Why does everyone hate this game? This is seriously one of the best games in the entire series. It has fantastic design, great atmosphere, and tight controls. It made me get out so much paper to chart down my own maps. I felt like I was on a real adventure the whole time. Someone give me an explanation or I'm going to assume everyone here is a newage kiddie that started with the N64 games or god forbid something afterwards. And don't get me started on people that think Death Mountain is hard. I thought it was a "cave maze" and when I finished I realized that it was the legendary "bullshit" portion of the game. I felt insulted on a personal level after that.
On an unrelated note, why does NES era Zelda have such a great world? It's a nice step away from generic Tolkien fantasy, but as the series goes on it seems to get more and more plastic.
Nintendo actively tries to paint it as some kind of black sheep and virals it as being a shitty game because it stands as a direct counterargument to their claim that Zelda isn't supposed to be about tense combat.
Asher Bell
Will these people ever make up their minds?
Bentley Wood
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Dylan Bennett
It seems to be a 50/50 split but a shitload of people do.
Jaxson Phillips
Game journos and normalfags pretending to like something "nerdy" sure do.
Lincoln Lee
Back then it was hated for being too different from the other Zelda.
Now people love it for being too different from the other Zeldas.
Michael Howard
Objectively false revisionist history.
Levi Gray
Tell me would you rate it so highly if it didn't have the Zelda brand?
Connor Wood
Up until Ocarina of Time, the first game in the series using 3D models, there were only 4 games: TLoZ TAoL ALttP LA
3 out of 4 games were top-down adventure games. Of course the odd one would be "too different".
Even before the release of Link's Awakening, it would be 1 out of 3. Now take into account that ALttP was all but considered "going back to the 'classic' formula", you have to admit there was some kind of strong opinions against the "oddball".
I see no revisionism in any way.
Kayden Campbell
Yes.
Oliver Collins
Its revisionist because at time of release there was only one other game, you retard, which is the context where you must consider. There was no hatred for Zelda II in its day.
Adrian Cooper
That's not even true, they rereleased it for GBA that one time, remember? And also on Gamecube.
Alexander Williams
Miyamoto hates it.
Cooper Ross
It's also an ambassador game on 3DS
Andrew Price
You can find it good or whatever, but the reason Zelda fans don't like it it's because this game is totally not-Zelda, just some skinned Castlevania.
Chase Gomez
I thought Majora's Mask filled that role nowadays
This is enough to cut Zelda 2 some slack honestly
Jace Thomas
It's a little annoying at times (most NES games are) but also pretty comfy. It's just a case of people not liking change and I'm pretty sure most of the negative attention is only in retrospect, since it sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest.
Zachary Turner
Hipsters hate it cause they can't beat it. NuHipsters love it cause they thing it is a special snowflake. As for it's actually placement in history as a Zelda game, it doesn't really feel like a Zelda game cause of case and point the rest of the games. It is my personal favorite along side Links Awakening. If you are really bored, check out some history of Rpg's and Action Rpg's in Japan during the year 1984-1989. Some good info on what was happening at the time.
Benjamin Thomas
And I can't spell very well, jeez.
Landon Long
Well that must mean it's good. Because Miyamoto has shown he has no taste and is a retard. Guy thinks that just because the WiiU is a dual screen experience that he just HAD to make Star Fox that way.
Leo Wood
Ocarina of Time was released 18 years ago ya old bastard. God forbid someone start with the most popular entry in a series where chronological or release order doesn't matter and the gameplay has significant variation between most releases.
Cameron Torres
Nah, they love MM because of it's "dark and edgy" atmosphere.
Parker Walker
It's ok. they try to make it disappear because it doesn't follow the zelda formula but the game itself is ok. It wouldn't even be on the radar if it didn't have the Zelda IP slapped to it though.
Lucas Bailey
holy shit please leave
Nolan Reed
Nintendo faggots are absolutely insufferable.
Luis Stewart
Miyamoto doesn't like it. Game journalists parrot Miyamoto because they think he's smart and if they repeat it they are smart as well. Then idiots parrot the game journalists for exactly the same reason. Luckily thanks to the internet we have contemporary sources to show that the game was indeed so popular it sold out (albeit during a general cartridge shortage).
I quite like it, but I haven't made it past the third dungeon. This is the type of game where you really need a precise Nintendo d-pad, and all I have is my Logitech gamepad.
Blake Barnes
The game was delayed for a while and word spread that it had bad bugs. People were primed to be disappointed. Graphics quality was a step down. Many of the sprites looked bad for a NES game, including the main character's sprites. There was no sense of exploration and little interacting with the environment.
Nolan Gomez
If you didnt buy this game when it first came out then you have no business spewing your bullshit opinion about it.
Tyler Nguyen
As a wee baby, one of my first games was Zelda since we only had an NES and some Atari that I think we never used. I liked it, although I don't remember beating it as a kid. Zelda 2 on the other hand was too hard for me, because I was (and still am) a fucking retard. I also didn't really like the music, I dunno why. My taste in Zelda is kind of odd though, I don't like Link to the Past much, and OoT's more of the same there but I like it a little more. I like Link's Awakening and MM, they sort of do some of the same things. And the Oracle games are my favorites, I think that's a pretty uncontroversial opinion though.
Ian Myers
nobody hates Zelda 2, its just a buzzword liberals like to use like "fun" or "opinion".
Wyatt James
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Zachary Reed
Well, I don't hate it. I actually think it's a pretty great game. However, I still prefer Zelda III. LTTP was the best in the series, hands down. Sure, it's not perfect, and I can think of ways things that could make it, or a spiritual successor/clone, much better, but it's essentially a better version of the first game in almost every regard. Anyway, Zelda II is a solid foundation upon which more actual game could be built, but I don't think Nintendo gives a shit.
Just use your keyboard. either WSAD for movement, E for sword and R for jump, or you can use the arrow keys for movement and Z for sword and X for jump. Back when I first got into emulators, I used my keyboard for everything. I even completed OoT with just a keyboard. It's not half bad.
Elijah Jenkins
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Luke Lee
People hate Zelda II because it's not a "proper" Zelda game (despite the fact there was no Zelda formula at the time Zelda II was released). They also hate it because it's hard and lets you die. A lot. And when you die you have to *gasp* start over *shocked cries* instead of simply respawning outside the last room you were in with full health. There are also a lot of complaints about "artificial difficulty" and "stupid riddles" but if you talk to villagers you get all the info you will ever need to finish the game. But again, this takes some effort and reading is hard for people who grew up having everything voice acted by the same three people in every game. Also, the instruction booklets back then often contained critical information and many people didn't read. Me, personally, fucking loved reading instruction booklets and would take them to school to read in my spare time, poring over the art and copying it and reading the lore. I especially loved the Zelda II booklet because it had some cool mythology in it (sleeping princesses and curses and magic heroes and whatnot) and with Link getting the symbol of the triforce on the back of his hand which I ended up getting as a tattoo And Zelda II contains gendered pro-nouns Another issue with Zelda II is purely Japanese but since it ran on the Famicom Disk System in Japan there were loading times in transitions between the overworld and the side-scrolling portions. So every time you entered a town, a palace, or combat, the game would have to load which took time. This was obviously annoying but it wasn't an issue when it was released on cartridge outside Japan (but we did lose the cool boss roars that you hear in the rooms adjacent to bosses like in the first game).
Good thing I played it the year it came out when I was five years old. And I beat it the following year too.
Faxanadu and Battle of Olympus are both highly acclaimed if less well known and they're very similar. If Zelda II didn't have the brand name it would still be a great game, it just might be more obscure (which would inadvertently probably make fuckwits like it even more).
Samuel Price
You didn't actually play Link's Awakening, did you user?
Connor Parker
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Kayden Myers
I didn't hate it, I just hated the lives system. felt like it doesn't fit in the game.
Brody Perry
what?
Jaxon Jenkins
I tried this a while back. I really enjoyed the dungeon crawling and combat but traveling across the overworld felt like a complete waste of time.
Jaxon Ward
Just alternate high and low attacks, watch for their own attack telegraph (arm goes back) and then hold the shield high or low. As long as you're not attacking you're blocking with your shield by default, so just keep you thumb off until the attack button until you've got an opening. It's literally that simple. An even easier way is to jump at them and attack on the way down, you'll hit both high and low at the same time if you do it right and 90% of the time they can't block it.
Isn't that reason enough for most people to hate a game these days?
Jackson White
Thanks for reminding me of the rage user
Oliver Evans
yes hating sodomites is virtuous but where specifically does this shit take place in Zelda II or are you just failing to be funny or virtue signal that you need to lurk more?
Hunter Bell
Well he does give anal to the healing lady in the towns.
Camden Powell
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Sebastian Howard
What's the big deal? Some old anime doodle got drawn over? It looked like a middle schooler-tier sketch anyway
Grayson Jenkins
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Ryder Thompson
I just like the first 3 more.
Levi Sanchez
I remember getting it for my birthday and being disappointed when I finally started it. It didn't feel like a sequel as much as it felt like a different game with Zelda slapped on the label. I hated the music for whatever reason, and eventually got bored with it. I had similar feelings about Mario 2 when that came out, which legitimately was another game with Mario slapped on the label. That game eventually grew on me, however. I've been meaning to dig AoL out of storage and actually finish it to see if my opinion changed over the years.
William Miller
what're you, too cool to enjoy rap? is it too "childish" for you user?
Brody Edwards
Because it was too hard when I was 5 It's really fun once you figure out how to play it. It's probably too complicated for "gamers".
Hudson Peterson
I agree user. Fucking casuals the lot of them. What a bunch of faggots. It's like they don't even love Zelda. I love Zelda so much I made my own fanart.
Nathan Wilson
Fuck that shit fam. The controls are good, the combat is great, but the rest of the mechanics are fucked up shit. They didn't even bother to put a shop in this game either.
The first Zelda is loved for it's open endedness. This game failed to deliver the same open ended experience. That, combined with broken mechanics and excessive difficulty, makes non autististic people find it difficult to love this game.
le dark souls of zelda games amirite?
The towns and people look samey and they all talk like absolute retards.
Dylan Cox
Don't kid yourself.
In other words, you are shit at the game.
Juan Hernandez
This.
Andrew Mitchell
Hold up, there's only 3 items that actually prevent progress. The ladder, which I'm pretty sure is needed in some dungeons, the raft, which is only used twice in the whole game, once for a heart container and once for a dungeon, and the flute which is required to enter one dungeon. In addition the sword and silver arrows being required for the final boss, that's a total of 5/6 items required to beat the game, and most of them can be picked up at any point.
Asher Hill
If you have the items required to reach them, sure.
Exploration in Zelda 1 is nearly as open ended as people like to pretend, but it isn't closed either. Zelda 2 also has exploration and isn't much more closed than Zelda 1. You need items to progress just as much.
Adam Cruz
isn't nearly as open ended*
Jaxon Gonzalez
Made this exact same thread 5 years ago now, this game really was terrific, it is just hated by people who think dark souls as a series is some pinnacle of true difficulty
When you figure it out it's super gratifying to kill them, as is true for all the enemies in zelda 2. You jump towards them and then duck in for a hit, and that will fuck with them and make them block low or high for you to hit. I can't really remember, but you can step in with a jump and they will always freak out and be easy hits.
Carter Hill
first up, work on your spacing friendo, stop trying to change board culture second it only reduces your exp in the bar, it doesn't level you down. If you're bad at the game you will not be able to just get stronger just by fighting an enemy over and over and get the bigger numbers to do more damage, you do well and then you are rewarded with big damage later. what else is there to a video game? Story? Wah, my old RPG doesn't have a story for me because they put more effort into making a game that plays well, abloo bloo this seems like bait actually, I do have to say zelda 1 gives you less direction than zelda 2, so why is zelda 2 ragged on for giving little help to the player? The world map is pretty linear and the villagers tell you where to go if you actually talk to people. I only had to look at a guide for one thing, and that was how to get to the end of one of the dungeons, since there is a dungeon with a fall right before the boss door that I didn't understand I was supposed to use the fairy spell for. what are you talking about, most games were linear because it's easier to design a game with one path in mind, it helps the designer create a challenge that doesn't fluctuate over the course of the game and gets increasingly difficult as a standard. are the controls and combat good or bad faggot, which is it, which is it? If they are bad to you, then maybe you should git gud, because zelda 2 has the most hard and firm "here is the enemy, here is what he does, take your approach faggot." It gives you the time to think about what it is you'll be fighting and gives you the advantage to step in how you will, since the enemy will just do the same thing on repeat. Games were better back then, you just had difficult enemies that were difficult because of a skill ceiling and not how much damage you do to each other le dark souls of zelda games amirite ;^))))))
Aiden Phillips
Never required, only used for fast traveling, which the flute also does Fuck I forgot about that one dungeon under the bush. At least it's available in half the shops in the game for pocket change. I also forgot that bombs might be required, but they're literally a random drop so by the time you need them you'll have probably found one. As for having required items, we've listed basically every required item in the game, and they rarely block off more than one item. All but a few (2?) screens of the overworld and over half the dungeons can be reached and maybe completed (don't hold me to that) from the moment you start up the game (or at least if you grind a bit for the candle). You can enter the first dungeon with the first sword upgrade or no sword if you so choose. It's not 100% open but it's pretty fucking open. If I recall Zelda 2 started the trend of locking whole portions of the overworld behind roadblocks you could only pass with items.
Anthony Gonzalez
I thought we were talking about Zelda in this thread?
If you're referencing the very brief side scrolling segments in Link's Awakening, you know those don't count. Even in the five minutes total that you might be playing those sections, they don't really play like Zelda II at all.
Jackson Davis
Level design, which in Zelda 2 is more likely to fuck you over than in the first game, mostly in the dungeons themselves. Music, which several people in this very thread, including myself, wasn't impressed by. Grafix, which according to at least one user in this thread weren't very good, I just don't like them on an entirely subjective level which anyone is free to disagree with. There's also how the tone of the game is. In the first Zelda you were mostly on your own aside from people living in caves. I can see how Zelda 2 might turn someone off with so many towns, but in that case just play Metroid. There's a lot of things that go into a game and can improve or ruin a game, and sometimes it's entirely subjective. I guess the question is "why does this have to be a Zelda game". I'm upset that Chibi Robo and Pikmin have some half-assed platformers on the 3DS, and I'm upset that Zelda 2 is a full-assed platformer on the NES. Is it too hard to ask someone to keep a series in the same general genre? At least Zelda 2 seems to keep a lot of the ideas the first Zelda used, which is more than I can say for some games that suddenly change genres.
Long story short Miyamoto says he wanted to do more with Zelda 2 but couldn't because of limitations.
Levi Jones
what exactly is wrong with a linear game? It's not bad for any reason, you're basically giving a fact as a reason the game is bad when that fact is just how the game is designed from a skeleton structure; Devil May Cry games are all designed with the intent for you to get from point A to point B, hell, most video games were back in the day, mega man had some form of choice, but the stages didn't get randomly generated.
oh I'm sorry, did you want everything to be handed to you on a silver fucking platter? Adjust the spoon, baby, men use iron and steel to fight. this is the only super subjective thing that I can't touch, I liked the music but music hits everyone differently this is nice bait, this bait is very nice tier I'm kidding this bait fucking sucks what the fuck is wrong with the tone in zelda 2? It goes to the exact place it should, the humans are rejuvenating after ganon died there's literally no reason for any game to be [x game] because even if everything was exactly the same, if you change the story it's a completely new game. If you changed all the item descriptions in dark souls to make an actually coherent story, and also changed them over to a completely new story, it'd be another game, which is why mods are a thing; mods of games helped people realize that if they tweak things in a game, it makes it a whole new game, even using the same engine will make some things similar, but as long as you make it yours the game is something fresh. The reason for it being a zelda game is because nintendo made it and it's an RPG. They had a new idea and slapped zelda onto it. For refference, SH4: The Room was not supposed to be a silent hill game, and most people don't like it as a silent hill game, but for the most part it could be a silent hill game if they just tweaked it a slight bit more. Super Mario Bros. 2, the doki doki panic thing, that is just as much a mario game as 1, 3, and world, but it controls differently to a degree. tl;dr game is game in series because company make money gg
Joseph Jones
so git gud pretty much.
Colton Roberts
I've never heard anyone hating on this game, if you're talking about casuals and game journalists then you can safely dismiss their comments
Angel Morgan
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Charles Sullivan
You can't say that and not post it.
Samuel Nelson
How could ALttP be improved?
Kevin White
To be fair, it does dark atmosphere well. Nothing in the game is really "edgy" though. The game is pretty subtle with it's tragedy.
Nolan Ward
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John Cruz
do you also defend cuckoldry as a legitimate fetish user?
Lincoln Gutierrez
It makes sense in the context of the time, but I think Zelda 1 is a lot more similar to Zelda 2 than any other Zelda game. Both actually have difficult combat and use exploration very differently than how LttP, etc do it.
Jacob Murphy
getting real tired of this shit.
Carter Hall
No, I'm the one who's getting tired
Jayden Ward
It's funny how this "reddit spacing" shit was never brought for fucking years, almost like people weren't always too retarded to pass English.
Camden Rodriguez
It's incredibly hard for modern standards. I thought it was very good, grinding aside (doesn't actually need much anyway), but I understand why the kids now don't like it. It's not moderately challenging but still helps you get used to it and get into the world like the first one; it's real challenge, which will kick your ass up and down if you're not willing to work at it. It's esoteric, with even less map than the previous game, making navigation difficult to people who are used to minimaps and full maps everywhere. It has cryptic puzzles (with one especially bad puzzle: the mirror, which literally has somebody tell you that they've lost a mirror, and you having to search some nearby house with B at a random spot, and without having ever known that B could be used to search things), and even kids who stick around for a while tend to get dicked by Death Mountain. Note that by "kids", I mean actual kids, also shitty modern hipsters who think that Super Meat Boy is "just like a real Nintendo game", and game journalists.
Aside from that shit quest and inordinate grinding required, it's fucking great.
Wyatt Williams
Doki Doki Panic was originally prototyped as a Mario game, developed to be the American Mario Bros 2 (because theirs was too hard), but was halted for being a "gimmick" and too complex for the NES. It was picked back up and reworked into Doki Doki Panic for release as a different game without the multiplayer. It was determined to be good enough to be the actual American Mario Bros 2 at this point and was changed into Mario 2 for release in America. It's actually more like a Mario game with another game slapped on the label, and a Mario label slapped on that.
Zachary Morris
Oi mate, don't even revisionary bait, you were doing pretty well, the reality is because Doki Doki Panic actually did halfway decent in japan for them to ship it globally as Mario 2.
Henry Hughes
That's what I said. Doki Doki Panic wasn't supposed to ship. American Mario Bros (which became Doki Doki Panic) was being made, but got dropped for whatever reason, so they retooled the prototype into a completely different game (Doki Doki Panic). After the changes, they decided that at was now actually good enough to be American Mario Bros 2 and that effort was made. The decision to not ship Japanese Mario Bros 2 internationally was before Doki Doki Panic ever existed (and the reason it ended up existing in the long run).
Oliver Murphy
There is hardly any grinding required unless you are unskilled, and then the grinding just helps you out. Skilled players can beat the game with level 1 in two stats. It would be possible to do a 1/1/1/ run except palaces give you enough exp for a free stat increase when you beat them. So there's a good deal of grinding out of the way just by beating the palaces.
Really Zelda II isn't that hard. Aside from the bird warriors (Fokka), they have predictable patterns and usually can be fought 1v1. Increase your stats just means less time to kill something, less damage if you screw up and get hit, or more magic if you need the life spell or shield all the time. They aren't necessary like in a standard RPG where skill is removed from the equation.
Thomas Morgan
Sounds like internet chinese whispers at its best. Miyamoto clearly admits he looks at it through a biased lens, of someone who sees an incomplete project of theirs, not really able to judge it on its own merits. (And admitting as much)
Another case where a complicated situation gets simplified, deliberately misunderstood and made into a reason for autistic screeching by internet people.
Also The Lost Levels is like a romhack before romhacks, I don't blame them for holding off with that. What is it with games of that era having sequels that are basically the same/reskins with the difficulty ramped up to 11?
Jordan Harris
OK, I feel like I need to clarify the history of Dream Factory: Heart Pounding Panic. See, way early it was going to be a Mario sequel with a vertical theme, but that was scrapped very early in development, with the only remaining Mario element being the Star with eyes and POW blocks. No, it actually was a licensed game, believe it or not. Specifically, it was a promotion for Fuji TV's Dream Factory '87. Now, when Howard Philips was a giant faggot and decided that the US wouldn't be a good market for a hard Mario romhack, there's a few important reasons this game was chosen. Miyamoto was in charge of it, it was a pretty good platformer, but most importantly they needed a way to be able to re-release this game after the deal with Fuji TV was done. From a marketing perspective it's actually brilliant. Sort of like the opposite of shit like Yo-Noid or something. I can't explain why Luigi's jump closely matches the character he replaced in Dream Factory though, maybe whoever was working on SMB2 thought it was such a good idea they decided to use it twice.
Ryan Hill
It's pretty much the normalfag "newage kiddy" opinion to like Zelda 2 now, though.
Because we like difficulty now since Souls, doesn't matter how unpolished, repetitive, unfair and shit the game actually is. SO HARDCORE, amirite?
I.e. you're nothing special, just another faggot coming out of the closet.
Alexander Morris
Someone's projecting.
David Robinson
Yeah, so much literally all his moves and shield functions in Smash Bros. are based on his Zelda 2 movesets, his adventure level is basically Zelda 2 with Zelda 2 musi and Zelda 2 is the final of one of the timelines.
This EVIL Nintendo.
Justin Morales
Nah, I'm not the one pretending to like a game that everyone agreed to is shit for 30 years just because difficulty due to bad game design is cool today.
Leo Myers
Except Zelda II is infinitely better than any Souls game
Lincoln Nelson
Nigger I genuinely love this game. Kill yourself. Go play that piece of shit on the N64.
Logan Wilson
Sure.
Asher Bailey
Ocarina of Time is a perfect game, kill yourself.
Asher Martin
I don't know what's so hard to understand. If you really liked the first game, buying the second game makes you feel robbed. Why would you do Zelda 2, after literally striking gold in the first iteration that can be expanded in a fuckton of ways evidenced by sequels and games inspired by it? It makes no sense to me, and made no sense to lots of people back then. Nothing else needs to be said, people expected A2 and they got B. It's the same thing that happened with SMB outside of Japan and why everyone talks about the first and the third one, and nobody gives a shit about the second one.
Chase Foster
Literally the most boring game ever created. I'd rather watch paint dry.
Colton Smith
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Ian Morales
shit tastes spotted. also probably a hipster
Josiah Morales
When you don't grow up playing it, you could really take it or leave it tbh
Cooper Smith
Super Mario Bros. 2 is better than SMB1 or its Japan only romhack.