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When I was really young, we had two Zelda games. We had Link’s Awakening, and we had this, Zelda 2. So a lot of my love of this is nostalgia. I’ve been playing this game since I was 2. But I think even if I played it today, I’d love it. Zelda 2 is a very controversial title, but is in my opinion one of the absolute best Zeldas, and it gets a bad wrap. I’ve lived my life on the internet, and the common pervailing idea around this game for YEARS was that it blows. These same people suck the dick of Dark Souls, but Zelda 2 is bad. Because it’s hard. They are very, VERY wrong. Zelda 2 whips. It whips so hard I mastered it, which involved me playing this game FOUR FUCKING TIMES. And I had a great time doing it!!

Zelda 2 is maybe the POSTER CHILD for my “NES Sequel Syndrome”. Games from that era that were sequels to a popular game that’d continue on with an amazing series, but the second game is different and weird compared to the others. I’m talking games like SMB2, Final Fantasy 2, Metroid 2 I guess, and this. The absolute poster child. Conceptually, if I explain what this game is out loud, it sounds very similar to Zelda 1. You play a little elf boy who travels around an over world fighting monsters. You explore this overworld and find dungeons, which contain an item that will help you progress further. Go through all the dungeons, go to the final dungeon, beat a boss. That’s just Zelda 1, right?

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Well no, obviously. There’s a lot I didn’t mention. Zelda 2 has towns you can explore to heal up, cause there’s no health drops. Zelda 2 has magic spells you get from these towns, which can be used to do things like shield you or heal you. Zelda 2 has no money or shops. Zelda 2 has EXP, which upgrades one of your three stats, Health, Magic, or Attack. And most notably, Zelda 2 is not a top down action RPG, it is a side scrolling action RPG. You walk back and forth, jumping and ducking and stabbing with your dinky little sword. This has some VERY deep combat in places, frankly, I like it more than the Zelda 1 combat, by a large, large margin. Combat in Zelda 1 is a little… hokey and awkward at times. Fighting randomly moving enemies like Darknuts or the Wizzrobes blooooows. Here, the enemies have patterns you learn, and it’s like a beautiful dance with each one, that’s so rewarding. It feelS SO good once you can take on darknuts flawlessly. Or hell, the Dairas. GOD the Dairas.

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The world of Zelda 2 is pretty expansive, with a big-ass overworld to explore. Lots of little caves to go into and get EXP or heart containers, or items to unlock magic spells. And while some people might claim this game is bad because it’s so obtuse, this game isn’t Castlevania 2. All the people in towns give good hints. And nothing is SO obscure that you’ll get lost. Shit, it’s WAY less obtuse than fucking Zelda 1, which people still love to death. That god damn 8th dungeon bush? Burning EVERY BUSH to find entrances??? Zelda 2 has none of that. The most obscure thing here is the forest town you gotta find by breaking down trees with your hammer, but there ARE hints for that.

The other reason people hate this is cause of its difficulty. And yes, it’s hard. It’s a hard mother fucker. Like, I can practically play this game blindfolded now, but its HARD. Death Mountain is a cakewalk to me, but to your average joe, it is a WALL, a brick wall you must beat down with your face. I acknowledge this. I realize that I am biased. But that feeling of satisfaction when you beat it! Also, it never feels UNFAIR hard. Like, you’ve gotta learn the patterns, you’ve gotta perservere. You never need to grind, you can push through and make it. Though the option IS there if you want it.

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Frankly, Zelda 2 is a masterpiece, and I cannot praise it enough. It saddens me that Nintendo decided to never return to this style again, though to be fair, so many other games picked up the slack and did their hand at it quite well. Shout outs to Monster World 4. While they’ve never returned to this style, they certainly don’t seem ashamed of Zelda 2, and they haven’t forgotten it. Ocarina of Time brings some enemies back and re-uses the names of the towns for the sages. And of course you can play it in any Nintendo online service from the past 17 years.

So if I love this game so much, why did it take me this long to play it for Retro Achievements? It didn’t. I beat this game a year ago, securing the beat. …But not the mastery. This is a series on the MASTERIES of a game, where I 100% the achievement set for it. And the achievement set for this game required me to play it multiple times. Technically I COULD have mastered it in maybe two playthroughs, but I wasn’t going to do a candleless 1cc with no heal or shield spell on a 1st quest, so I had to split everything up into four playthroughs.

So yeah, I played this game MULTIPLE times this year. And you’ll find out soon, even more than that. It’s not too long, I can breeze through it in two hours, and it’s a fun two hours the entire time. Absolutely fantastic game. If you’ve never checked it out due to its reputation, give it a chance.