Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is a 1987 action role-playing game developed and published by Nintendo. It is the second installment in the Legend of Zelda series, and was released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System on January 14, 1987, less than a year after the Japanese release and seven months before the North American release of the original The Legend of Zelda. Zelda II was released in North America and the PAL region for the Nintendo Entertainment System in late 1988, almost two years after its initial release in Japan.
The Adventure of Link is a direct sequel to the original The Legend of Zelda, again involving the protagonist Link, on a quest to save Princess Zelda, who has fallen under a sleeping spell. The game's emphasis on side-scrolling platform and role-playing elements marked a significant departure from its top-down predecessor.
The game was a critical and commercial success, and introduced elements such as Link's "magic meter" and the Dark Link character that would become commonplace in future Zelda games; however, the role-playing elements, such as experience points and limited lives, have not been used since in canonical games. The Adventure of Link was followed by A Link to the Past for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991.
Gameplay
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is an action role-playing game that bears little resemblance to the first or later entries in the Legend of Zelda series. It features side-scrolling areas within a larger top-down world map, unlike the exclusively top-down perspective of the first game. The side-scrolling gameplay and experience system are similar to features of Konami's Castlevania series, especially Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. The game incorporates a strategic combat system, a proximity continue system based on lives, an experience points system, magic spells, and more interaction with non-player characters. Apart from the non-canonical CD-i The Legend of Zelda games, Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, no other game in the series includes a lives feature. The side-scrolling perspective is used in a minor capacity in Link's Awakening and the other Game Boy entries, while the top-down perspective still takes focus.
Experience levels
In this installment, Link gains experience points to upgrade his Attack, Magic, and Life attributes by defeating enemies. He can raise each of these attributes a maximum of seven levels above their starting point. A level increase for Attack, Magic, or Life will respectively increase the sword's offensive power, decrease the amount of magic needed to cast spells, and reduce the damage Link takes from enemy attacks.
In the Western version of the game, each attribute requires a different amount of experience to level up, with Life requiring the fewest points to level and Attack requiring the most. When enough points are acquired to raise an attribute, the player may choose to level up that attribute or to cancel and continue gaining experience points towards the next level in another attribute. In the original Japanese version, all attributes require the same number of experience points to level up, and the required number is lower; however, if the player loses all lives, the levels of all attributes will be reset to the lowest of the three (while level upgrades in the Western version are permanent). Once Link has raised an attribute to the maximum level of eight, further advances in that attribute will earn Link an extra life, without advancing the attribute itself.
Several years after the events of The Legend of Zelda, the now-16-year-old Link notices a strange mark on the back of his left hand, exactly like the crest of Hyrule. He 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, revealing a sleeping maiden. Impa tells Link that the maiden is Zelda, the princess of Hyrule from long ago. Zelda's brother tried to force her into telling their recently deceased father's secrets concerning the Triforce. Princess Zelda refused to reveal its location, and the prince's magician friend, in anger, tried to strike her down with a spell. Zelda fell under a powerful sleeping spell, but the magician was unable to control the wildly arcing magic and was killed by it. The prince, filled with remorse and unable to reverse the spell, had his sister placed in the castle tower, hoping she would one day be awakened. He decreed that princesses born to the royal family from that point on would be named Zelda, in remembrance of this tragedy. except for Miyamoto (who is credited with the pseudonym "Miyahon") as the producer and Takashi Tezuka as the story- and scriptwriter. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link had two directors: Tadashi Sugiyama and Yasuhisa Yamamura. Sugiyama is credited with the pseudonym "Sugiyan" as his first major project at Nintendo, and Yamamura is credited with his nickname "Yamahen". Music composer Akito Nakatsuka is credited as "Tsukasan". The game's combat system was influenced by Irem's arcade beat 'em up title Kung-Fu Master (1984), which Miyamoto's team ported to the NES in 1985, while the role-playing mechanics were influenced by Chunsoft's Dragon Quest (1986).
The Adventure of Link was originally released for the Japan-only Family Computer Disk System on January 14, 1987, followed by the Nintendo Entertainment System in PAL regions on September 26, 1988, and in North America on December 1, 1988. while the company was preparing to release Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Western market and decided to delay Super Mario Bros. 3 to 1990 shortly after the former's release. Like the first Zelda game, the FDS version appears to be an earlier version of the game, with a few obvious differences. In the FDS version, the dungeons are all gray or green, whereas in the English NES release, each dungeon has a unique color. The two dungeon bosses Carrok and Volvagia (the latter being named Barba in the NES release) have different graphical appearances. The game over screen in the English version features the silhouette of Ganon from the chest up, with the text "Game Over/Return of Ganon", whereas the FDS game over screen is a plain black screen with the text "Return of Ganon/The End".
The Adventure of Link was re-released in 2003 on The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition disc for the GameCube, and again in 2004 as part of the Classic NES Series for Game Boy Advance, with minor changes. The intro text was changed to read "third Triforce" rather than "No.3 Triforce" and the copyright date was altered to read "1987–2004 Nintendo". The death animation removed flashing colors in an effort to prevent seizures, replacing it with a solid red color.
Zelda II was released as the 100th game on the Wii's Virtual Console in 2007: in Japan on January 23, in Europe and Australia on February 9 and in North America on June 4. The text changes are not present in this version, but it does feature the solid red color in the death animations from the GameCube and Game Boy Advance versions. It was re-released again on the Nintendo 3DS's Virtual Console in September 2011, alongside the first Zelda game, as part of the "3DS Ambassadors" program. It is one of ten NES games for owners who purchased 3DS consoles before the price drop. It was later made available for all 3DS owners in Japan on June 6, 2012, in Europe on September 13, and in North America on November 22. The game was also re-released on the Wii U's Virtual Console in September 2013. It is one of the 30 games in the NES Classic Edition, a miniature replica of the Nintendo Entertainment System, released on November 10, 2016, in Australia and Japan and one day later in North America and Europe. It is also featured in the Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda handheld console released in November 12, 2021 along the first Zelda game and Link's Awakening.
Reception
Contemporary reviews
For the Famicom Disk System (FDS) version of Zelda II, Japanese publications and Famicom Tsūshin gave it positive reviews. In Famicom Hisshoubon, one reviewer complimented it as the perfect combination of puzzle-solving and action and that it was twice as fun as the previous Zelda game.
Upon its release in North America, Zelda II became one of the most popular Nintendo Entertainment System games of 1988, with many retailers reporting that the game was selling out that year. The game ultimately sold 4.38 million copies worldwide. For the English-language NES release, a reviewer in Computer Entertainer described it as a worthy successor to The Legend of Zelda and that while difficult it has a tremendous amount of play value for game that will occupy weeks of a players time. In , the two reviewers complimented the graphics and music while commenting on the difficulty, with one reviewer concluding it as "very difficult, but always fair."
Based on its culminative score, it was the second highest ranked game from Famicom Tsūshin of in 1987, only being beaten by Dragon Quest II. Nintendo Power awarded it the Game of the Year Award for 1988. In 1990, Nintendo Powers special edition Pak Source gave it ratings of 4/5 for Graphic and Sound, 3.5/5 for Play Control, 4.5/5 for Challenge, and 4/5 for Theme Fun.