Zelda 2 was Nintendo at its best: unpredictable

Interview with Nintendo: Tadashi Suugiyama, game director at Nintendo in 2016, was interviewed. Zelda 2 – The Adventure of LinkThe author expressed shock that his sequel would be considered by anyone. Legend of Zelda their favorite Zelda of all time: “Those kind of people exist!?”

Sugiyama clearly understands the divisions in reception Zelda 2Despite its commercial success, ‘The NES Game of the Year’ did not serve as the blueprint for Zelda future games. Not at all. Zelda 2’s focus on more traditional RPG and side-scrolling platforming elements were all but excised from the franchise, as top-down adventures in the style of Legend of Zelda became the norm until (and even beyond) the release of Link’s first 3D game, Ocarinas of Time. Sugiyama’s sequel is often derided as the “black sheep” of the long-running series. But the game’s emphasis on combat and swordplay was an obvious influence on Link’s transition to 3D gaming, and Zelda 2 had a major impact on other games — just not those made by Nintendo.

Zelda 2 – The Adventure of LinkIn 1988, the Nintendo NES consoles were introduced in North America. This was a surprising time period for the company. Nintendo was at the peak of its popularity in the late ’80s, when the Japanese company was synonymous with video gaming in America. This popularity caused a shortage of chips for Nintendo cartridges and long delays. Zelda 2 — the game arrived stateside nearly two years after it launched on Nintendo’s Famicom in Japan.

Image: Nintendo

Image: Nintendo

Image: Nintendo

Image: Nintendo

It coincidentally arrived alongside two other highly anticipated, big-swerve sequels: Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. 2 and Konami’s Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest. These three games are notable for the dramatic change in style they made from their predecessors. Super Mario Bros. 2Famously, a reskin was made of another game.Doki Doki Panic Castlevania 2Its side-scrolling RPG inspiration came from all things. Zelda 2There was also a release of. It was available in Japan for seven months prior to Konami shipping its products. Castlevania sequel.

Nintendo and game designer Shigeru Miyamoto — serving as producer on Zelda 2 — were clearly experimenting with, not just iterating on, the world of Hyrule with their sequel. Everything changed: the perspective, the difficulty, the look of Link’s world, even the game’s final boss — a shadowy version of Link took over from Ganon. Zelda 2This gave the players an expanded view of Hyrule. Link could travel to other countries and discover caves and tunnels. Link’s magic and health were governed by a more traditional RPG leveling system; grinding for experience points to boost one’s stats and laboriously taking to every NPC were crucial to survival.

Zelda 2This is also notoriously challenging. The game’s Iron Knuckles present an immense challenge early on, and many of the game’s bosses can only be defeated using techniques learned from NPCs scattered across Hyrule. Nintendo of America wisely recognized the increase in difficulty when compared to the original. Legend of ZeldaPublished a number of guides and maps on the pages of Nintendo Power. The Official Nintendo Player’s GuideIt is far ahead of Zelda 2’s arrival.

The game’s designers were unabashedly influenced by the popular competition of the time: seminal console RPG Dragon QuestGet informed Zelda 2’s RPG mechanics, just as arcade beat-’em-up Kung-Fu Master, which Miyamoto also helped to port to the NES. Kung Fu, informed the game’s combat. According to Sugiyama, Miyamoto’s approach to Zelda 2It was more about improving on the gameplay and lore of Legend of ZeldaAnd concentrating more on action.

Miyamoto had wanted “a side-scrolling action game that made use of up and down movements for attacks and defense […] actions like jump strikes, downward strikes, and high and low shield defense moves,” Sugiyama recalled. “Types of moves that weren’t possible in the first game. Rather than being a continuation of the series, it started as a new sword and shield type of action game.”

“We were experimenting while producing the game so we didn’t really have the first game’s systems in mind while developing it,” Sugiyama said. “We were searching for new ways to play, so you could say it’s like a spinoff.”

The success of Nintendo’s Zelda 2Although it is possible to argue that the experiment was flawed, the commercial success of this game, which sold more than 4.5 millions copies, proved its worth. That’s a far better result than some of Nintendo’s other experiments that paid off much further down the road, such as the Virtual Boy’s attempts at 3D coming to fruition with the 3DS, and the Wii U’s failed tablet controller being refined for the Switch, now Nintendo’s second-best-selling game hardware of all time.

Whatever lessons Nintendo’s game designers learned during the process resulted in a far better immediate sequel, 1991’s The Legend of Zelda – A link to the PastIt is a foundation that will support the Zelda series, which is in constant evolution, as it nears its completion Tears from the Kingdom It was the best year yet. But it doesn’t change the fact that Zelda 2 Nintendo’s best was represented: A company ready to take on risks and change the future.