I’ve been determined to finally beat Zelda II and determine that I would do it without save states and without a guide.
I know Zelda II is considered a black sheep somewhat but I really think in some ways it’s more fun than the original although I’d still pick Zelda 1 over II.
I was startled by how dated Zelda 1 is. I know, obviously it's very old, but people talk about it as if it still holds up today.... It doesn't. Maybe I could try Zelda 2 now.
You could try this
From their description:
"Celebrating the 35th Anniversary since the release of the original Legend of Zelda on the Famicom Disk System on February 21st, 1986; and continuing over from the Zelda II Redux hack, The Legend of Zelda Redux (or Zelda 1 Redux) aims to tackle some of the odd designs and programming decisions from the original NES classic to revitalize and give new life to the beloved and cherished classic.
This hack tries to address a lot of points to make the game fit with the rest of the series (and Zelda 2 Redux) by doing some rebalancing and QoL changes, and also some visual flare into the game, without compromising the original game’s design."
There is also this if you want a complete overhaul of the graphics.
Thanks a lot, I'll definitely look into that!
And also wow, that graphics hack actually looks pretty good. I don't tend to be a fan of pixel art graphics packs, cause they make them look weird and smooth, but that one is well done.
Zelda II is very much a product of its time. It lacks modern sensibilities even more-so than LOZ. I think the platforming and combat is more fun than the original but if you don’t like or have nostalgia for the way games used to be made, Zelda II will just get frustrating
Okay, perhaps not then. Thanks for the reply
It's obviously nothing like a modern title but I don't think that's quite fair - it holds up in the sense that it's fun, it has good combat challenge and exploration, honestly it does. You do have to overlook lack of QoL features and the fact that you basically have to read the manual, but I don't think it's fair to mark a game down for lacking those things. It lacks the puzzles, NPCs and stories of later Zeldas but it doesn't try to have those.
Zelda 2 siimilarly lacks QoL features but it has excellent combat that's actually challenging, but fair, so yeah if you're open to it you could have a good gaming experience there.
This is no joke and deserves a bit of emphasis. NES games expect you to read the manual.
I did my first play of Zelda 2 about 5 years ago. I didn't like it as kid, but I loved my adult playthrough. I will note that this was one of the games that I got stuck until I read the manual.
Another Z2 pointer, to anyone that wants to give it a go, is that you can logically "soft lock" the game with bad key management. It's unlikely, but if you like to look for unintended orders to do game goals, it could happen.
If you do mess up and miss a key, you can always use fairy to pass through the door. This is actually how I got the cross because I couldn’t figure out how to get the magic key until I could see the ghosts in old Kasuto. And search the houses for the clue
I would be careful with the word "always". A softlock can occur by entering a later dungeon to steal some of its keys. You can use the surplus keys to beat an early dungeon without collecting its item. This locks the item in the dungeon. Hope you didn't need that later.
But couldn't you go to where the alternative dungeon's keys are, get those and come back to get the earlier dungeon's item that way?
I can't see how you can softlock?
It seems I was wrong in that you can't lock an item in a dungeon by beating it. But you can lose keys to a dungeon turning it into a mountain with keys inside. So using a later dungeon's key to skip a key could softlock you.
It has the stories, but back in those days they were in the form of books and shit. Remember the original Warcraft like half of the lore was in the extra shit they released with it.
Check out Golvellius: Valley of Doom. It was a Zelda clone, but I think it's more fun than the original.