level-up system, for one, wasn't implemented very well. It would have been nice if I could actually choose which stat I'd be increasing, rather than having a little arrow that would point only to one of three choices at every level. Also, once you grabbed the item and killed the boss of a "palace," you couldn't go back in. While this didn't affect anything terribly important, the ability to backtrack is always a fun thing to have. Once you get to the end of the game, there really isn't much of anything to do except step through the horrible gauntlet that is the path to Level 7 and finish the game. Zelda 2 also suffered a bit from Zelda's typical linear-dungeon-progression syndrome, where the item you find in Level N would allow you to enter/complete Level N+1. It did have a bit of freedom in terms of general exploration, but the "palaces" basically had to be completed in the order given, unlike most other Zelda games.

For the record, if I had to sort Zeldas from "best" to "worst", as many of you did, I suppose it would look like...

Zelda 1 >> LTTP >> Ocarina >> Adventure >> Wind Waker >> Awakening >> Minish >> Majora.

Which isn't to say that Majora's Mask is bad, just HORRIBLY frustrating in parts. But that's neither here nor there.

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Originally posted by Grå

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Originally posted by Alastor the Stylish

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Apparently the place I was getting TP from had a failure of some sort, because I got an email saying they didn't get enough and I'd get it as soon as possible.

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If save games are stored on your controller and inside the console, why would you need a second copy of TP as long as you're at DigiPen, and why are you willingly waiting to play this game when you have a copy of it at your disposal for the temporary purposes of satisfying your want for the game until your real copy comes in? Are you really so territorial as to not let each other play each others' games?

Nick finished Bully before I even got through the third chapter...

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Originally posted by Milly

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Why isn't the tag replaced in the thread preview when replying?

I'd post a long "<!-- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa -->" to make a short post with over 1 million characters, but won't

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Originally posted by Kasdarack

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That's retarded. You don't look at blood cells in grade school bio lab anyway. You swab your fucking cheek.

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