Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Developer(s)	Nintendo
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Shigeru Miyamoto
Platform(s)	Famicom Disk System, NES, Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Virtual Console
Release	NES/FDS version JPN January 14, 1987 PAL November 26, 1988 NA December 1988 GBA version JPN August 10, 2004 NA October 25, 2004 PAL January 7, 2005
Genre(s)	Adventure, Action-RPG
Mode(s)	Single player

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (The Legend of Zelda 2 リンクの冒険, The Legend of Zelda 2 Rinku no Bōken) is a video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and the second title in the Legend of Zelda series of video games. It was originally released in Japan on the Famicom Disk System less than a year after the release of the original Legend of Zelda, and converted to the NES cartridge format when released in the United States and other countries in 1988. It was later re-released in 2003 in the The Legend of Zelda: Collector’s Edition for the Nintendo GameCube, and again in 2004 as part of the Classic NES Series for Game Boy Advance.

Zelda II is a direct sequel to the original Legend of Zelda, and again involves the protagonist Link (now 16 years old) on a quest to save a new Princess Zelda who has fallen under a sleeping spell. Zelda II’s emphasis on side-scrolling and RPG-style elements, however, was a significant change from its predecessor and has given it the common reputation as the “black sheep” of the series. Nonetheless, the game was highly successful and introduced many elements that would become commonplace in future Zelda games. It was followed in 1992 by The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the Super NES.

Plot

Shortly after the events of The Legend of Zelda, near Link’s 16th birthday, he notices a strange mark on the back of his left hand. He seeks out Impa, and she tells him the “Legend of Zelda.” Long ago, a king ruled the land of Hyrule with a son and daughter. When the king died, the Triforce should have passed onto the Prince. However, he could only inherit the Triforce in part, and thus sought the remaining pieces. When he learned that Zelda knew of their location, he questioned her. She refused, and so the prince sent his wizard to question her. When he failed, the wizard became furious and cast a sleeping spell on Princess Zelda. The wizard fell dead, but the Prince was left grieving. The prince moved Zelda to a room in the North Castle and had her placed on a bed, hoping that one day she would awaken and return to life. To ensure this event was never forgotten, the Prince ordered all females born to the royal family from that point on to be named Zelda.

File:Z2 link by sleeping zelda.png

Link by the sleeping Princess Zelda

Impa also gives Link an old brown chest containing six crystals and an old message that claims that the restoration of the crystals to the six palaces in Hyrule will open the path to the Great Palace in the Valley of Death, where the Triforce of Courage is kept. Taking the crystals, Link sets out to restore them to their places, defeating powerful palace guardians and learning magic spells to aid him as he seeks to find the Triforce of Courage and break the enchantment on the sleeping Zelda. Meanwhile, the henchmen of the slain Ganon are still seeking to murder Link. If they can obtain Link’s blood and sprinkle it on Ganon’s ashes, they would be able to resurrect their leader once again.

Link is able to place the six crystals in the palaces, crossing the sea by raft to the Eastern Continent of Hyrule in the process. With the crystals in place, the path to the Great Palace is opened, where Link defeats the great winged beast Thunderbird, and a doppelganger of himself called Dark Link. Link is then given the Triforce of Courage by a small old man within the palace. He returns to Zelda in the North Castle, who awakens and embraces Link as the curtains fall.

Gameplay

Zelda II resembled the original very little. Rather than the top-down view of the previous title, Zelda II featured side scrolling areas within a larger world map. The game also incorporated a strategic combat system and more RPG elements, including an experience points system, magic spells, and more interaction with non-player characters.

Experience levels

In this installment of the series, Link gains experience points to upgrade his attack, magic and life points by defeating enemies. He can raise these areas to a maximum of eight levels. Raising a life level will decrease the damage Link receives, raising a magic level will decrease the cost of spells, and raising an attack level will strengthen his offensive power, requiring a lower number of sword strikes. Link can also find Heart Containers and Magic Containers that increase his life points or magic points. Though Heart Containers appear in other Zelda games, Zelda II is the only game in the series that allows Link to build levels.

Like many other RPGs, Zelda II allows the player to fight weaker enemies to raise levels before tackling more difficult challenges. Most other games in the Zelda series only allow Link to increase his strength through new weapons, defensive items, and Heart Containers. Unlike the majority of experience systems for other RPGs, Link can lose experience by being touched by certain enemies, though he will never drop to a previous experience level.

Level	Attack	Magic	Life
2	200	100	50
3	500	300	150
4	1000	700	400
5	2000	1200	800
6	3000	2200	1500
7	5000	3500	2500
8	8000	7000	4000

Overworld map and side-scrolling

The second Zelda welcomes players to a two-mode world. The overworld, which was previously where the majority of the action occurred, is still from a top-down perspective, but serves only a means to get from one place to another. Whenever Link is attacked or finds a place that can be explored, the game switches to a side-view mode. The palaces and towns are all viewed in this way as well. Likewise, if Link strays from the roads of the overworld (into a forest, desert, or swamp, for example) black enemy silhouettes appear and pursue him. If one is touched, a battle ensues in the side-scrolling mode. The fighting remains action-oriented, not menu-based like most RPGs, yet the separate modes for traveling and combat are very characteristic of traditional RPGs.

Combat system

Of the entire series, this Zelda installment is also distinguished for its relatively complex and strategic-minded combat system. It utilizes an expansive manual method of offensive and defensive techniques that include alternating between different positions which are standing (while neutral or running) and crouching, for defending against high and low attacks, respectively. Each combat encounter is a guaranteed struggle even against the weakest of opponents because there has to be switching from high and low attacks while keeping an eye on the opponent’s next attack orientation. At times the AI of an opponent would cause it to guard only one direction to force the player to open up so it could get a free attack. For example, an Iron Knuckle would guard high while releasing a high attack and if the player attacked him low, the player would surely get hit because he was not guarding high on time for there to be a recovery of the player’s low attack.

This gives the game a great deal of strategic gameplay since an enemy such as a Scrub or Tough has the chance of being victorious in beating the player, especially if attacking from both sides. This is quite different from the rest of the series where button-smashing and shield blocking are relied-upon combat maneuvers (holding up a shield, the player would remain impenetrable to his direct opponent.) Zelda II is arguably known as the toughest Zelda in its combat system due to these offensive and defensive capabilities.

Magic

In place of actively-used items, The Adventure of Link features spells for Link to use during action scenes. Each spell is learned from a wise man, each one in a different town. Before they teach Link their spells, he often has to complete sidequests such as retrieving lost items.

Versions

The Adventure of Link was re-released in 2003 on the The Legend of Zelda: Collector’s Edition disc for the Nintendo GameCube, and again in 2004 as part of the “Classic NES Series” for Game Boy Advance, with several changes. The death animation removed flashing colors in an effort to prevent seizures. Several graphical and audio tweaks were made, and an enemy formerly titled Barba is named Volvagia, keeping with the naming in the Japanese release. It was confirmed on Nintendo’s VC website that it would be released on the Virtual Console in Japan during January 2007.

Development

Like The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II was based on Shigeru Miyamoto's concepts. However, the game was developed by a separate team from the original, and key members from the Zelda design team, such as Takashi Tezuka and Koji Kondo, were not involved in Zelda II's production.

Role	Alias	Real Name	Zelda I Alum
Executive Producer	H.Yamauchi	Hiroshi Yamauchi	Yes
Producer	Miyahon	Shigeru Miyamoto	Yes
Director	Sugiyan	Tadashi Sugiyama	No
Director	Yamahen	Yoichi Yamada	No
Sound Composer	Tsukasan	Akito Nakatsuka	No
Designer	Isshin	Kazunobu Shimizu	No
Programmer	Morikazu	Kazuaki Morita	Yes
Programmer	Marumaru	Tatsuo Nishiyama	No
Programmer	Shigechan	Shigehiro Kasamatsu	No
Programmer	Nishiyan	Yasunari Nishida	Yes
Programmer	Nakazoo	Toshihiko Nakago	Yes

Promotion

In Japan, the game was originally referred to in television commercials as The Legend of Zelda Part 2: The Adventure of Link (ゼルダの伝説パート２ リンクの冒険, Zeruda no Densetsu Pāto 2: Rinku no Bōken). In Japanese conversation, the subtitle is also sometimes shortened to Rin-bō (リン冒).

Legacy

File:Z2 link in Rauru.png

Link in the town of Rauru

Many elements of the game have remained in the series. For instance, non-player characters (NPCs) were present in the original Zelda, but their role was rather limited. All Zelda games since Zelda II prominently feature a variety of NPCs who play a pivotal role in Link’s quests. The use of metered magic and spells has also carried over into all Zelda games except for the latest one, Twilight Princess. Dark Link also appears in Ocarina of Time, and a similar Link clone called Shadow Link appears in Four Swords Adventures. The hammer was introduced as a weapon and tool for the first time as well.

Additionally, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was one of the first games to combine platform and RPG gaming elements to any considerable degree. Over the next several years, a number of Japanese-made games would appear with a similar format; major titles such as Cadash (1989) closely resemble Zelda II, with side-scrolling platform stages supplemented by RPG-like statistical systems, weapons, armor, magic spells, and so forth. More recently, the Valkyrie Profile series of games by Square Enix have also combined side-scrolling platform action with RPG gameplay.

Five of the towns in Zelda II bear the same names of sages from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Rauru, Ruto, Saria, Nabooru, and Darunia). Another town, Mido, shares the name of a bossy character in Ocarina’s Kokiri Forest. The origin of the town name “Kasuto” is unexplained.

On the other hand, this is the only Zelda game to feature “lives” counting down to “Game Over”, and the only game in the series to include 1-ups.

Link’s line, “I found a mirror under the table,” may be the first example of Link speaking in an official Legend of Zelda game. Whether the line is actually spoken is questionable, as it appears only in text (like all dialog in NES games).

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is the only (Nintendo-published) English-language game in the series not to use the phrase “The Legend of Zelda” in its title.

Sequels

The next Zelda game after Adventure of Link was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the Super NES in 1992 (North American release), which followed new Link and Zelda characters and returned to the top-down style of the original Legend of Zelda. No further Zelda titles in the main series to date have used side-scrolling gameplay, but several later games including The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Seasons for the Game Boy systems incorporated limited side-scrolling in certain areas. Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, two lesser known Zelda games for the Phillips CD-i created without involvement from Nintendo in 1993, did have side-scrolling play reminiscent of Zelda II.

Music

The score of The Adventure of Link, unlike that of The Legend of Zelda, was composed by Akito Nakatsuka ("Tsukasan" in the credits) rather than Koji Kondo. As such, almost none of the music from the previous game was retained for this game, save for the introduction to the overworld theme for the first game (Hyrule Overture), which was retained for the new overworld theme in The Adventure of Link.

Due perhaps to the fact that the game's music was composed by Nakatsuka, the music in this game has generally not been incorporated into later games in the Zelda series. However, a newly orchestrated version of Palace features in the Underground Maze level and the Hyrule Temple stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Arguably, Kondo's Rain Scene music from A Link to the Past is based on a short figure from the title screen music of The Adventure of Link.

Translation

In the town of Ruto, there is a character whose initial line of dialogue is “I am Error.” This is correctly translated from the Japanese word for error (エラー). The character name Bagu is likely a misinterpretation of the Japanese word for bug (バグ), which would connect the two characters with computing terms.

External links

• The Adventure of Link at Zelda.com
• Template:Nintendo.com
• Template:GameFAQs
• Zelda II at The NES Files
• Zelda II at RPGClassics.com
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link speed demo at Speedruns
• Zelda II: The Adventure of Link at MobyGames
• Zelda II wiki guide at StrategyWiki (previously hosted by Wikibooks)