For more Zelda videos in this same style of video format, look here!: Zelda 1: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qJx_abqdy7Odgqs.html A Link to the Past: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o9-chcd-0tmRk40.html Link's Awakening: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o8WparOatNmpo3k.html

Nintendo - Makes miracles with 1MB RAM KZfaqr: “Lazy game design”

It's hilarious to me that you completely bypassed the up-thrust attack, which would have let you actually collect all those keys instead of having to cheese it with the Fairy spell.

As someone who was there in the old days, it is awesome to see younger folks go back and do it the same way we did.

One thing to know about gaming back then is we weren't exactly going in blind. We kids shared discoveries on the playground. I think I learned NWSW in Zelda and about the minus world in Mario from my babysitter. And then there was Nintendo Power, which printed guides and answered reader questions; Zelda II got all kinds of coverage. Never think we all toughed it through the NES era without some sort of guidance on obtuse games like this or Castlevania II.

According to my grandmother in 1988, when Link go into the house with the woman, she just cooking him a nice meal.😅

Something that I think most people don't think about, is that when this game came out, a lot of us only owned 1 or 2 NES games. So this was like... *ALL WE HAD*. So we naturally explored the crap out of this stuff and learned everything we could, because we didn't have a Steam Library full of games. Some points about not discovering things are probably valid, but remember that there was a ton of incentive for us to explore these games fully. In addition to the upward thrust that you completely missed (you have to use the Jump spell in a town and go down a chimney), you can also cheese the palaces...jump over the stone slot at the end, exit stage right, and redo the entire palace, sans final boss. I did this on Palace 2 for a few hours to grind up a lot of levels and that helps *a ton*.

"I used an exploit where I used the Reflect spell for an easy win." That's...not an exploit. It's how you're supposed to fight that fight.

reusing rooms is very common in any NES games, Zelda 1 does it, Super Mario Bros does it, Metroid does it a lot, etc. It's not that much of a design flaw it is just how they had to do to keep the size of the file small enough to fit in the cartridge. Most of the time when they reuse a room, they change color and items or enemies inside so it's actually never exactly the "same" at least.

I've noticed that Zelda 2 has been getting a popular resurgence as of late. One that is definitely deserved. During the last decade it was 'fun' to hate on the game and others like it on the NES because of using very modern game designs and features that had been taken for granted. But how was Zelda 2 the best selling Zelda game until Ocarina of Time (Link to the Past did over take it, but it took until 1997 or 1998 for it to do so), if it was so bad? In 1987, it wasn't bad, but was actually really good. Its missing a lot of elements we take for granted such as maps, indicators, on the head hints, and many UI elements to help guide you along as well as tutorials or micro-tutorials to show you how to use new abilities and such. The NES didn't have the memory space for much of that, and the design and introduction of said things would be another half decade away and a full decade before refinement. Those of us who played these games from 1978 to 1990 did without and Zelda 2 was simply designed with that in mind. When we didn't have maps, we made our own and drew them. When we didn't have guides, we had friends who had (or shared it) the game and we bounced ideas back and forth, and when we didn't have tutorials we used trial and error to figure things out. I'm not saying it was better than modern interpretations. I'm just pointing out that the standards were different and thus so were the expectations. Instead of wishing we had more modern features and design elements we had no idea about, we were glad to have the type of game that this was. So when playing some of these older games sometimes you have to understand the context. But I would argue that despite these limitations, these games are still incredibly fun games to play in their own right.

As an 80s/90s survivor, I feel its important to note that very few kids would've been able to survive this game using only the manual. Nintendo Power as a rule walked you through about half of each game, and kept printing strategies and hints in the issues moving forward, as many as it took before players stopped writing in for help. You could also ALWAYS call the Game Counselors, which believe me we did. That's why my whole age cohort of gamers are so obsessed with Nintendo Power, it was a literal lifeline.

Using the reflect spell on that boss is the intended strat. The boss isn’t broken, that’s how it’s supposed to be.

To this day, I still remember the thrill of the 10 years old me (there was no internet, no guides, nothing!), who spoke no English whatsoever (so I could use none of the clues the game was giving to me), as he saw a big ass door emerge from the ground in Kasuto after randomly casting Spell at a dead end! I replay the game every now and then just for that moment

If you continue to talk to that sleeping slime in the village, you eventually wake him up & he talks to you.

As someone who has played this game so much, there are so many things to say. ' Palaces turn to stone to let you know you 100% completed it. Fire is super useful. There are a bunch of enemies that can only be killed with it, and you will likely get punished when you just try to evade them. You are not supposed to defeat any dungeons by using Fairy in place of keys. You missed the magical key. I suspect that the "cheese strats" for Carock and Shadow Link were somewhat intentional. It wouldn't be hard for them to change the AI to make those strats not work, but they both come at the end of the hardest dungeons. You can either kick back and take an easy dub because you worked hard to get there, or you can play it straight if you want the challenge. I like to describe this game as like a good professor - hard but fair. They set up the lessons, but you have to do the work for yourself, you have to learn. But as you do, the tools for your success become unlocked.

Impressive that you managed to beat the game without getting the up thrust sword technique 👏👏👏

I am glad you liked the game, and finished it despite some difficulties. Yes, when I first replayed the game as an adult, even I missed the Magic Container in Maze Island and had to look it up. If you had gotten the spell from New Kasuto (which you need 7 Magic Containers to get), you would have gotten the Spell spell. With that, you can get the hidden item out of New Kasuto, the Magic Key. That's what the game expected you to do for the hidden palace. You also missied Upstab in Darunia. But you managed without these things. Good job!

Wow. Brute forcing palace 6 with fairy. I'm impressed

the most relatable Zelda II run. Complained the whole way through, still give it a half way decent score

The trick to beating Zelda 2, is to grind XP as much as possible, early in the game. Also, after you reach attack 8, if you keep clicking on Attack, after maxing out, there is a small chance you’ll activate a game bug and get Attack 0 (which is really Attack 10). Nearly all the enemies, except bubbles and Dark/Shadow Link get demolished in one hit including the 6 palace bosses and Thunderbird. 😂

Cartridge space was really limited. The options were to reuse assets or no Zelda 2 for you. Almost all late-stage NES games used reusability to some extent. An example being Megaman 2. They used a system that represented a block of tiles. I think in that one every "tile" in a level was actually a 2x2 block instead of the normal 1x1 tile. Made each level about 1/4 of the cartridge space it would otherwise require.

A lot of those enemies that take multiple hits can be defeated easier with fire. Also, it is not lazy game design. It was just making the most with limited memory for graphics.

Raoru is the name of a sage too. Sage of light, as well as the King of Hyrule

How were you supposed to know to find Baggu? You'll love this. You keep poking the sleeping slime, "that serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever", and he eventually wakes up and tells you where to find his master (Baggu). Using the reflect spell to defeat the Carock (essentially a wizzrobe) is not an exploit, it is the only way to damage the boss.

at 25 39 , after you get that spell, i think you have to the end of his town and use the spell and a secret monument will arise with a door and you go inside and get something

I wish they would make another one in this style. That could be really cool with all the advances in game design and user experience.

I'm genuinely impressed. With only using the manual you had a surprisingly good run for your first time.

The last time I played this, it was on a digital copy but I had a policy to ONLY set a save state at places where the game would otherwise give you a checkpoint anyway (typically, upon entrance to a given room). Having said that, I did have a (used) copy back in the day and DID actually beat it on original hardware. The limited-lives system really makes Dark Souls look easy! (I _also_ had a lot of difficulty finding the hidden Kasuto village to progress, because while it was obvious that you could use the Hammer to clear rocks, using it to clear trees was not.) Some observations from me: - In addition to its "final dungeon" music (and extra checkpoint after Game Over), I love how the Great Palace throws a bunch of completely new enemies at you and you're just expected to be capable of dealing with it. - One of the game's major design flaws is that the "1-up" dolls (already rare to find) are saved with your file, i.e. do NOT reset after a Game Over.- Yes, this game does recycle room designs on a full-screen basis. This was a design artifact of the (relatively) small cartridge size, but it's not nearly as bad as it was in NES Metroid (which _also_ recycled rooms on a full screen basis). - Apparently, the palaces "turn to stone" after meeting two conditions: 1 - completed the objective, and 2 - acquired the major dungeon item. It's your hint that you are done here and it's time to move on.

And all that without getting the Upward Thrust! Good show

Tip for everybody who wanna playthrough easier. dont collect the dolls (lives) before the last dungeon. practice the dungeon and if you feel you nearly can beat it, continue again and collect all lives before.

It makes total sense that the towns are named after all of these characters and prior places from other games because remember this game actually takes place far in the future from other Zelda games timeline-wise. These things were named according to the legendary things from their world's past.

I find it funny that I can tell when you are excited about something in your playthrough. Pressing the down button repeatedly. Never gets old.

Dang beating death mountain without the life spell and the final palace with only a level 6 sword? Crazy.

It's a gem. Solid as they come. It also has one of the most epic intros to any NES game. (I absolutely hope you make more videos like this. It's really cool watching someone experience OG classics while giving your general thoughts about the game as you play) I've been playing this game off and on since it came out on the NES and I finally beat it about a month ago. There is a really good fan made Zelda 2 PC enhanced version that recently came out. Check it out sometime.

i totally loved zelda 2 as a kid. It was a total gem

I am impressed you managed to find the mirror. Don't remember how I found it on my first playthrough.

wow, your play-thru , commentary,, and observations is probably one of the most honest, best overall reviews of Link (Zelda 2) that i have ever watched or heard. its quite amazing that you seemed to have discovered so much about the game all on your own , with little or no help or assistance, such as NINTENDO POWER, or ' a friend', and to be able to advance and progress thru the game , esp after so many deaths/ game overs , is very impressive. great job, thanks for sharing your experience.

That mirror joke you made - something like “I don’t know why she needs to look at herself since all the other villagers look like her” was legit hilarious great reviews

I've always loved this game. I almost beat it once as a kid, but every time I try to revisit it i can't get very far. Another one that felt similar to this, but wasn't a Zelda game, was called Faxanadu. I highly recommend this one and that.

I could tell you decided to stop talking to villagers eventually. "When all else fails, use Fire" is an early game hint that indicates that you use fire on the enemies that don't take damage from any other source. They are great sources of experience and are everywhere so a quick Fire spell gets you tons of XP you otherwise have to grind for. There's also villagers that give you hints on using the flute on the "River Devil" and that there is a "secret" at the end of the hidden village which is the Magic Key you never picked up. Once I saw you in the final temple without the Thunder spell though, my heart really went out to you, knowing that you'd have to eventually leave the Great Palace and would probably resort to a guide to confirm it was necessary. I actually never knew you needed all those magic containers to get the Spell and Thunder abilities. I knew where the magic containers were though. It wasn't until much later in life I resorted to a guide to find the final Heart container though (again, another villager tells you it's east of three eyed rock). Tons of props for conquering this one though. I've done it many times since but I've gotten it all memorized by now and I save all those Link Dolls for my final run on the Great Palace. Because seriously why do they not reappear after a game over?

Zelda II came from a time when game sequels didn't know what they were, and it very much was an experiment in trying to be everything at once - an RPG, a sidescrolling adventure game, and an open-world exploration game, and almost a psuedo fighting game all in one package! It was a lot of systems to balance, that's for sure. Personally, I'd change the EXP for gold and make upgrades available at towns, along with 1up purchases; and one four-way cave that linked the beginning of the game to a cave near Levels 2-3 (blocked by a boulder), the plains near Levels 4-5 (blocked by the river in the south) and the southeastern part, blocked by the Spider Demon for fast travel purposes; but that's about all I'd change.

You should play Air Fortress. It was a HAL Laboratories title who, also, were responsible for the entire Kirby franchise. It starts out easy, then draws you in for quite a while when the difficulty about halfway through the game REALLY ramps up exponentially. I have only gotten to Air Fortress 14 of 16 and still have not beat it to this day; I first played it when I was 11 years old and i'm 38 now (and was pretty damn good at most of these types of games as a kid). Its a real ball-breaker.

The sleeping bot and ache in the villages tell where you to find things if you're persistent enough. The ache literally says, "you are persistent... find heart in ocean N of the palace."

You could grind xp to level up in this game players forget that

Came for the Zelda playthrough.... ....stayed for the Cap'n Crunch. Subscribed

I also beat Zelda II for the first time blind a few years back. I think the only things I needed to look up were the last two optional health upgrades. That was how I learned that you had to talk to the sleeping slime multiple times to get a reward. Somewhere, there's also an up-stab attack that lets you break overhead blocks.

I’m 44 years old, and I know a lot of younger players use the internet to figure this out, but we OGs beat this game with no internet, no strategy guide, just straight grinding.

Way back in the day, I actually played this Zelda game before the first one. It was all about which friends had which games compared to my own. I knew the first two were very different from one another, but I don't think it had quite as much hate back then. It was challenging and cryptic, but damnit if you didn't get every penny's worth out of it for replay value! Plus it was also fun learning about the secrets in the games from other people at recess at school. It was motivation to be sociable and friendly, hehe.

the music in this game has always been unique and haunting, probably best music on American NES along with Castlevania games

I purchased this game in 1988 and it was $99 at Specs. We had no cheats or walk throughs and it took about a year to complete. Also, this was the first game I played that you had to grind exp to level up. I spent many hours in the swamp grinding.

It's refreshing to hear from someone who didn't grow up with Zelda 2 actually not hating on it. Good on you! :)

that was fun hearing a young person play through Zelda 2 for the first time. You missed the up attack ability :P And Reflect was the intended way to beat the wizard, so you did it the right way. Grats on beating one of the hardest NES games ever

I’m really enjoying the new types of videos

Banger video, definitely deserves more views

I really enjoyed this one! I've tried a few times ot play Zelda II, but I never got very far, so I learned a ton about the game here. I know how much the KZfaq algorithm hates channels changing up their formulas, but I would totally watch more videos of this style in the future!

"Barba" is actually Volvagia. In Japanese they have the same name (although Volvagia in OoT adds an extra subtitle after the name).

I can't believe you were able to beat this game WITHOUT the up-stab move. I didn't even know about the Fairy trick for getting through doors without a key.

I remember being stuck on some parts for so long as a kid, for example finding the guy in the woods to go be able to go over the bridge. However, as I recently replayed it, there is a hint to it which you overlooked. If you bother (multiple times talk to it) the sleeping monster you thought was meaningless, he tells you something like "master is in the forest" Another thing, all those knights can be easily killed with jump and attack as you're falling down. It causes the knight to drop the shield, while you hit them in the head. when you get the timing they become a breeze. Also, there are some palace (maybe island one?) where sometimes instead of dropping a potion, the statue turns into a red knight. That's one of the great places to grind levels, as you can just heal up from the potions if needed. Another thing is all magic lasts one screen (i think you said 'a short amount of time') I personally love this game and vastly prefer it to the first one

8:28 Even back in the NES days, I think most people never figure out on their own that you have to keep on pestering the slime to rudely wake it up and start let it talk a hint. (I think the method to wake the slime up is much more cryptic than the solution to the hint)

I remember grinding for levels before we had a word for it. One exploit I remember finding was near the hidden town where you could walk around in the nearby desert to draw enemies to you. On the sidescrolling screen, you would wait for both enemies to be on the screen at the same time, then use Thunder to vaporize them for 300 XP. Go back to the hidden town, refill your magic, and repeat. Once you got magic up to 8, Thunder only took half your magic bar, so you could do it twice before refilling.

Awesome vid! Impressed with your willingness to go truly old-school and experience these games as us genX gamers did. One thing to note: the duplicated areas is not lazy game design. It's storage space saving technique. ROM space was relatively expensive so the sizes of game carts was typically pretty small. The encoding scheme for level data had to be small. Fun fact: a PNG screen shot of SMB1 is larger than the entire SMB1 cartridge space!

Excellent video🎉

I remember my cousin getting this game when it was newly released, and it was so incredibly difficult to make progress because the internet wasn't quite there yet and there just wasn't a lot of support for these games unless you were lucky to have a Nintendo Power subscription.

Great video!

You can grind for XP at the red castle or any other castle that can spawn an iron knuckle when you hit it's statue at the entrance.

Very insightful video 🧐

What a great video. Great job.

I went back and played through and FINALLY beat this game in college years ago, still on the NES. It was fantastic.

Love this video format

Damn, I had no idea that that many character names from Ocarina of Time came from this game, of all games. That’s an amazing Easter egg that most people who never played Zelda II never realized.

There’s still a horseshoe over the door to my childhood bedroom with a hand written note saying “Do not enter if you don’t know how to defeat the horse” which I put there as a 5 year old because of the first palace boss from this game!

The upward stab is situationally handy.

Wait did you beat the entire game without getting the upward thrust attack?? That’s impressive! You also missed using the Thunderspell at the dead end in Kasuto which causes a building to rise out of the ground & grants you The Master Key, giving you infinite keys, which is also impressive that you beat it without that! Good job man!

You're supposed to get the magic key in Kasuto before going to the Hidden Palace. It opens all doors in the game. I guess the game never makes that obvious.

8:25 if you talk multiple times with the slime they eventually give a clue of where you can find bagu

One of my favorites of all time. I still play through it several times a year.

Glad you enjoyed it. Brings back some good childhood memories. One of my favorite Zelda’s of all time. After watching just curious, you mentioned finding the downward stab attack, did you find the upward stab attack…

As with Zelda 1, I managed to find everything by myself. Granted, I died tons of times and had to do a lot of trial & error, like using the Hammer on bushes (which I probably figured out just like you did: by hitting the action button on every tile), but I had no life and game magazines were alien to me at the time, so it was either keep playing or quit. I think crossing the river in Saria Town stumped the most, as I had trouble finding Bagu. Then, I managed to wake up the Bot (by pestering him a few times), who told me to look in the woods up north. After that, he rest was pretty straightforward. I found the Magic Key in New Kasuto right away, because I got a useless spell there and the hint from a villager that there was a secret at the edge of town. Finding New Kasuto took me a while, though. I didn't find out about how to easily beat Dark Link many years later. Up till then, I always fought him the hard way.

I don't know if you ever noticed but when you place a crystal you automatically get experience up to the next level so if you are close to leveling up it can be a good idea to go grind to the next level then go back and place the crystal for a free level. Sometimes i actually don't actually place the crystals is any of the early palaces because they are fairly easy to get through again later on and place those crystals for the last few levels i need to max out.

The best part of the second play through. There was a way to defeat a boss in quest 2, then while the XP is counting up, quitting out and loading up a different character would give that character the remaining XP. It’s been a while, and I was in 6th grade (1987/88)

I adore this game. Great music!

You missed the skeleton key which is what the Spell spell was for at the end of the town you get it from lol also the up thrust from the church lol I won't lie I cackled when I saw you go to the great palace without the Thunder spell lolol

I'm a 40yr old guy and I played this before school every day in like 1st grade. Zelda 1 the first time I ever rented it I spent my first weekend w it not able to get past the very first screen bc my young mind to that point only knew side scrollers and I could not comprehend that it was an overhead perspective. After realizing that the second rental period around I went up entered the cave and got my sword. Off to the races from there. Both of those games.. legend of zelda and zelda 2 inspired my love of adventure.

You even missed the upward thrust! And the final heart container which is straight to the right of the triple rock palace on the beach.

After so many playthroughs of making sure I got everything, I can safely tell you to look at literally everything. You will find dolls, magic bags, 4 hearts and 4 magic containers. Amazing game when you take the lore and some of the dialogue and build the story around your gameplay. Also the little guy in the corner is the king of Hyrule

7:25 As a kid, I never recognized that this was an angel statue. It always looked like a double axe head to me 🤣

Zelda 2 gets a lot easier once you figure out how to game the experience system. For example, use the fact that placing a crystal at the end of a temple gives you an automatic level-up to milk it for maximum experience, especially for the expensive attack power upgrades.

Fun fact: The very south portion of Death Mountain in Zelda 2 is the entirety of the map from Zelda 1. There are lots of images online that show how it ties in.

Zelda 2's always been one of my top three in the series, but for anyone playing it today play Zelda 2 Enhanced by Hoverbat instead. It's loaded with QoL features, including many that address complaints in this video, without reducing the game's challenge

This is still my favorite Zelda game from the time it first came out. In some ways reminds me of the third Y’s or even Iron Sword. It has more of an RPG atmosphere. I like the gameplay, maps, and level design. A lot of people complain about this game but I just can’t.

The sleeping Blob tells you about Bagu if you wake him up by talking to him 3x.

Bro I'm listening to this while going to sleep and right when you said the whole that makes the most interesting sound and ad came on for and anime and it was playing a song for a solid minute i thought you were trolling😅😂

I think the sleeping slime gives you a good tip and you don't need the fairy spell to go through any locked door in the game, unless i'm mistaken.

Id love to see more videos like this on older games. Play some of the greats, like final fantasy, punch out, faxanadu, legacy of the wizard (lol, nah, that will take you literally months), blaster master, Guardian Legend... there are so many great NES ganes.

2:10 that’s hilarious I couldn’t tell what a forest was

real cool review! I enjoyed it a lot. I'm a big fan of your high effort majoras mask music videos, as "people playing music on video-game instruments" is one of my very niche interests... that is very hard to look up, lol

This is the hardest Zelda game ever. I have this game on my Nintendo GameCube. Love this game but it's very hard. Everyone should buy/play this game 🎮🎮

Nice video. I’d like to see you publish a video on the second quest too.

27:20 I saw a twitch stream of the zelda 2 ending where the console was glitching out so you could see thru the curtains. She sidesteps him and just friend hugs.

Aside from being a ranged attack the fire spell is only useful for killing a handful of enemies such as Tektites. It's the only way to damage them.