Legend of Zelda II

I can say I am a fan of the Legend of Zelda games. But this game sucks.

As a kid, we got both NES Zelda games from a boon of cartridges given to us by a neighbor. So after finishing the first one, of course I played the second one. The first one was fun, why shouldn't the second one be fun?

Well, it was certainly more involved--not always a bad thing. The graphics had been updated--again, not always a bad thing.

But the game turned out to be altogether too hard, and the close-up scenes for battle were a little bizarre. First of all, it would appear that Link is just stabbing enemies overhand with a sword, which seems to look more like a very large kitchen knife.

I suppose this is possible, if he got news that he was supposed to save Hyrule yet again while he was switching to a career as a chef, and that the gigantic sword he had to retrieve from the mountain top was just three feet too far, and he had a kitchen knife in his hand anyway. So why not give 'em a nasty salmonella infection if you can't impale them properly?

Secondly, when travelling from place to place, any time you stray from the path, you are in danger being attacked by some very odd-looking monsters. Wiggly blobs, dog-men with spears, spiders, and all sorts of things abound. You get the occassional fairy, but mostly, you're going to have to jump around and stab things. A lot.

There's even one scene were you can get hurt by bubbles. BUBBLES.

I remember beating the game as a kid, but I haven't been able to as an adult, even with Game Genie codes. I got to the final palace, fell down a hole that I can't get out of, and, well, let's just say Ganon took over Hyrule, because even with the code for infinite magic, for some reason I couldn't turn myself into a fairy and fly back up to where I was.

Oh, yeah--you can turn into a friggin' fairy.

Now, let's take a look at the villagers. Sure, they're generally helpful--talk to the right ones, find out what you need to do next. And in each village, there is a woman who, if you follow her into her house, will restore your life. Normal game device, maybe, but you have to wonder about a woman who takes strangers into her home, and they leave mysteriously revitalized.

Ew.

And then each village has a wise man hiding in the basement of some building. Again, what is it with the elderly hiding in dank, dark rooms to dispense wisdom to passing adolescents? And the stairs going down to these cellars are each the height of a person--it's safe to say there's no escape for these old folks. I can't say that there's any way for an arthritic old wizard to climb the series of mini-cliffs up to the main floor of the house. The along comes Link, who demands some kind of magic spell, and then bounds away, leaving the old man alone in a dark room once again.

What an asshole!

There just isn't a whole lot to like about this game. I can't even make fun of it properly--I had to drag out the old elderly-living-in-caves material that I used for my entry about the first Zelda game.

I would say that's evidence of this game's uselessness.