I was never a fan of Zelda II back when I was a kid. Definitely was and still am a fan of the original Zelda (and style as I'm currently playing Link to the Past on the SNES). Granted, because I did not like it then I have not bothered to pick it up. Once I finish the SNES version, I might give it a whirl. Are any of the hacked/home brew versions of Zelda for the SNES worthwhile?
Definitely way better on Castlevania III but still not as good as other games. In my opinion.
Is it the lack of being able to control your jump in mid-air?
The way stairs work in Castlevania is generally pretty irritating.
The speed of the character's movement is slow compared to any other scroller I can think of.
And counter to that the acceleration due to gravity is quite high (once you start falling you just drop)
The momentum in that game could have used some more tuning, IMO.
But the games are playable, you just have to figure out the "rules" and that they don't work like any other game series. (other than stuff like 8 Eyes)
I love Zelda II and play it at least once a year. I would play Zelda II over Ocarina of Time any day of the week. Love the music and choice of "instruments" in Zelda II as well.
If you're willing to grind a little bit up front, Death Mountain and the rest of the game is more reasonable. In the first palace, there is a floating skull at the beginning of the room near the elevator going down to B2. Grind that guy out for an hour - always choosing to level up the sword. Beat the rest of the dungeon and make sure to level up something else before inserting the crystal to get another sword level before moving on towards Death Mountain. If you do this properly, you'll be at sword level 4 - 6. The orange axe alligator guys (Daira) will take max 2 hits and orange ironknuckles go down in one.
You don't hear this too often about Zelda 2 but compared to what was on the NES up to that time, the graphics are amazing and very detailed (especially the enemies). And all things considered Zelda 1 also did a pretty good job in that department too.
Even as a kid I never thought of it as a hard game. What's giving you trouble, and what levels are you? If by hard it turns out you really mean "Iron knuckles are dickheads" then yes, yes they are.
I've gotten better. I realized after every six bots you kill they drop something. They keep coming back when you leave the screen so I just find an area with a few of them in a Palace and kill a bunch until I get enough magic for the life spell.
It's been years, but I don't remember Zelda II feeling hard until very late in the game, when there are invisible eyeball enemies and projectiles flying at you from every direction.
Death Mountain is kinda tough but no more than the usual NES game of the day.
I've gotten better. I realized after every six bots you kill they drop something. They keep coming back when you leave the screen so I just find an area with a few of them in a Palace and kill a bunch until I get enough magic for the life spell.
There's two kill counters, large and small, both drop on the 6th item. Bit and bot are both small counters.
On a small counter, kill 6 foes, and you have a 1/8 chance of 50 p bag, otherwise it's a blue jar. Large groups, 50/50 chance red jar or 200 point bag.
Counters are seperate, so kill 4 small foes, then 2 large fores, you still need to kill 2 more small foes for the small drop. This means drops are not random, and will always happen at the same spot when you kill the same foes. So if you get a red jar at one spot, and play thourgh it again, you have a 50/50 chance of a red jar at the same spot.
Some of the large foes you can jump over, but you need to trick them. They read your dpad. so run at them, jump, and let go of the D pad, then they will stop and let you jump over them. Iron knuckles don't work quite like that, rather than read your pad they wonder aimlessley when you're not pressing anything, but you can down stab their heads to bounce over them.
When fighting iron knuckles, learn to hop at them, and stab their face on the way down. In small hallways this won't work, you can sometimes do a tricky down stab on them then (a jackhammer), or just jump and stab one after each other. In fighting games it's almost a A~B motion. Blues don't get hit by this though, you need a couching jump generally. Or fairy through them
Down stab also has no cooldown. You jump, down stab, and mash downstab, you can actually attack many many times in mid air. It's tricky in most cases, but great for killing bubbles when you learn how.
The fairy can pass through locked doors without a key, and in the US version, can pick up items.
Red jars give you as much magic as your max meter. Each bar is 16, so with 4 bars, you have 64 magic points at max, and red jars give you 64 points magic. So if you have 30 points of magic already, you'd waste 30 points of magic from the red potion. So cast life before you grab it, or while it's filling. Magic lady in town give you 255 magic
If you leave a room right when your XP hits a new level, the game will lock up. And if you leave a room after killing a monster, you do not get XP for it untill your counter moves. Meaning you kill someone, see 100 float, and leave, you didn't earn the 100 xp until your exp counter moved.
Gems in palaces give you enough EXP for a level, so you want to skip a few low level ups before you place gems. For example, skip the magic and life upgrades once or twice, then when you place a gem, you get a bigger boost. Or wait till you're near the end of the game and already leveled up before you place them.
I'd say Zelda II has the best swordplay(and probably the best combat engine overall) on the NES. At first, it can be a little frustrating, but once it clicks, it's a blast. For the most part it's a challenging but not overly hard game, but there's bits that are just brutal, such as Death Mountain in the early game, that bit where they're raining projectiles from behind a fence, the invisible eyeball town, and those bird enemies in the last dungeon. Every time I see one of those bird guys, I won't even try engaging, I'll just run for it.
One of my favorite NES games, but screw that final palace. I recommend running through that last part with a map sitting next to you (via phone, laptop, whatever). Otherwise, it's a frustrating mess.
I've gotten better. I realized after every six bots you kill they drop something. They keep coming back when you leave the screen so I just find an area with a few of them in a Palace and kill a bunch until I get enough magic for the life spell.
There's two kill counters, large and small, both drop on the 6th item. Bit and bot are both small counters.
On a small counter, kill 6 foes, and you have a 1/8 chance of 50 p bag, otherwise it's a blue jar. Large groups, 50/50 chance red jar or 200 point bag.
Counters are seperate, so kill 4 small foes, then 2 large fores, you still need to kill 2 more small foes for the small drop. This means drops are not random, and will always happen at the same spot when you kill the same foes. So if you get a red jar at one spot, and play thourgh it again, you have a 50/50 chance of a red jar at the same spot.
Some of the large foes you can jump over, but you need to trick them. They read your dpad. so run at them, jump, and let go of the D pad, then they will stop and let you jump over them. Iron knuckles don't work quite like that, rather than read your pad they wonder aimlessley when you're not pressing anything, but you can down stab their heads to bounce over them.
When fighting iron knuckles, learn to hop at them, and stab their face on the way down. In small hallways this won't work, you can sometimes do a tricky down stab on them then (a jackhammer), or just jump and stab one after each other. In fighting games it's almost a A~B motion. Blues don't get hit by this though, you need a couching jump generally. Or fairy through them
Down stab also has no cooldown. You jump, down stab, and mash downstab, you can actually attack many many times in mid air. It's tricky in most cases, but great for killing bubbles when you learn how.
The fairy can pass through locked doors without a key, and in the US version, can pick up items.
Red jars give you as much magic as your max meter. Each bar is 16, so with 4 bars, you have 64 magic points at max, and red jars give you 64 points magic. So if you have 30 points of magic already, you'd waste 30 points of magic from the red potion. So cast life before you grab it, or while it's filling. Magic lady in town give you 255 magic
If you leave a room right when your XP hits a new level, the game will lock up. And if you leave a room after killing a monster, you do not get XP for it untill your counter moves. Meaning you kill someone, see 100 float, and leave, you didn't earn the 100 xp until your exp counter moved.
Gems in palaces give you enough EXP for a level, so you want to skip a few low level ups before you place gems. For example, skip the magic and life upgrades once or twice, then when you place a gem, you get a bigger boost. Or wait till you're near the end of the game and already leveled up before you place them.
This post is awesome. I didn't know half of this shit! This makes me want to fire it up today.
EDIT: Just got the candle in the first palace, and I'm off to fight Horse Head
First palace down, and just got the trophy as I head toward the second.
I've never done a run where I leave the statues until the end, so that's what I'm going to do. The one time I beat this game straight through (wow, it must have been early 2003/2004!), those last few levels kicked my ass because I grabbed them as I went.
I haven't had the motivation to give it another go, but I need something to hold me over while I take a break from Battletoads
Playing this as a kid, I made it all the way to the Thunderbird, but couldn't figure out how to damage him. I've never made a serious effort at beating the game since. I should give it another go.
Playing this as a kid, I made it all the way to the Thunderbird, but couldn't figure out how to damage him. I've never made a serious effort at beating the game since. I should give it another go.
I don't remember how I figured that out. It may well have been Nintendo Power.
Playing this as a kid, I made it all the way to the Thunderbird, but couldn't figure out how to damage him. I've never made a serious effort at beating the game since. I should give it another go.
I don't remember how I figured that out. It may well have been Nintendo Power.
It wasn't really that hard to figure out, you most likely figured it out on your own. "Boss of the last palace? I'll cast my biggest spell on him! Oh look, now I see his face, I'mma gonna stab it!"
A lot of stuff we're told is cryptic and needed nintendo power really wasn't that bad. Like the whole "How would you know to cast 'spell' at the end of the town?" line people say. Well, the game says:
THERE IS
A SECRET
AT EDGE
OF TOWN.
So you know to do something there. Even finding the hidden town has a clue:
Yup this game is great, keep at it. IMO people only dislike it because it is quite difficult and very different from other Zelda games.
If you're not making maps of the dungeons, I'd recommend using an FAQ for at least the last few and especially the final dungeon. It is extremely difficult.
+1 on using short hops to defeat the Iron Knuckles. Do this. They were the single most frustrating part of the game for me until I learned this (one weird) trick.
The final dungeon has some excruciatingly hard enemies that jump around a lot - I can't remember exactly but I think there is a somewhat easy way to defeat them as well.
Also there are good tricks to defeating both of the final bosses, just FYI.
Also also, here is some recommended reading on the game's mechanics and probably some good gameplay advice too.
This game would have been perfect is they just eliminated the cryptic and cynical Nintendo power cash grab mysteries. Even as is, I'd still put this in my top 3 Zelda games, it's light years better than any of the dreadful 3d shit that came out post SNES.
This game would have been perfect is they just eliminated the cryptic and cynical Nintendo power cash grab mysteries. Even as is, I'd still put this in my top 3 Zelda games, it's light years better than any of the dreadful 3d shit that came out post SNES.
You really feel it's that bad/cryptic? I think Simon's Quest is way worse.
This game would have been perfect is they just eliminated the cryptic and cynical Nintendo power cash grab mysteries. Even as is, I'd still put this in my top 3 Zelda games, it's light years better than any of the dreadful 3d shit that came out post SNES.
You really feel it's that bad/cryptic? I think Simon's Quest is way worse.
I agree about post-SNES 3D shit.
I've always thought one of the reasons it never got good reviews, besides the departure of style, was just how plain the overworld map looks. Graphicly it's nothing to write home about
Comments
Definitely way better on Castlevania III but still not as good as other games. In my opinion.
Is it the lack of being able to control your jump in mid-air?
The way stairs work in Castlevania is generally pretty irritating.
The speed of the character's movement is slow compared to any other scroller I can think of.
And counter to that the acceleration due to gravity is quite high (once you start falling you just drop)
The momentum in that game could have used some more tuning, IMO.
But the games are playable, you just have to figure out the "rules" and that they don't work like any other game series. (other than stuff like 8 Eyes)
It's tough for sure, but it's one of those games that makes you feel like you really accomplished something by the time that you beat it.
Agreed.
Each of the hard spots in the game is immensely satisfying to overcome.
If you're willing to grind a little bit up front, Death Mountain and the rest of the game is more reasonable. In the first palace, there is a floating skull at the beginning of the room near the elevator going down to B2. Grind that guy out for an hour - always choosing to level up the sword. Beat the rest of the dungeon and make sure to level up something else before inserting the crystal to get another sword level before moving on towards Death Mountain. If you do this properly, you'll be at sword level 4 - 6. The orange axe alligator guys (Daira) will take max 2 hits and orange ironknuckles go down in one.
Secret best Zelda.
Secret Best Zelda.
Watch out for the Glitch Gremlin.
"I gots glitches in me britches!" hahaha
This game is ruthless. It's like not even fun haha
How far did you make it?
This game is ruthless. It's like not even fun haha
That's called Nintendo Hard™
This game is ruthless. It's like not even fun haha
That's called Nintendo Hard™
Correct. The beauty of "Nintendo Hard" titles, is that they not only get easier with practice - but they also get more enjoyable!
Battletoads is a prime example of this.
This game is ruthless. It's like not even fun haha
How far did you make it?
I'm on the third palace. I'm gonnna try and tough it out though.
This game is ruthless. It's like not even fun haha
How far did you make it?
I'm on the third palace. I'm gonnna try and tough it out though.
The more you play, the better you'll get. You got this!
Did you beat the third palace?
Death Mountain is kinda tough but no more than the usual NES game of the day.
I've gotten better. I realized after every six bots you kill they drop something. They keep coming back when you leave the screen so I just find an area with a few of them in a Palace and kill a bunch until I get enough magic for the life spell.
There's two kill counters, large and small, both drop on the 6th item. Bit and bot are both small counters.
On a small counter, kill 6 foes, and you have a 1/8 chance of 50 p bag, otherwise it's a blue jar. Large groups, 50/50 chance red jar or 200 point bag.
Counters are seperate, so kill 4 small foes, then 2 large fores, you still need to kill 2 more small foes for the small drop. This means drops are not random, and will always happen at the same spot when you kill the same foes. So if you get a red jar at one spot, and play thourgh it again, you have a 50/50 chance of a red jar at the same spot.
Some of the large foes you can jump over, but you need to trick them. They read your dpad. so run at them, jump, and let go of the D pad, then they will stop and let you jump over them. Iron knuckles don't work quite like that, rather than read your pad they wonder aimlessley when you're not pressing anything, but you can down stab their heads to bounce over them.
When fighting iron knuckles, learn to hop at them, and stab their face on the way down. In small hallways this won't work, you can sometimes do a tricky down stab on them then (a jackhammer), or just jump and stab one after each other. In fighting games it's almost a A~B motion. Blues don't get hit by this though, you need a couching jump generally. Or fairy through them
Down stab also has no cooldown. You jump, down stab, and mash downstab, you can actually attack many many times in mid air. It's tricky in most cases, but great for killing bubbles when you learn how.
The fairy can pass through locked doors without a key, and in the US version, can pick up items.
Red jars give you as much magic as your max meter. Each bar is 16, so with 4 bars, you have 64 magic points at max, and red jars give you 64 points magic. So if you have 30 points of magic already, you'd waste 30 points of magic from the red potion. So cast life before you grab it, or while it's filling. Magic lady in town give you 255 magic
If you leave a room right when your XP hits a new level, the game will lock up. And if you leave a room after killing a monster, you do not get XP for it untill your counter moves. Meaning you kill someone, see 100 float, and leave, you didn't earn the 100 xp until your exp counter moved.
Gems in palaces give you enough EXP for a level, so you want to skip a few low level ups before you place gems. For example, skip the magic and life upgrades once or twice, then when you place a gem, you get a bigger boost. Or wait till you're near the end of the game and already leveled up before you place them.
I've gotten better. I realized after every six bots you kill they drop something. They keep coming back when you leave the screen so I just find an area with a few of them in a Palace and kill a bunch until I get enough magic for the life spell.
There's two kill counters, large and small, both drop on the 6th item. Bit and bot are both small counters.
On a small counter, kill 6 foes, and you have a 1/8 chance of 50 p bag, otherwise it's a blue jar. Large groups, 50/50 chance red jar or 200 point bag.
Counters are seperate, so kill 4 small foes, then 2 large fores, you still need to kill 2 more small foes for the small drop. This means drops are not random, and will always happen at the same spot when you kill the same foes. So if you get a red jar at one spot, and play thourgh it again, you have a 50/50 chance of a red jar at the same spot.
Some of the large foes you can jump over, but you need to trick them. They read your dpad. so run at them, jump, and let go of the D pad, then they will stop and let you jump over them. Iron knuckles don't work quite like that, rather than read your pad they wonder aimlessley when you're not pressing anything, but you can down stab their heads to bounce over them.
When fighting iron knuckles, learn to hop at them, and stab their face on the way down. In small hallways this won't work, you can sometimes do a tricky down stab on them then (a jackhammer), or just jump and stab one after each other. In fighting games it's almost a A~B motion. Blues don't get hit by this though, you need a couching jump generally. Or fairy through them
Down stab also has no cooldown. You jump, down stab, and mash downstab, you can actually attack many many times in mid air. It's tricky in most cases, but great for killing bubbles when you learn how.
The fairy can pass through locked doors without a key, and in the US version, can pick up items.
Red jars give you as much magic as your max meter. Each bar is 16, so with 4 bars, you have 64 magic points at max, and red jars give you 64 points magic. So if you have 30 points of magic already, you'd waste 30 points of magic from the red potion. So cast life before you grab it, or while it's filling. Magic lady in town give you 255 magic
If you leave a room right when your XP hits a new level, the game will lock up. And if you leave a room after killing a monster, you do not get XP for it untill your counter moves. Meaning you kill someone, see 100 float, and leave, you didn't earn the 100 xp until your exp counter moved.
Gems in palaces give you enough EXP for a level, so you want to skip a few low level ups before you place gems. For example, skip the magic and life upgrades once or twice, then when you place a gem, you get a bigger boost. Or wait till you're near the end of the game and already leveled up before you place them.
This post is awesome. I didn't know half of this shit! This makes me want to fire it up today.
EDIT: Just got the candle in the first palace, and I'm off to fight Horse Head
I've never done a run where I leave the statues until the end, so that's what I'm going to do. The one time I beat this game straight through (wow, it must have been early 2003/2004!), those last few levels kicked my ass because I grabbed them as I went.
I haven't had the motivation to give it another go, but I need something to hold me over while I take a break from Battletoads
Playing this as a kid, I made it all the way to the Thunderbird, but couldn't figure out how to damage him. I've never made a serious effort at beating the game since. I should give it another go.
I don't remember how I figured that out. It may well have been Nintendo Power.
Playing this as a kid, I made it all the way to the Thunderbird, but couldn't figure out how to damage him. I've never made a serious effort at beating the game since. I should give it another go.
I don't remember how I figured that out. It may well have been Nintendo Power.
It wasn't really that hard to figure out, you most likely figured it out on your own. "Boss of the last palace? I'll cast my biggest spell on him! Oh look, now I see his face, I'mma gonna stab it!"
A lot of stuff we're told is cryptic and needed nintendo power really wasn't that bad. Like the whole "How would you know to cast 'spell' at the end of the town?" line people say. Well, the game says:
THERE IS
A SECRET
AT EDGE
OF TOWN.
So you know to do something there. Even finding the hidden town has a clue:
THE TOWN
IS DEAD.
LOOK EAST
IN WOODS.
If you're not making maps of the dungeons, I'd recommend using an FAQ for at least the last few and especially the final dungeon. It is extremely difficult.
+1 on using short hops to defeat the Iron Knuckles. Do this. They were the single most frustrating part of the game for me until I learned this (one weird) trick.
The final dungeon has some excruciatingly hard enemies that jump around a lot - I can't remember exactly but I think there is a somewhat easy way to defeat them as well.
Also there are good tricks to defeating both of the final bosses, just FYI.
Also also, here is some recommended reading on the game's mechanics and probably some good gameplay advice too.
http://www.anatomyofgames.com/2013/03/07/the-anatomy-of-zelda-ii-i-genre-shift/
This game would have been perfect is they just eliminated the cryptic and cynical Nintendo power cash grab mysteries. Even as is, I'd still put this in my top 3 Zelda games, it's light years better than any of the dreadful 3d shit that came out post SNES.
You really feel it's that bad/cryptic? I think Simon's Quest is way worse.
I agree about post-SNES 3D shit.
This game would have been perfect is they just eliminated the cryptic and cynical Nintendo power cash grab mysteries. Even as is, I'd still put this in my top 3 Zelda games, it's light years better than any of the dreadful 3d shit that came out post SNES.
You really feel it's that bad/cryptic? I think Simon's Quest is way worse.
I agree about post-SNES 3D shit.
I've always thought one of the reasons it never got good reviews, besides the departure of style, was just how plain the overworld map looks. Graphicly it's nothing to write home about