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, as it primarily features role-playing elements and side-scrolling areas. Zelda II was less influential on the series than the first game, as its 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). This is comparable to Super Mario Bros. 2, the second installment of the Super Mario series.

While not as popular as the first game, Zelda II still introduced a few recurring elements, such as Dark Link, villages and towns, the Magic Meter, and one of its bosses, Barba (who was renamed to "Volvagia" in subsequent installments).

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
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. Not including the Philips CD-i titles, Zelda II 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 Northern Palace, and by losing all three lives, the Game Over screen is displayed, and Link must restart at the palace.

Zelda II plays out in a two-mode dynamic. The Overworld 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 Overworld, 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 Overworld 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 Overworld.

Zelda II has a more complex combat system than its predecessor. Armed with a sword and shield, Link must alternate between standing and crouching positions to attack enemies and defend himself. For example, Link can only defeat Stalfos by crouching, 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 techniques for midair downward and upward stabs.

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 attributes can be upgraded to a maximum of eight levels. Each attribute requires a different number of experience points for leveling up, and if the player does not have sufficient experience points toward the desire attribute, they can exit from the menu and continue obtaining more points to later spend toward another attribute. Selecting the Attack attribute increases Link's sword power, the Magic attribute decreases the number of Magic points that he uses on spells, and increasing the Life attribute 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 Overworld. In place of actively used items, Zelda II features eight 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 the Old Man to teach their spells to him. Some spells and items are necessary for advancing in the game.

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, 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.