Wii

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

It's little touches like that, along with the game's tight, precise control and incredibly intimidating challenge factor that make this Adventure a hit. Zelda II is just a great game, and playing it again today makes it hard to understand why it's been so chastised for the past 20 years. Nintendo clearly recognizes its worth, selecting it as the standard-bearer to be the 100th game on the Virtual Console. Now you should give it a chance, too. For only 500 Wii Points, it's a spectacular, underappreciated value. Nobody likes Zelda II – but that's not true. And maybe, now, that perspective will change.

Zelda II is a unique installment in the series. It is also an unusually difficult installment, having many elements to frustrate the player while incorporating harsh punishment. It is not an amazing game, but is a game that should be tried once. For 500 Wii points, it's worth a shot, especially if you like a crazy challenge.

Link has had a lot of adventures over the years, though none have inspired such wildly varied reactions as Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The Nintendo Entertainment System sequel to the original Legend of Zelda, Zelda II eschewed the top-down dungeon crawling nature of the first game and went sideways, essentially turning the game into an action role-playing game/platformer hybrid. Some people loved the new direction of the series, and some reviled it. The truth was probably somewhere in the middle. Now the debate over Zelda II's place within the series can be fought all over again because the game has come to the Wii Virtual Console. Its unusual design and sometimes clunky mechanics don't hold up nearly as well as any of the other Zelda games re-released for the Virtual Console. But Zelda II still makes for an interesting history lesson, and the game itself is decent enough to make it worth its $5 price.

Nachdem er im ersten Teil die Blaupause für ein neues Genre namens “Action-Adventure” geliefert hatte, verfolgte Miyamoto für den Nachfolger auf einmal und ohne große Not einen klassischen Sidescroller-Ansatz. Markenzeichen wie Bogen und Bumerang wurden durch ein simples Magiesystem ersetzt und auch sonst konnte man sich nur verwundert am Kopf kratzen, wieso so viele Errungenschaften aus Links Debüt nicht auch für das Sequel berücksichtigt wurden. Insgesamt nicht schlecht – aber auch nicht wirklich Zelda!