Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, often shortened to Zelda II, 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 Famicom Disk System in 1987, and about one year later, in 1988, saw an overseas release on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The gameplay of Zelda II is vastly different from its predecessor, featuring role-playing elements and side-scrolling areas. This style was not reused into subsequent installments of the series (not including the Philips CD-i spinoff titles, Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon). When the third installment, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, was released, it reused the top-down perspective of the first The Legend of Zelda title.

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 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 friend, 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, Shadow Link. 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
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link has little resemblance to its predecessor, The Legend of Zelda. The game primarily side-scrolling areas, which are accessed from a hub location, the Overworld. The Overworld is the only location to be displayed from a top-down perspective, which is used entirely throughout the first The Legend of Zelda game.

While not an RPG, a few staples of the genre appeared in Zelda II, including strategic combat against enemies, an experience points feature (EXP), magic spells, and more dialogue from non-playable characters, more specifically, the Townsfolk. It is also the first in the series to have the lives system, and Link begins with three lives; this feature does not appear in any other games of The Legend of Zelda franchise, not including all three Zelda games for the Philips CD-i.

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, in the Western release, some enemies can steal experience points, while rewarding non upon defeat.

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 Overworld. 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 energy in his Magic Meter.

These are items that can only be obtained once.

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