Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is the second installment of The Legend of Zelda series and a direct follow-up of The Legend of Zelda. It was first released in Japan for the Family Computer Disk System in 1987, and about one year later, in 1988, saw an overseas release on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Unlike the previous game, it was not re-released for Family Computer in Japan. It is the only game of the main series whose title does not start with The Legend of Zelda, although it is referred to as The Legend of Zelda 2 in Japan.

The gameplay of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is vastly different from its predecessor, as it primarily features role-playing elements and side-scrolling areas. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link had less of an influence on the series than the first game, as its gameplay style and features such as experience points and lives were not reused in subsequent installments of the main series. This is comparable to the Western Super Mario Bros. 2 of the Super Mario series.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link introduced some recurring elements, such as Shadow Link, villages and towns, and MAGIC points. Two of the Philips CD-i spinoffs, Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, are more based on Zelda II: The Adventure of Link than the first The Legend of Zelda.

Story
Several years after Ganon's defeat, the now-16-year-old Link discovers a strange mark on the back of his left hand, in the exact shape of the crest of Hyrule. Link seeks out Impa, who takes him to the North Castle, where a door has been magically sealed for generations. Impa places the back of Link's left hand on the door, and it opens. Inside the room is a sleeping maiden, whom Impa tells Link is Princess Zelda; she is different from the Zelda that Link rescued in his previous adventure.

This Princess Zelda was the princess of Hyrule from long ago and the origin behind the "Legend of Zelda". Long ago, Zelda's brother, the prince, attempted to force her to reveal their recently deceased father's secrets concerning the Triforce. Zelda refused to reveal the Triforce's location, and in an act of retaliation, the prince's confidant, the magician, angrily used a spell to strike Zelda down. She fell under a powerful sleeping spell; with an inability to control the magic, the magician got killed. The prince, unable to reverse the spell, felt a lot of remorse and placed Zelda in the castle tower, hoping that one day she would be awakened. In remembrance of the tragedy, the prince decreed that every subsequent princess born into the royal family would bear the name, Zelda.

Impa explains to Link that the mark on his hand means that he is the hero chosen to awaken Zelda. She provides Link with a chest containing six crystals and ancient writings that only a great future king of Hyrule can read. Link finds that he can read the document, even though he has never seen the language before; it indicates that the crystals must be set into statues within six palaces scattered across Hyrule. By doing so, a path will open to the Great Palace, which contains the Triforce of Courage. Zelda can only be awakened by combining the three Triforce parts. Meanwhile, as Link goes on his adventure, Ganon's followers seek to kill Link, as sprinkling his blood on Ganon's ashes will revive him.

Ultimately, Link restores the crystals to the six palaces and enters the Great Palace. After venturing deep inside, Link battles a flying creature known as Thunderbird, followed by his shadow doppelgänger. After defeating both bosses, Link claims the Triforce of Courage and returns to Zelda. The three triangles unite into the collective Triforce, and Link successfully wishes to awaken Zelda. The game ends as they (presumably) kiss behind a falling curtain.

Gameplay
While not an RPG, a few staples of the genre appeared in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, including strategic combat against enemies, an experience points feature, magic spells, and more dialogue from non-playable characters, more specifically, the town folk. Not including the Philips CD-i titles, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is the first and only game of The Legend of Zelda series to feature lives, and Link starts his adventure with three lives. Link starts his adventure at the North Castle, and by losing all three lives, the Game Over screen is displayed, and Link must restart at the palace.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link plays out in a two-mode dynamic. The overworld (known as the "land map") is still shown from a top-down perspective, but it now serves as a hub to the other areas. Whenever Link enters an area such as a town or dungeon, the game switches to a side-scrolling perspective, which is used for most of the game. As Link traverses around the various environments of the land map, a few enemy silhouettes randomly appear on-screen. The small blobs denote easier enemies (such as Bots) and the monsters denote harder enemies, such as Geldarm. By walking into an enemy, Link appears in a side-scrolling area where he can battle enemies in exchange for experience points. He can exit back into the land map from either side of the screen. Link may sometimes encounter a fairy, which directs him to a single-screen location where a fairy refills his health.

With the exception of traveling across lava and water, the side-scrolling view is the only mode where Link can take damage from enemies and hazards. The environment and its enemies that Link encounters correspond to his current location on the land map. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link has a more complex combat system than its predecessor. Armed with a Magical Sword and Magical Shield, Link must alternate between standing and kneeling positions to attack enemies and defend himself. For example, Link can only defeat Stalfos by kneeling, because Stalfos holds a shield to protect its upper half. Link also has the ability to jump, allowing him to attack tall and airborne enemies and to avoid some attacks. Link can eventually learn the Downward Thrust and Jump Thrust techniques from swordsmen.

Link can obtain experience points by defeating enemies. When Link reaches a certain number of points, a window appears on-screen, giving the player the option to upgrade either his ATTACK, MAGIC, or LIFE. All three elements of power can be upgraded to a maximum of eight levels. Each element requires a different number of experience points for leveling up, and if the player does not have sufficient experience points toward the desire element, they can exit from the menu and continue obtaining more points to later spend toward another element. Selecting the ATTACK element increases Link's sword power, the MAGIC element decreases the number of points that he uses on spells, and increasing the LIFE element decreases how much damage Link receives when hit.

Link begins the game with four Heart Containers and four Magic Containers and can acquire up to four more of each item. When the player ends or saves a game, the cartridge records Link's current ability levels and the number of experience points required for the next increase, but his accumulated points are reset to zero.

Like other games in The Legend of Zelda series, Link must still collect several items in order to progress. These special items grant abilities which either remain in permanent use for the rest of the game or can only be activated from the land map. In place of actively used items, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link features eight types of magic that Link can use in battle against enemies. Each spell is learned from a different wise man in one of the eight towns within Hyrule. Link often has to complete side-quests, such as retrieving lost items, in order to get a wise man to teach spells to him. Some spells and items are necessary for advancing in the game.

After completing the game, the player can start a second quest from the same file, which is marked with a Triforce when completed. The second quest is mostly the same as the first one except Link retains his skill level, sword techniques, and experience points from the first quest.

Mentioned
These characters are mentioned in the backstory from the game's instruction manual.

Enemies
Some of the enemies in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link take advantage of the four palette slots available on the sprite layer to give them up to three different color variations, as the fourth is Link's palette. The remaining palettes are an orange palette for the weakest enemies, a red palette for medium-strength enemies, and a blue palette for the stronger enemies. In towns, the white values in the red and blue palettes are changed to tan, with the blue instead being purple to work for the townspeople. The few enemies that appear in towns also have these color changes, but are otherwise the same entities. The red and blue palettes also have minor value changes between other locations, notably whether the darkest shade is black (for light-backgrounded areas) or a dark red/blue (for dark backgrounded areas). The middle shade of blue varies, with palaces typically having a deep blue and other areas usually having a light cyan. Before Link has the Candle, enemies with the red or blue palettes appear fully black when in caves, with the orange palette being unaffected. The orange palette is the only palette to stay the same throughout the game. Additionally, artwork for the orange enemies generally depicts them as yellow, indicating they were intended as yellow but shown as orange due to the NES's inability to display a "true" yellow.

Additionally, in the NES release, some weak enemies can steal experience points; these are usually infinitely respawning defensively weak enemies.

Items
Many of the items are not used as weapons, and rather are used to directly assist Link during his adventure; a handful of the items are used from the land map. The Magical Sword and Magical Shield is Link's main and only tangible weapon. However, the game introduces magic, which consists of some spells that Link can use to attack or defeat enemies, if he has enough MAGIC points.

These are items that can only be obtained once.

These are items that Link can obtain more than once during his adventure.

Locations
Like the first game, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link features a land map. It has a different purpose from that of The Legend of Zelda's because Link uses it to travel between towns and landmark areas. The land map is divided into Western Hyrule and Eastern Hyrule, and the map has six main different landscapes where Link fights enemies: Plains, Cave, Desert, Forest, Swamp, and Graveyard.

Link always starts the game in the North Castle, which is where Princess Zelda lays asleep.

Towns
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is the first game in the series to have towns. With the exception of Kasuto, five of the Sages in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are each named after a town, along with Mido.

Palaces
Palaces are the successor and equivalent to labyrinths from The Legend of Zelda. After defeating the boss, Link places one of the crystals on a statue. The crystals weaken the force preventing Link from entering the Great Palace. Each palace has a unique item.

Development
Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to make Zelda II: The Adventure of Link fundamentally different from the first game, The Legend of Zelda. Miyamoto wanted to make a sidescrolling action game that allowed more control over Link's movements, such as up and down attacks and defense. A different team from the first The Legend of Zelda's was recruited to work on Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The team experimented as they produced the game and did not have the first The Legend of Zelda as much in mind. A story for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was made at the end of the game's development.

In a brief retrospective, Miyamoto says that he wishes he did more with Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, as a few features could not be implemented due to hardware limitations. Miyamoto wanted to further utilize the transition from an overhead perspective to a sidescrolling view and add larger enemies in the game.

Alternate versions and re-releases

 * 1987 - Original release on the Famicom Disk System (Japan)
 * 1988 - Original release on the Nintendo Entertainment System (North America/Europe/Australia)
 * 1992 - Re-released on the NES as part of the "Classic Series", included on a gray cartridge
 * 2003 - One of the four full games included on the Nintendo GameCube compilation, The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition
 * 2004 - Ported to the Game Boy Advance as a Classic NES Series installment
 * 2007 - Ported to the Virtual Console for the Wii
 * 2011/2012 - Ported on select Nintendo 3DS units as an Ambassador Program title. In 2012, it was widely released as a 3DS Virtual Console title.
 * 2013 - Ported to the Virtual Console for the Wii U
 * 2014 - Included as a Masterpiece in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
 * 2016 - Released as one of the 30 games included on the NES Classic Edition and its Japanese counterpart, Nintendo Classic Mini: Family Computer.
 * 2019 - Included as a playable title on the Nintendo Switch Online service. A "special save" was also released where Link starts his adventure with his ATTACK, MAGIC, and LIFE at level 8.
 * 2021 - Included on Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda as a playable title

Version differences
Like the first game, Nintendo had to make some major changes to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link as they ported it to the Nintendo Entertainment System. As the Famicom Disk System has an additional sound chip from the Nintendo Entertainment System, some musical elements were eliminated, especially the title screen theme.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link received a few minor changes on both the The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition compilation and the Classic NES Series port. The "No.3 Triforce" from the title screen intro was changed to read "third Triforce". The copyright date was altered to read "1987–2003 Nintendo" and "1987–2004 Nintendo" for the GameCube and Game Boy Advance ports respectively. The death animation removed the flashing colors to reduce the risk of seizures and replaced it with a solid red color. The text changes were not included in the Virtual Console ports, but the solid red death animation from the two earlier ports was retained.

Some other notable differences between the Famicom Disk System and Nintendo Entertainment System releases include:
 * In the English release, the palaces each have different colors, whereas in the Famicom Disk System version all but the Great Palace are gray outside and in the boss room and either gray or teal for the rest. Additionally, new brickwork tiles were added for all except Parapa Palace and the Great Palace.
 * The two dungeon bosses Carock and Barba have different sprites.
 * The English release added an exclusive boss, Gooma, who is fought at the Palace on the Sea. In the Famicom Disk System release, Link instead fought Helmethead a second time.
 * The Game Over screen of the English release shows a silhouette of Ganon from the chest up, with the text "Game Over/Return of Ganon", and a brief sound effect of evil laughter plays. In the Famicom Disk System, the Game Over screen is in plain black with the text "Return of Ganon/The End"; the message is accompanied by the same audio that plays in the Horsehead and Volvagia boss fights.
 * There are some slight additions to the dungeons, as well as a handful of differences on the dungeons themselves.
 * The music that plays in encounter and passage areas differs between the two versions, with the Famicom Disk System having a short but menacing track that sounds similar to the boss theme, and the Nintendo Entertainment System having a longer, more adventuresome new composition.
 * The overworld icons denoting monsters look different between the Famicom Disk System and Nintendo Entertainment System releases. In the Famicom Disk System release, the overworld monsters are represented by white and blue blobs, whose color denotes the difficulty of the encounter. The white and blue blobs were changed into a black Bit-like icon and a bipedal monster icon respectively.
 * In the Famicom Disk System release, the red blobs represent an encounter with a Fairy. In the Nintendo Entertainment System release, its icon is replaced by a fairy itself.
 * The spending of experience points is entirely different in the Famicom Disk System, as Link's three attributes cost the same, unlike the English release. The game is designed to promote balanced leveling, as the Famicom Disk System's saved game only allows the level attributes to go as high as whatever is set the lowest (e.g. if LIFE is at 5 and ATTACK is at 4, but MAGIC is at 1, then the saved game reflects all attributes as level 1), while still saving the data regarding crystals that have been placed and items that have been collected.

Staff
Like the first The Legend of Zelda, every person except Hiroshi Yamauchi is listed under a pseudonym. Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka are the only original The Legend of Zelda team members who also developed Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, retaining their role as the producer and the story writer respectively. The music was composed by Akito Nakatsuka instead of Koji Kondo.

Executive Producer:
 * H. Yamauchi

Producer:
 * Miyahon

Director:
 * Sugiyen
 * Yamahen

Designer:
 * Isshin

Sound Composer:
 * Tsukasan

Programmer: (misspelled as "Programer" in the end credits)
 * Morikazu
 * Marumaru
 * Shigechan
 * Nishiyan
 * Nakazoo

Trivia

 * Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is the 100th game released for the Wii Virtual Console in Japan.