Zelda II and Unique Difficulty

Oh, boy! It’s Zelder 2, the adventure of Lenk! It’s by far the best in the series and most beloved by the fans, right? … Right?

Ok, so Zelda 2 is a game of mixed opinions, either loved or hated by those who have played it, and that’s not really a surprise. It’s hugely different from the top-down dungeon crawler that we all know and love, let alone the rest of the series. Nintendo made this one a 2D sidescroller platformer RPG... er. And it certainly does come with a ton of unique flavor and cool ideas that would persist into the main series and spin-off entries, as well as the pitfalls one might expect from, well, an old NES platformer.

Of course the first thing most of us bring up is the difficulty, and honestly I'm not sure why. I mean, yeah, it's hard. Like, GEEZ is this game fricking hard! But being a hard game on the NES isn't special. There were a ton of games made for the little grey box that were spirit shatteringly diffiicult. So what I find more useful to ask is how is it difficult? Because several games can be difficult in a variety of different ways.

Castlevania is difficult because of limited attacking and jumping options you had and prioritized preparation.

Megaman is difficult because it focuses on unique combat/platforming challenges.

Ninja Gaiden is difficult because of it's a fast paced game with an emphasis on quick reflexes.

Silver surfer is difficult because it was a terribly designed broken down piece of BAAAAAAD!!!

But you see what I did there? I just used three words that meant the same thing with each of those games (except Silver Surfer because fffffff). Those games all focused on how the game was going to be challenging for the player. It's not just about uber powerful monsters, it's about "what skill set does the player need to get through this?"

So what about Zelda 2? Well, like i said it's a platformer, so you're gonna need so solid platforming skills to get through it. But there's also a much greater emphasis on combat this time around. In Zelda 1 the monsters were more like puzzles. It wasn't so much about out forcing them, but out thinking them. Even in the most extreme situations where you were overrun by Darknuts or Wizerobes you needed to be quick and clever to get by, such as THIS nightmare room. *shudders*

But Zelda 2 brought that combat up to the forfront. Yeah, you still needed to be quick and clever, but you also needed to be ready for fights this time around. Sooner or later you are going to run into a strong enemy and booking it will lead to more loss of life and resources then just fighting it.

But here's the thing; despite all this talk about difficulty, I love this game on a mechanical level because of how it controls its difficulty through item drops, and it gives the player semi-control of the difficulty through its RPG mechanics. Let's start off with items.

In Zelda 2 there are only 3 ways to heal; visiting the healing lady in a town, finding a fairy (which is rare and, again, enemies don't drop them) and the life spell, which is in the third town you visit after the first palace. And since Zelda 2 is so combat focused, you'll be getting hit a lot. You might notice in those ways to heal hearts aren't included, because in this game enemies don't drop hearts. The only things they do drop are XP and blue/red potions, which fill up your magic partially or all the way respectively and allows you to cast more magic, such as the life spell. This is interesting because enemies not giving you a way to recover is fairly rare especially for Zelda, but it also presents a unique form of difficulty be giving the player a finite amount of healing at their choosing and they have to manage it.

So to heal yourself out in the field or in dungeons you'll need to use the life spell. But you only have so much magic, and you need it for a bunch of other things. You need the shield to prevent damage. You need jump/fairy to reach areas you can't otherwise reach. You need fire to damage enemies that can't otherwise be damaged but only in the US version because apparently the game wasn't hard enough already and I guess the devs thought we really needed that spike in difficulty THANKS NINTENDO!!!

... I digress

So you need to make sure you have enough magic so you have all the utility spells you need when the situation calls for them, and part of that includes learning how to fight properly in combat so you don't take too much damage. It's all a delicate balancing act that you need to manage in order to playthrough this game, and it's kind of beautiful. Well, I think it is, even if I'm just weeeeeird.

Another thing I genuinely love from Zelda 2 is how it structures its leveling, and this time us peeps in the west got it better than the Japanese version. You know when how you turned off the game when you came back all your XP was gone? Yeah, well in the original Japanese version, you lost levels that way. Yeah, the game would default you to your lowest level upon quitting. So if you had Sword and Magic 8 and Hearts 2, next time you played all your levels would be at 2. Fun.

The US and European versions not only fixed this problem, but they made one of the most unique and intriguing leveling systems I've seen. Rather than you just get better when you get enough XP, leveling is treated more like a shop you can only visit every time you level up, and each item in the shop had its own tiers.

Health is the cheapest upgrade, then magic, the damage as the high price item. When you get enough to get one of these you can either buy an upgrade right then or save up to get to the next one. So when you first hit 50xp you can either get more health or save up for magic or damage.

And honestly I really just like the way they're in different tiers. Health being cheapest makes sense since it keeps you alive longer, but that also means you aren't killing the baddies any quicker. Health keeps you safe, damage ends combats quicker and middle tier is magic for support. It's very nicely balanced and gives the player a certain amount of control over their difficulty.

Plus, I really like gambling!

Like I said if you turn of the machine you lose all your XP, but you can also lose all your XP by dying. That means when you're given the option to cash in, you're risking your hard earned points and have to decide whether or not holding out for that next sword upgrade is really worth it. It's fun to decide whether you should play it safe and risk your XP on higher level rewards. But what's super cool is that mentality plays into your upgrades, since if you're playing it safe you'll probably be getting extra hearts, but if you play dangerously you're likely going for the next sword upgrade. I love it

In conclusion, Zelda II is a fun and unique pain in the butt, and personally I love it to bits.