Zelda II The Adventure Of Link is ostensibly a trek to various temples across a kingdom, performing a ritual to break a curse on its princess. On this journey you are hounded by the soldiers of Ganon, who wish to use your blood to revive their king.
Exploration is reduced in favor of platform jumping and combat this time. You will have to learn to recognize attack cues and react accordingly to finish the game. There are a few tricks less skilled players can use to make the game easier, but these become less and less effective the more one progresses. There are what at first seem to be out of the way rewards that similarly decrease difficulty, but the game accounts for them soon enough. There is an experience and level system that makes Link tougher and stronger, but prices are high and the caps are low so grinding will not get you very far. This is a game that forces the player to get good at it, steadily adapting to everything you can do as you discover it, demanding gradual mastery. In that respect it is very well designed.
Fights are tougher to win this time due to the fact you only have a sword and shield to work with. Magic is not as versatile as items were, it is consumable, refills are not found arbitrarily and your opponents tend to be designed with your new found ability to jump is often less effective than walking around a foe was. At the same time winning fights tends to be more rewarding because a significantly larger amount of your enemies really do feel like hostile soldiers and less like problematic wildlife. Less random wandering, more deliberate pursuit. Less random poking and Collision Damage, more active defense.
Despite the increased difficulty in progression and combat, the difficulty is less arbitrary. There are fewer active dangers that cannot be removed from play, even if one has to wait sometimes for the ability to. There are more supporting characters with more useful information. You'll spend less time lost but will hit figurative dead ends anyway. "Zelda II" is an improvement, but still too cryptic for its own good.
No matter how good one gets at fighting, they will still hopelessly comb two largely identical forests for an inconspicuous tile that requires a mechanic never hinted at. Need of guidebooks to navigate with the increased combat intensity and forced perspective switches can wear one down. While there are cave systems, swamps, the first game's Hyrule and other interesting locales, you'll likely be defining them by what hinders you rather than appreciating their layouts. If a challenging game actively hostile to the player with rewarding combat and tricky platform jumping appeals to you enough to stomach a guidebook, you will appreciateZelda II The Adventure Of Link.
VideoGame EYES OF GANON ARE EVERYWHERE. BE CAREFUL
Zelda II The Adventure Of Link is ostensibly a trek to various temples across a kingdom, performing a ritual to break a curse on its princess. On this journey you are hounded by the soldiers of Ganon, who wish to use your blood to revive their king.
Exploration is reduced in favor of platform jumping and combat this time. You will have to learn to recognize attack cues and react accordingly to finish the game. There are a few tricks less skilled players can use to make the game easier, but these become less and less effective the more one progresses. There are what at first seem to be out of the way rewards that similarly decrease difficulty, but the game accounts for them soon enough. There is an experience and level system that makes Link tougher and stronger, but prices are high and the caps are low so grinding will not get you very far. This is a game that forces the player to get good at it, steadily adapting to everything you can do as you discover it, demanding gradual mastery. In that respect it is very well designed.
Fights are tougher to win this time due to the fact you only have a sword and shield to work with. Magic is not as versatile as items were, it is consumable, refills are not found arbitrarily and your opponents tend to be designed with your new found ability to jump is often less effective than walking around a foe was. At the same time winning fights tends to be more rewarding because a significantly larger amount of your enemies really do feel like hostile soldiers and less like problematic wildlife. Less random wandering, more deliberate pursuit. Less random poking and Collision Damage, more active defense.
Despite the increased difficulty in progression and combat, the difficulty is less arbitrary. There are fewer active dangers that cannot be removed from play, even if one has to wait sometimes for the ability to. There are more supporting characters with more useful information. You'll spend less time lost but will hit figurative dead ends anyway. "Zelda II" is an improvement, but still too cryptic for its own good.
No matter how good one gets at fighting, they will still hopelessly comb two largely identical forests for an inconspicuous tile that requires a mechanic never hinted at. Need of guidebooks to navigate with the increased combat intensity and forced perspective switches can wear one down. While there are cave systems, swamps, the first game's Hyrule and other interesting locales, you'll likely be defining them by what hinders you rather than appreciating their layouts. If a challenging game actively hostile to the player with rewarding combat and tricky platform jumping appeals to you enough to stomach a guidebook, you will appreciateZelda II The Adventure Of Link.