Review: Zelda II - The Adventure of Link (1987)

I’m on a quest to broaden my gaming experience into some new genres and to play some more retro games. With a deep love of The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, I’m going back to the beginning and playing the first 4 games in the franchise. All are included with Nintendo Switch Online, and with the new release of Echoes of Wisdom, there’s no better time to go back to the roots of the series and experience how it all started by playing The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II Link’s Adventure, A Link to The Past, and Link’s Awakening.

Considered the black sheep of the Zelda franchise, and typically the most disliked, is the second in the series, The Adventure of Link. In a change to the top down format of The Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link is instead a side scrolling view with a much more complex combat style.

The graphics, regardless of the technological limitations, leave little to be desired. In particular the map was downright ugly. The dungeons and towns are mostly visually differentiated by a key colour but are more or less very similar to each other.

One of the main areas where the game differs to other titles in the series is in the combat. I found this much more technical, with a stronger focus on mastering a specific technique to defeat enemies, which in themselves are very difficult. I’ve heard the game be described as punishing, and I would say that is accurate. In the interest of complete transparency, I would not have been able to complete this game without the rewind function on the Nintendo Switch Online system - an absolute godsend.

One of the most frustrating parts of the game is traversing the map, and the continuous random battle encounters that are just painful. And if you lose your 3 lives, you’re booted right back to the start of the game. 

Despite all of this there was actually a lot to the game I really enjoyed. A different element to this game is a levelling up system, where you acquire points from battling enemies to level up your attack, magic or life. This came in really useful, especially when I hit a really difficult battle in the boss at dungeon 5. Initially, I thought this was my end point, I wasn’t going to be able to get past, and my infuriating journey with The Adventure of Link was going to come to an end. But at this point, I got the idea to use those annoying random map battles to my advantage, and I grinded and grinded.

The ability to level up in this manner hasn’t been possible in any other Zelda game, and I actually really enjoyed it. I could go from feeling weak to strong and keep on playing the game. Magic plays a major part in the game too, and while I didn’t use it much in the beginning, the more spells you unlock and the higher your level they became crucial to the success of a battle.

All in all, The Adventure of Link was a highly memorable experience, and the thrill of beating a frustratingly challenging game was a real sense of achievement. I don’t think this game deserves the level of dislike that it sometimes gets, although, if I was playing it on first release on the SNES without any rewind function, I might feel very differently!