Master Quest: The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

  The Legend of Zelda. It's hard to express the massive effect this series has had on my life. The first time I picked up a controller was to play a game called A Link to the Past. At the time it seemed less like of a game and more like another world of endless possibilities where I could do anything and be anything I wanted. It was an incredibly empowering experience, and I've loved the series ever since. If pop culture was a religion, Zelda would be my very own Shroud of Turin. It's the holiest of the holy, the alpha and the omega, the first and last word in gaming.

  I first picked up that controller in 1995. For the mathematically challenged among us, that was 20 years ago. I can't think of another intellectual property that has been with me for so long, save perhaps Star Wars (more on that at a later date, perhaps). With the 20th anniversary of my introduction to the series, as well as the impending release of Zelda for the Wii U, what else can be done but hold a massive celebration in honor of my most beloved cultural institution?

  In what will undoubtedly be the peak of life, today I embark on an epic quest. A quest to play, and review, every mainline Zelda game in chronological order. If I succeed, the bards shall sing of my brave deeds until the world itself fades back into dust. Or four people will read about it on my blog. Whichever.

  For those of you who have never played a Zelda game, its a series of adventure games in which you play as a dude named Link. He explores the world, collects items, and grows stronger. At the end of the game he usually kicks the bad guys ass. Have you really not played one of these? Remember when I compared Zelda to the Shroud of Turin? Go play Link Between Worlds or something. Shit.

  As Lao Tzu once said: "Every thousand mile journey begins with a single step." That single step is the two games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Coincidentally, these are the only two Zelda games I've never completed. On to the reviews:

The Legend of Zelda

Released on February 26th, 1986

-Its dangerous to go alone. Take this.-

  Finally completing the original Legend of Zelda has been oddly gratifying. I first played this game in 1996, and I've made at least a dozen attempts to finish it since. I always been lukewarm about this entry in the series, finding it rather difficult to play after being spoiled by Link to the Past on the Super Nintendo.

  Despite seeming similar, LoZ and LttP are very different beasts. While LttP guided you through the main game and let you explore the rest of the world at your leisure, LoZ's exploration element *is* the game. The entrances to the game's nine dungeons are hidden throughout an impressively large map of Hyrule. You find them, you finish the game. You don't, fuck you. Some of the later dungeons are hidden in absurdly random locations, like, say, under a bush in a nondescript location surrounded by identical bushes. The game's most powerful sword is hidden beneath a single tombstone in a 3X3 grid of screens filled with tombstones. Play the flute at a random lake, which somehow drains the lake and reveals a staircase to a dungeon (the flute doesn't drain the water out of any other location, by the way). Perhaps the most random thing in the game is this:

  "Grumble, grumble"? The fuck does that mean? This isn't some optional thing, by the way. This random guy is in a dungeon, and he won't let you progress any further in the game until you figure out what he wants. 

  So what do you think he wants? Did you guess that he wants a piece of monster bait (the monster bait itself is purchased in an entirely different, equally random location)? No, you didn't? Fuck you, you can't finish the game. Couldn't he have at least said "I'm hungry!" or something similar? "Grumble, grumble" could indicate anything from "I want food" to "Please stick your flute up my ass."

  Look, I hate excessive hand holding in games. But this game is insanely cryptic.

  "10th Enemy Has the Bomb". Wat.

  My other main issue with the game is its controls and combat. NES games have clunky controls on the best of days, but LoZ feels particularly bad in this regard. There's two key problems:

  Link doesn't swing his sword: In every other 2D Zelda game Link attacks by swinging his sword horizontally. This means that you can hit any enemies that are standing in a 180 degree arc in front of you. The Link from LoZ is presumably a massive dumbass, as he is only capable of stabbing directly in front of him. This means you must be extremely precise with your attacks. This isn't that big of a deal, I guess, but the movement is clunky and a lot of the enemies move rather quickly. My next point also plays into this...

  Link can't move diagonally: I'm not really sure why Link can only move horizontally or vertically, but it makes dodging stuff significantly more difficult, which means a lot of the time you're going to end up eating shit. Combine this with the billions of projectiles generally flying around any given room, and you can see why this game can be kind of frustrating.

Here's the weird thing, though: Despite all my problems with the game, I actually found myself really enjoying it. I eventually got used to the controls (and subsequently got much better at the combat) and my good friend Mr. GameFaqs helped me through some of the more confusing bits.

  The world is surprisingly large and packed to the brim with secrets. Despite the NES's graphical limitations, the developers obviously took great pains to make each segment of Hyrule visually distinct, making it much more difficult to get lost or turned around. The game really does instill a sense of adventure and discovery that no other game from this time period was able to accomplish.

  The original Legend of Zelda definitely has a charm all its own. Yet, it feels more like a fascinating relic than anything else. Comparing LoZ to, say, LttP feels a bit like comparing a Neolithic cave painting to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I have to appreciate the artistic ambition and innovation of the latter, but its a pale echo of the more fully realized art that would succeed it. The original Legend of Zelda represents the series in its larval form, a brilliant and ambitious concept waiting to be polished and sharpened into something truly spectacular.

-Like a Boss-

  In this section I'll be talking about each game's boss fights in depth. For a series known for spectacular boss fights, the original Zelda's boss battles are surprisingly lame.

  Aquamentus: The first ever Zelda boss is Aquamentus, a dragon...unicorn...thing. He's pretty standard first boss fodder. He starts out by shooting a salvo of three fireballs. Dodge those, then shoot him with, like, three arrows. Boom, he's dead. He's pretty weak, but he's the first boss, so its fine. What's less excusable, however, is the fact that Aquamentus is also the boss of the seventh dungeon. And I'm not talking a buffed up version of him with new mechanics or anything...its the same fucking boss. There's only nine dungeons in the entire game. By the seventh dungeon you are *significantly* more powerful than you were the first time you fought him. I just tanked his fireball blast, stabbed him twice in the face, then collected my free heart container. Before I go on, I just want to mention that none of these bosses have death animations. When they die, you just hear a little poof sound and they disappear. This coupled with the relative ease of these fights makes LoZ's boss battles some of the greatest anti-climaxes in gaming history.

Dodongo: Dodongo makes his first of many Zelda appearances in the original game. I'm honestly surprised they bothered bringing him back at all, considering the original fight is easily one of the worst boss fights in the series. Dodongo doesn't even attack you; he just sort of casually strolls around the room, waiting to have bombs shoved down his throat. I actually felt bad about killing him. What evidence is there that Dodongo is actually a bad guy, and not some poor, lost dinosaur suffering from dementia?

Manhandla (aka Nelson Mandela): Why is this guy known as Nelson Mandela? Because as a kid I always mispronounced his name as Mandela. Now whenever I think of this boss, I call him Nelson Mandela. Pretty stupid, I know. But anyways, you're supposed to cut off each one of Nelson's heads while he moves around and shoots fireballs at you. He would be decently challenging, except for the fact that you can easily just lay a bomb on top of him which will blow up all of his heads, killing him in one hit. Cool.

Gleeock: Gleeock is probably the game's best boss, which isn't saying much. He's a hydra with two heads. Hit him enough times and one of his heads detaches and starts flying around the room shooting fireballs at you. It's sort of like a prototype of the much better fight with Blind in LttP (sick of me mentioning Link to the Past yet?). Gleeock's main problem is that he just doesn't do enough damage, making it easy to just tank his hits and stab him until he dies. I also would like to mention that Gleeock pulls double duty as the boss of both level four and eight. Unlike Aquamentus, Gleeock gets buffed in his second appearance (he has four heads instead of two).

Digdogger: Digdogger is a....doughnut monster? I may not know what Digdogger is, but I do know that he's easy as shit. You play the flute, he grows smaller, hit him twice with your sword, he dies. Digdogger is so easy some of the later dungeons resort to just throwing him into random rooms as a mini-boss.

Gohma: Zelda's most iconic (non-Ganon)boss, Gohma makes her first appearance in a (you guessed it!) really lame boss fight. I want you to understand that the following statement is in no way hyperbolic: you shoot her in the eyeball with an arrow. Gohma then proceeds to die. That's it. The whole ordeal lasts about five seconds.

Ganon: The almighty King of Darkness, Ganon, is one of the most iconic video game villains of all time. Your first battle with him is...okay. Ganon turns invisible and teleports around the room, shooting fireballs at you. There's a pattern to his movements, I think, but you can really just run around the room swinging your sword around like a dipshit and you'll eventually hit him. After you hit him four times Ganon turns brown, at which point you can finish him off with a silver arrow. I think Ganon is supposed to turn into ash when he dies, but they colored the ash red for some reason, so it looks like Ganon literally explodes, sending guts and giblets flying around the room. Fucking hardcore.

-Hey, Listen!-

  In this section I'll be highlighting my favorite musical track from each game. This is particularly easy in the case of LoZ, since there's only, like, four tracks in the entire game. My pick for LoZ is pretty obvious. I've gotta go with that classic title theme.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Released January 14th, 1987

-I am Error.-

  So my experience with the original Legend of Zelda was a little hit or miss, even if I did end up really enjoying it. So what did I think about its direct sequel, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link?

  I'll be blunt: Zelda II can go fuck itself in the ass, preferably with something sharp.

  "Oh, I see." says my imaginary straw-man. "You don't like it because its a really weird, experimental Zelda game."

Honestly? No, that's not why I hated Zelda II. But you are correct on one count, Mr. Straw-Man. Zelda II, mechanically speaking, is far and away the weirdest Zelda game ever made.

  For those of you who are unaware, Zelda II is kind of like...uh...did you ever play Faxanadu? ...no? Uh...how about Castlevania II: Simon's Quest? (What's up with the NES and shitty sequels?) Fuck it, I'll just explain it to you.

  Okay, so basically there's two game modes. One is the classic Zelda 2D overhead view. This is how you move around the world. The camera is zoomed out *really* far, reducing Link to just a tiny sprite on the map. I actually kind of dig this, as it makes the world seem freaking massive (The Golden Sun games use a similar effect). So as you're walking around, you might enter a cave or a town, or you could run into a random enemy. When this occurs, the game shifts into a side scrolling 2D action game. So the entire game is basically played out between these two modes.

  I know right? There's a Zelda game that's essentially a 2D action game, a la Castlevania. How weird is that?

To reiterate on my previous point: this is *not* why I dislike Zelda II. The gameplay takes some getting used to, but it works...for the most part.

  No, what I hate about Zelda II is that is OURAGEOUSLY difficult. Like soul-crushingly hard. Call me a pussy if you must, but I can't even reach the second dungeon in this game. And it's not like I'm some sort of filthy casual. I beat Castlevania. I beat Donkey Kong Country Returns. I beat Super Ghosts and Goblins, for fuck's sake. What makes this game so hard? Let me tell you all about it.

  The life system: Yeah you read that correctly. Zelda II is the only game in the series to use a life system. You die three times, you see this:

  Get used to that, you're going to see it a lot. So what happens when you get a game over? You get teleported back to THE PLACE WHERE YOU STARTED THE FUCKING GAME. Now, to be fair, you do keep level ups (yes, this game has an JRPG-esque XP system) as well as items, spells, etc. So basically you have to do fairly long stretches of the game without dieing three times. Did I mention that when you get a game over you lose all your XP? FUN FUN FUN.

  It's extremely difficult to recover health: Basically, enemies do not drop hearts or fairies in this game. To be fair, you do have a heal spell, but it costs a lot of magic and doesn't even fully heal you. Pots that recover your magic, however, do drop from enemies, which means the only way to consistently heal yourself is to find a place where enemies constantly respawn and grind for magic restoring drops. Its about as fun as it sounds.

  Enemies are incredibly strong: So this is what kind of ties everything together. Any enemy, no matter what it is, is singularly capable of wrecking your shit if you aren't incredibly careful. They can tank tons of hits and their attacks (most of which are fast and difficult to dodge) can shave off huge chunks of your health bar in seconds.

Link's sword blows: I want you to look at this picture.

  What the hell? Why does Link use a butter knife in this game? Your range is absolutely terrible. So not only are the enemies really strong, but you also need to be close enough to smell their breath in order to damage them at all. What's weird is that the sword in Zelda II is actually supposed to be the Magic Sword, which is the strongest sword you could get in the original. But that sword was, like, the length of Link's entire body. The sword in this game isn't even as long as Link's leg.

  Wait a minute. A tough as nails action game...RPG elements...slow, methodical combat...harsh penalties for death...an emphasis on repeating sections of the game until you can run through them perfectly...what does this remind me of?

  God damnit! This is an 8-bit version of Dark Souls! How did Dark Souls sneak into my Zelda review?

  Look, I *personally* don't care for Dark Souls or its ilk. I find them tedious and frustrating. But you know what? That's fine. If you like games like this, that's great. You like what you like, I like what I like. It's cool. But can we agree that a Zelda game shouldn't be like this? I play Zelda for a sense of adventure, a compelling narrative, and intellectually stimulating puzzles. Zelda games should not frustrate this much.

 I understand that some people love really hard games like this, but I try to quell my anger, not feed it. People are starving. The economy is still shit. Fox News exists. Do I really need another reason to want to drive my head through my TV?

  What am I to do? This game has broken me. If I can't beat Zelda II, then I can't review it. All is lost. Does my quest end here?

  ...no. Fuck that. This is my life's work. I must finish the quest. I'm going to do what any hero would do in this situation...I'm going to cheat.

The Adventure of Link, Take 2

-I can give you most powerful magic!-

  So here's what I did. I downloaded a Zelda II ROM (shhhh...its a secret to everybody) alongside a ROM for the NES GameGenie. Then I gave myself infinite lives. That's it. So now it should play like a Zelda game as opposed to a sadistic piece of shit.

  And you know what? With that single element removed, I actually really like this game. No kidding, its superb.

  The controls are smooth, the map is gigantic, its challenging without being cheap, and the combat system is surprisingly complex and satisfying for an NES game.

  Sure, its different, but I find it to be a really interesting and fun entry in the series. Shit, I'd say I actually enjoyed it more than the first game. What a horrible shame. Difficulty is a lot like Tabasco. Just the right amount adds flavor. Too much ruins the whole dish and gives you epic diarrhea.

  Take my advice, if you've ever stopped playing this game out of frustration, try doing what I did. Give it another try and it might surprise you.

  So I beat Zelda II. Not by Nintendo's rules, I guess. But I beat it by my own rules. I'll go ahead and count that as a moral victory.

-Like A Boss-

  Horsehead: Can we just stop for a moment and discuss what a massive badass Horsehead is? I mean, he's a horse in a suit of armor who wields a giant ass mace. How incredible is this design? Is there any logical reason why this guy isn't in every single Zelda game ever made? Put this mother fucker in Super Smash Bros. Put him in Mario Kart. Make a Horsehead Amiibo. I'll buy the entire North American stock. So I'll buy, like, 5 of them, I guess.

  Amazing design aside, Horsehead is a pretty standard first boss. He just slowly walks towards you while clumsily attempting to crack you with his mace. Can you guess the method used to defeat him? If you guessed "jump and stab him in the face a shit load of times" then you win a prize: your very own Horsehead Amiibo! Shoot me an email with your name, social security number, and credit card information and I'll send him right over! (Note: please don't actually do this you fucking moron.)

  Helmethead: I can only assume that Helmethead and Horsehead aren't related in the traditional sense, but I like to think they drink beer and hang out together on Saturdays.

  Anyways, this fight is almost identical to Horsehead, except the first time you stab Helmethead his head actually flies off. You get this cool animation of another head sprouting out of his body, then the old head starts flying around shooting fireballs at you. Another Blind prototype fight, it seems. Hit him a second time and this occurs again, except this time his actual head sprouts out of his body. Make with the stabbing until he's dead.

  Iron Knuckle: Iron Knuckle charges at you on some kind of weird floating metal horse...thing. You have to jump over him and stab downwards as he's passing beneath you. It's basically every single Donkey Kong boss fight ever. At a certain point he jumps off the horse and just becomes a regular Iron Knuckle (a standard enemy you find in dungeons all the time), except he's the kind that throws swords at you. Y'know...the worst kind.

  Carock: This guy is total weak sauce. He teleports around the room, shooting projectiles at you. All you have to do is activate the reflect spell and crouch in a corner. Eventually Carock just kills himself with his own reflected lasers. It's kind of like LttP's Agahnim fight, with the key difference between the two being that the Carock fight blows.

  Gooma: Gooma (who appears to just be a fat dude with a spiky hat) is one of the tougher bosses in the game. He'll try to hit you with his mace, but if you enable your jump spell its not that difficult to dodge. Stab him in the stomach, jump away from mace, rinse and repeat to desired effect. The desired effect being that he dies, presumably.

  Barba: Fun fact: the name "Barba" is actually a mistranslation. Barba's name in Japanese is actually "Varuvajia". If you think that name sounds vaguely familiar, you are correct. Barba's English name was supposed to be "Volvagia", which is also the name of the serpent-like dragon boss of Ocarina of Time's Fire Temple. Given the fact that both bosses look visually identical, I'm forced to conclude that they are, in fact, the same creature. What kind of ramifications does this have on my Zelda timeline theory...?

  Sorry, what was that? You want to know about the boss fight? He pops out of lava and shoots fireballs at you. You're supposed to jump up and hit him in the face when he appears, but I just used the downward thrust move to continuously pogo stick on his head, which killed him in about 10 seconds. Moving on...

  Thunderbird: Visually, Thunderbird is really cool. Nintendo should totally bring him back. I bet he'd look sweet in 3D. Mechanically, Thunderbird is a bit of a prick. He's completely invincible until you use the Thunder spell, which makes him vulnerable and extremely pissed. He starts flying around fairly fast in a zig-zag pattern and drops fireballs on you. Like most bosses in this game, Thunderbird dislikes getting stabbed in the face. Turn on that jump spell and make with the facial mutilation post haste.

  Shadow Link: Did you think Shadow Link originated in Ocarina of Time's Water Temple? You would be incorrect. Shadow Link made his debut in Zelda II in the most anti-climatic final boss fight in gaming history. I'm being serious here: if you stand in the corner and continuously attack with your sword Shadow Link can't hit you and he keeps running into your attacks like a dumbass. What an ironic end to a painfully difficult game.

-Hey, Listen!-

  I've got to go with the excellent "Palace Theme" as Zelda II's best track. Listeners may recognize this song as the background music for Super Smash Bros: Melee's "Temple" stage. Coincidentally, Link's most infamous move from Smash, his Down Air, actually comes from this game. Like in Smash, Zelda II's downward strike also causes Link to bounce back into the air slightly after it hits. Oh, right...the song.

Next time on Master Quest: A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening