YMMV / Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

• Accidental Innuendo: If you're familiar with the Grand Theft Auto series, Link entering a house with a woman in a red dress to restore his life can be viewed this way. It's not helped at all by the sprite looking like she's putting her hand on her hip in a come-hither manner.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Although artwork depicts the Prince in a less-than-positive light, the text itself only says that he immediately asked Zelda about the Triforce as soon as he learned that she knew anything, nothing more. It was the wizard's idea to threaten her, and when that happened, the prince actively tried to stop him.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Barba can be this way - if you manage to guess the right hole it'll appear out of. You can down-stab and bounce off of it. This doesn't keep it from being one of the best bosses
  • Dark Link, in the American and European versions, can be this if you use a fairly well known exploit against him - the trick of positioning yourself in the far left corner on the arena. This trick will not work in the Japanese version.
• Awesome Bosses: Barba, a snake-like dragon that pops its head out of the lava and shoots fire. Link must downward thrust his sword onto him when his head pops out, essentially playing a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole with a fire-breathing monster. Barba was such a fun boss, they brought him back when the series made the jump to 3D.
• Awesome Music:
  • The Palace theme, which many first heard in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
  • The Great Palace theme is suitably fitting for the last and biggest challenge the game throws at you.
• Breather Boss: Assuming you know how to kill him, Carock is one, and if you have enough magic for the Reflect spell, he goes from pretty easy to a complete joke.
• Common Knowledge: "I am Error" is occasionally cited as a funny mistranslation or amusing error message, when it is in fact neither. Error is just this guy's name, and he functions exactly as intended. The actual mistranslation occurs with Bagu, whose name was supposed to be "Bug" to complement Error's Punny Name.
• Complete Monster: In the manga by Yuu Mishouzaki, a sequel to his first manga, Ganon attempts to rejuvenate his strength by literally devouring the flesh and blood of Zelda, after which he intends to drag all of Hyrule into the Underworld to feed on the suffering and death of its population.
• Contested Sequel: Depending on who you ask, the radically different gameplay and extreme difficulty make this game either one of the best or worst in the series.
• Critical Backlash: It is widely held to be a weaker entry in the series (of the ones that still count, anyway), but fans are quick to point out that the presentation, gameplay, graphics and sound are all done very well and the game doesn't deserve the bile it often receives from modern-day reviewers.
• Demonic Spiders: Fitting for such a famously Nintendo Hard game, there are quite a few of these guys:
  • Ironknuckles - heavily armored knights with a shield they move up and down to block Link's stabs, and a sword they can stab with either high or low (and unlike Link, they can block high and attack low and vice versa; Link's attack and block heights are directly tied to each other). Even the orange ones are brutal during the early parts of the game, and by the time the player levels up to the point that orange ones aren't too dangerous, the game brings in red ones. But the Blue ones, which first show up in the Island Palace, remain a pain for the entire game. Not only do they fire Sword Beams at an alarming rate as a response to getting hurt, but they back away from you as they're doing it, making it difficult to land hits! The mounted ones you face as the boss of the third palace and as mini-bosses in the sixth are especially infuriating as they'll retreat Behind the Black, leaving you to wait for them to show themselves!
  • Dairas are the second major demonstration in the game. They are found in Death Mountain on your way to get the hammer. You'll have only one heart upgrade at best and their axes deal a lot of damage, even with the Shield spell up. Oh, you can't deflect their projectiles either because you get that spell after you get the raft. Orange Dairas are miserable to deal with because their axe can't be blocked by your shield and you won't have access to the downward thrust attack until after you've fought your way through them to get the hammer, meaning the only way to kill these guys is by jumping in for a stab, and your timing must be 100% spot-on or else they'll hit you in the process. Red ones are even worse - since they throw their axes, even the precise timing that works on Orange ones doesn't work on them. And their axe throwing pattern is erratic enough that there really is no way at all to defeat one without taking damage. The only thing Dairas have going for them is that there isn't an even worse Blue variant.
  • Gerus in general, but especially, again, the blue ones. Orange Gerus are like Ironknuckles, only, the spear they use is faster than the Ironkunckle's sword. The red ones use unblockable maces, with the saving grace of having slightly less reach than Link's sword. Blue ones throw unblockable maces, combining the worst traits of Ironknuckles AND Dairas. At least by the time you fight them you'll have learned the Reflect spell.
  • Mago, the fire mages who teleport constantly in the fifth palace. While proper technique will let you dispatch Iron Knuckles, Dairas, Gerus, and Eagle Knights rather promptly, it's hard to deal with Mago at the same speed because of their attack pattern - they teleport in incorporeal state, become corporeal just long enough to throw a fireball on the ground, and then teleport out only to appear in a random location a couple seconds later. They do a lot of damage, they soak up a lot of damage, and their fireballs are noisy.
  • Aru Lowders, the one-eyed giant scorpions, may be the hardest enemy to kill without taking damage in the entire game. They can move backwards and forwards either slow or fast, shoot fireballs from their tail, and they're only vulnerable when their eye is open (it usually isn't, and it opens and shuts at random). Try to kill them with downthrusts and they'll hit you with fireballs, cast Reflect to block their fireballs and they'll still just run into you. Thankfully Aru Lowders are fairly rare, with only one that's strictly in your way (in the first cave in the Valley of Death, a low ceiling makes it tricky to get past), as all the others are either guarding optional EXP bags, or are in a random encounter where you can pogo over them with the downthrust and run out of the map without having to actually deal with them.
  • The Eagle Knights (appropriately named Fokkas in Japanese) in the Great Palace. They do huge amounts of damage to Link (1 1/2 bars of his life meter) even at full life power, have the movable shield and shooting sword of the Iron Knuckles, and they love to take flying leaps that will invariably send them smashing right into Link. They're also quite durable (at full attack strength, 2 hits for a red and 6 hits for a blue). And if you beat them, for some reason the experience points gained is downright paltry (70 for a red one, 100 for a blue, contrast 150 for a blue Iron Knuckle, 200 for a blue Geru. Then again, your levels really should have already been maxed out before you ever got to the Great Palace).
  • The Fokkeru enemies also found in the Great Palace. It's not that hard to avoid their fireballs and close in to attack, but once they hit the ground, those fireballs have a high chance of quickly doubling back and running right into you, and they hurt. Fokkerus also take six hits to kill at Attack level 8, making it difficult to end them before their fire starts inevitably hitting you from behind.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Dark Link is surprisingly popular. Some even consider him a character in his own right and give him a personality in fanworks. He was so popular that he even reappeared in Ocarina of Time as a mini-boss.
  • Error, that one NPC, residing in a random house, who is best known for his dialogue "I am Error", due to Memetic Mutation.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • The Sleeping Zelda is a major Zelda in the series lore, as she was the one that started the trend of all princesses in the kingdom being named "Zelda", however she has yet to be mentioned outside of this game. Adventure of Link is also the final game in the Downfall Timeline. As a result, there's a lot that can be written about the Sleeping Zelda, her past, and her role upon awakening. For instance, Yuu Mishouzaki's manga depicts the Sleeping Zelda as being the first Zelda to have fought against Ganon, making her a prototype of sorts of the Zelda seen in either Ocarina of Time or Skyward Sword, depending on how you read between the lines.
  • Kasuto is the only town that doesn't share a name with a character from Ocarina of Time. Who is it named after? Is it a sage like most of the other towns? Or is it someone else like Mido?
• Fan Nickname:
  • Zelda is referred to as "Sleeping Zelda" to distinguish her from other incarnations of Zelda, especially the previous one from the first game.
  • The eagle knights that are essentially a more aggressive, leaping version of Iron Knuckles are formally known as "Fokka." Given their Demonic Spider difficulty when fighting them, it's easy to turn that name into something more... profane. There are some instances of fans that still use the name "Dreadhawk" for these enemies.
  • For a while, the Wosu found in the dungeons were dubbed as Tinsuits, after the mooks that appeared in the animated series.
  • Overseas, Gooma was dubbed by Japanese players as "ジャイアント (Jaianto / Giant)", in order to differentiate him with the Guma mooks.
  • The Guma mooks are given the alternate name of Doomrattle, because of the connection they share with the Doomknocker, throwing clubs.
  • The Gerus are commonly called "Lizalfos" by fans of later games, although there is no direct connection between the two Lizard Folk enemies in official media and they have different names in Japanese.
• Funny Moments:
  • At one point, Link rescues a lost child, whom he holds over his head in the same manner as all the other items he picks up. It makes for a rather amusing visual. A similar visual would appear two games later in the series.
  • The "quest" to learn the Fire spell in Nabooru. A woman complains about being thirsty. The water fountain is about ten steps away. Whatever would she have done if Link hadn't come along to undertake such an arduous journey for her?
• Goddamned Bats:
  • The two different animated head statues, Ra and Mau: Ras are the dragon-shaped ones, Maus are the panthers. Both spawn infinitely and drain experience when touching Link. Ras double as Ledge Bats, Maus basically Zerg Rush Link.
  • Moas are a big enough pain in the ass in graveyards, but they also moonlight as Ledge Bats when you trek across the Valley of Death, and they have an orange variant in Temples that flies ahead of you and weeps fire down from above with infuriatingly excellent timing.
  • Girobokkus. Armored floating eyes that are only vulnerable when their eyes are open. They do a ridiculous amount of damage, their movement pattern is infuriatingly random, and if they close their eyes just before Link stabs them, it can send him ricocheting off them and into a lava pit or another Girobokku for massive damage.
• Goddamned Boss: Barba, though only in the original FDS version. When emerging from the lava and making itself vulnerable, its head rises higher than in international releases at a difference roughly equal to Link's height, well out of Link's attack range without the Jump Spell. Not only that, but Barba doesn't idle for even a second. The moment it reaches maximum height, it breathes fire at you and quickly ducks back into the lava. Not only that, but its head hurtbox doesn't extend as far past its neck (if at all) as in international releases, making it much harder to hit in comparison to the point where your sword connecting with the sprite might still result in a miss. Mind you, this is in addition to you being one well-timed torrent of fire away from bathing in the lava pits below.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • Hold left and right on the D-pad (normally impossible unless you have a broken D-pad or are using a keyboard), and release. This will usually cause Link to slide off at high speed in one direction. Demonstrated to beautiful effect in this TAS (though good luck doing it this well in real-time). Note that using up and down at the same time (which one might assume would have similar effects) is not always a Good Bad Bug; used in an elevator shaft, it causes the elevator to ascend rapidly, but it can easily crash the game or put Link in an Unwinnable situation if a number of things happen. Players are advised to keep save states handy when testing it out.
  • The Final Boss, Dark Link, can be defeated by crouching down in the left corner of the screen and stabbing repeatedly without too much trouble. Indeed, this boss is considered so hard that most people don't even try to beat Dark Link the proper way. This trick is exclusive to the American and European versions, the Japanese version does not have this.
  • Attacking at just the right moment at the peak of a jump gives you a tiny boost that lets you get up onto ledges that are three blocks high, so you don't need to rely on the Jump spell nearly as often.
  • After getting the down stab technique, with proper timing, you can tap the D-pad down repeatedly to deal multiple hits. It works great on Ironknuckles and Geru.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I AM ERROR" ^ExplanationThis is a line said by an NPC who apparently refers to themselves as "Error". This was intended to be a joke on the fact that there's a Palette Swap of the character in the same game named Bagu, which means "bug" in Japanese. However, Bagu's name didn't get translated unlike Error's, whose original Japanese name is Erā, prompting a lot of confusion by English gamers. Like "It's dangerous to go alone", it's since become famous in video game pop culture, though to a lesser extent.
  • "IF ALL ELSE FAILS USE FIRE." ^ExplanationA line said by an NPC in Rauru, which b*ecame famous for how completely random it is.
  • You have water come to my house. ^ExplanationCharacters tend to help you if you bring them useful items. Some items are not so useful.
  • GAME OVER - RETURN OF GANON^ExplanationWhat the Game Over screen says after you run out of lives, followed by a picture of a shadowy Ganon revived and laughing. You will be seeing this a lot.
• Narm: In the Japanese version, some bosses have a roar sound effect similar to the first game. Unfortunately, with some it happens so often that it stops sounding fierce and instead sounds like a vacuum cleaner.
• Nintendo Hard: Widely considered the hardest of the entire series, with good reason. Blue Iron Knuckles in particular will have you tearing your hair out. The Eagle Knights in the Great Palace are even worse... until you figure out the trick to beating them by simply blocking their attacks until they jump over you, then doing an upward thrust to their feet, making them incredibly easy.
• Older Than They Think:
  • A lot of fans who discovered the series with Ocarina of Time are surprised to learn that this game was the first appearance of Dark Link and the names of the Sages plus Mido.
  • Volvagia appears as the boss of Three-Eyed Rock Palace. In American publications contemporary to Zelda II's original release, his name was misromanized as "Barba," but both the Zelda II boss and the Ocarina of Time boss have the same Japanese name, Varubajia. In fact, a lot of the lore in Ocarina of Time in general is a callback to Zelda II.
  • It's also the first appearance of many names from said game, though continuity wise the towns are named after them.
  • This game is also the first to feature a grown up version of Link. He is canonically sixteen.
  • It's also the first game where the Triforce of Courage appears, the Triforce mark on the hand is mentioned (but unseen in game), and even the first game with the three pieces of Triforce reunited.
  • The game features the first instance of the three-triangle Triforce symbol in the series. This is seen at the very end of the credits in-game. The symbol also appears in the Japanese box art both as a large symbol behind Link and as a smaller one on Link's hand. The manual artwork again depicts the symbol on Link's hand.
  • This was one of the first games to have a New Game Plus as it's currently considered.
  • This was also the first time you defeated a boss by reflecting their attacks back at them - Admittedly, you use a shield whereas A Link to the Past uses a sword or a butterfly net.
• Paranoia Fuel: The man in Saria who proclaims, "EYES OF GANON ARE EVERYWHERE, BE CAREFUL." It's supposed to be a hint that some villagers will turn into enemies if spoken to, but new players likely won't understand until they uncover a spy on their own.
• Recurring Fanon Character: The namesake of Kasuto (the only town that does not share its name with an Ocarina of Time character) is a very popular subject in fanfics despite not being a canonical character, at least judging by the amount of fan works that include a character named Kasuto — often as a Greater-Scope Villain^note or at least before Skyward Sword introduced Demise or Greater-Scope Paragon for the setting.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • When the player continues after losing all his lives, he is sent back to the palace where Princess Zelda sleeps, meaning that Link must traverse the landscape again to go back to the dungeon (except the final dungeon). If that dungeon was far away from the starting point, then have fun trying to get back there. To make matters worse, losing all your lives not only resets Link's experience back to zero, but doesn't bring back any extra lives or experience pick-ups he obtained!
  • The experience/level system is the other most-loathed mechanic in the game, largely due to the combination of four factors: (1) Every subsequent power-up requires additional XP and time to get (pretty normal), (2) The severe difficulty of the game makes these power-ups very desirable (normal for Nintendo Hard), (3) Losing your lives resets any unspent XP back down to zero (Ok, now this is brutal), and (4) Beating the first six dungeons of the game automatically gives you the XP to your next power-up, regardless of the amount required. As a result, the game heavily encourages you to spend most the early game grinding to get most of your power-ups out of the way, saving the last and most expensive ones for the rewards you get for beating the dungeons. This has the result of also making the monsters in the last 2/3 of the game even more of a chore, as you're no longer getting any real benefit out of killing them since you've earned your power-ups already. You do get an extra life for every new level after your Life, Magic and Attack are maxed out, but each 1-up requires a whopping 9000 points to earn.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Try going through the entire game while keeping one, or even two, of your stats (Attack, Magic, Life) at level 1 for the entire game.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: The dungeons are much easier to get lost in, and since there's no maps, you have to keep close track of where you are at all times. Death Mountain appears way too soon. Fans of the series might not be prepared to grind as much as the game requires. The lopsided, grueling combat takes much more finesse. The puzzles are, uh, not totally impossible; there are hints for most of them in the game itself.^note Nintendo had a Hint Hotline in 1989 and it cost $2 per minute. Just food for thought. Even with save states, you will find yourself constantly getting wrecked: some of the platforming is just so intense and precise that you could lose a ton of lives just missing jumps.
• Shipping: One of the biggest arguments for Link/Zelda is the kiss at the end of this game.
• Sophomore Slump: Why the game is retroactively seen as an Oddball in the Series. It is by no means bad, but it did and still does stand out for lacking many of the series' conventions that were established in this game's predecessor and then codified with its sequel.
• That One Boss:
  • Thunderbird. Having to use a lot of magic for the Thunder Spell to start depleting its HP means that there won't be much magic left for the other spells, so the player will have to survive most of the battle by dodging the fireballs and attacking the boss's weak point— Pretty hard to do once you get about three hits in, and it suddenly starts spewing out those fireballs like a fountain of pain directly over the spot where you have to strike it.
  • Gooma hits very hard, and it takes plenty of hits to be defeated. His hitbox is also somewhat difficult to actually strike safely, unlike the other bosses, as he can begin swinging his flail immediately as you walk up to him.
  • Rebonack. Blue Ironknuckles are a pain to begin with, but Rebonack has the habit of backing out of the screen where Link can't stab him.
• That One Level:
  • The Great Palace qualifies even though it's the last level (and therefore held to a higher standard). If you actually even made it to this dungeon, then this palace will undoubtedly make you rage because of how complex and confusing it was. There's a particularly devious trick needed to find the bosses of the Great Palace. A section of the place has floor covered in a single layer of breakable blocks. There's a hidden warp pit one block long under one of them. Link can walk right across a pit that size without falling down it, which means the player might walk right over it and never notice.
  • Death Mountain, which apart from the Great Palace is the area that gives players the most trouble, and you have to pass through it very early in the game. Amongst other things, it involves a maze on the overworld that's easy to get lost in, along with hordes of enemies. And once in a while in the Death Mountain caves you have to face the Red Dairas, who can rapidly throw axes which, unlike the thrown swords of the Blue Ironknuckles, can't be blocked by the shield. And this comes early enough in the game you don't have the down thrust attack and probably don't have high attack and defense levels unless you've been deliberately grinding.
  • Three-Eyed Rock Palace, AKA Palace 6, the final Crystal Palace in the game. Not only is it the furthest palace away from the North Palace where you begin, necessitating a grueling walk to the place upon a Game Over, it's also the most difficult to locate as the one hint ("Call for help at the Three Eye Rocks") is somewhat cryptic (you have to use the Flute while standing in the center of the three stones). Once inside, you'll find there's absolutely no keys to be found, minus the two dropped by a Rebonack rematch and Barba, the dungeon boss, requiring constant use of the Fairy spell or the Magical Key hidden in New Kasuto, yet another Guide Dang It!. Aside from THAT, the strongest enemies barring the Great Palace, fake floors dropping you to different levels, and being the biggest of the six crystal dungeons, and you have a recipe for a major headache. One positive, however, is the fact that there is a fairly well hidden Link Doll here, granting you an extra life if you happen to be running low.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: This is the only game in the entire series where Zelda has a brother, the Prince of Hyrule. Considering how he risked his life to save his sister in the game's backstory, one might think that he'd appear again, if not in this game, maybe in another? Nope, the latter games flat out ignore that he ever existed, when he could've been fleshed out into a cool ally or maybe even a villain.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: This game is a direct sequel to the original game and stars the same Link as before, but the Princess Zelda featured in this game is not the same Princess Zelda rescued by Link at the end of the previous game. Instead, she's from an earlier generation and was in an eternal sleep during the events of the first game. Assuming nothing happened to the other Zelda during the six-year Time Skip, this would mean that The Adventure of Link ends with two different Princess Zeldas awake at the same time. Remember how cool it was to find out that the Hero's Shade was the Hero of Time, directly interacting with the new Hero of Twilight and showing two Links of different generations on-screen together for the first time? It could have been potentially interesting to see how the two Zeldas interacted with one another and might have raised questions about which princess is the rightful heir to the Hyrule throne. Unfortunately, this game never acknowledged this fact, there have been no direct sequels to The Adventure of Link, and it is unlikely that any future sequels will explore this avenue.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • The Boots allows you to Walk on Water... but it only works in one area in order to reach the fifth palace and get a Heart Container.
  • The Flute has only two purposes: defeat the River Devil and make the sixth palace appear.
• Unfortunate Character Design: The Wizard's design looks alarmingly similar to a Ku Klux Klan member, complete with white robes, pointed hood and a red cross on its face.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Rebonack, when he is on his horse, has some impressive (for the time) animation. When he turns around, he will actually do so in a pretty fluid way where he temporarily faces the player. For the time, this was pretty cool to see a boss do it.

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