Board 8 > What's the worst mainline Zelda game?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Zelda 2's difficulty is honestly pretty balanced once you've figured out a steady plan for killing Iron Knuckles. I'm not really sure WHAT they wanted you to do with them, but jumping and stabbing works really easily and once you figure that out the rest of the game is pretty doable

There's a couple of things that are kinda hard to figure out - New Kasuto is the most frequently cited example - but I dunno, I figured it out as a kid? There weren't all that many places to go or things to do once it came down to it and that one area of the overworld seemed suspicious

Yeah. I trained up so much on that game as a kid that, while not my favorite NES game, it is the only game series represented in Ultimate NES Remix that I got all triple rainbow stars for on my first playthrough. The controls and mechanics are so tight in that game that once you learn them, you've learned them.

I think it being hard really is the issue. I didn't grow up with Nintendo Hard games. I had to go back to them, and so limited continues or even Zelda II's limited lives are things I prefer to not have to put up with ever.

The issue with Skyward Sword is its hella boring when you're not in dungeons. People complained about that for TP, but it's way worse in SS. It's not even a bad game, there's just too much of it you're forced to engage with that isn't very fun.

My first experience with Zelda 2 was on Switch and without rewind I would not have bothered to finish that miserable game. Some of the enemies are just so annoying and constantly throw projectiles at you while blocking all your hits and making you have to play some dumb jump/duck sword poke rock paper scissors kinda shit to kill them. Its not a good game and its not one Id ever consider giving a second chance replay to either

paperwarior posted...

I think it being hard really is the issue. I didn't grow up with Nintendo Hard games. I had to go back to them, and so limited continues or even Zelda II's limited lives are things I prefer to not have to put up with ever.

There are limited lives, but unlimited continues. If you have advanced to a certain point and you get to keep all of your non-lives powerups that's not really that big of a setback. In a period where Elden Ring is one of the biggest games in the world, the lives system in Zelda 2 really shouldn't in any way be seen as a setback for the game. In both games it can cost you your personal time, sure, but you're actually less punished in Zelda 2 for your failure than you would be in a Souls type game. And considering how much smaller of a world/shorter of a game it is, Zelda 2 is not as punishing as any headlining FromSoftware game made in the past decade.

Really surprised to see how many people prefer PH to ST
The only things it did better are Linebeck and sailing is better than driving a train I guess
The dungeons are much better in ST and of course no cursed Temple of the Ocean King

And this is not overrated - it really does suck
Even if I come with a open mind and think "oh how cool it is that when we revisit it later, we have new powers and it let us skip early levels more easily"
It doesn't help
It still sucks

Perhaps there are many Wind Waker players with Stockholm Syndrome. :p

ChichiriMuyo posted...

There are limited lives, but unlimited continues. If you have advanced to a certain point and you get to keep all of your non-lives powerups that's not really that big of a setback. In a period where Elden Ring is one of the biggest games in the world, the lives system in Zelda 2 really shouldn't in any way be seen as a setback for the game. In both games it can cost you your personal time, sure, but you're actually less punished in Zelda 2 for your failure than you would be in a Souls type game. And considering how much smaller of a world/shorter of a game it is, Zelda 2 is not as punishing as any headlining FromSoftware game made in the past decade.

No, I have to disagree there. Those Fromsoft games are balanced in a different way, and it's a way that gives you far more frequent and more flexible chances for permanent progress in both exploration and power growth. You can say it's harder overall, but I like it more.

I dunno, man. You may have opportunities to regain the experience you lost after deaths, but beating a palace in Zelda 2 is just a straight up level increase regardless of experience accumulated. Also leveling up in Zelda 2 means way more than in most Souls type games. Obviously I must admit that one experience may be more preferential to you than the other, but on the broad spectrum I just can't see them as being ultimately easier than Zelda 2. There are several times as many enemies and bosses that you need to learn the play patterns for and they are spread out so much further in a much bigger game that it will take you far more time to lean it all than Zelda 2. You can like the way it plays more, but I would bet you could master Zelda 2 with far less of a time investment.

It probably wouldn't take the hundreds of hours you could spend on an Elden Ring playthrough, true, but if you're struggling, it will be with far more repetition. I just feel like running out of lives in the last dungeon of Zelda II, maybe repeatedly, is really frustrating, but a hard boss in a Souls game is just something you can keep trying until you figure it out.

It actually doesn't take more repetition. Again, leveling up in Zelda 2 is way more significant than any power boost you can get in Elden Ring. You may feel as though you are progressing faster because you get a +1 here and a +1 there, but they are literally just doling out very minor boosts to make the progression feel more seamless rather than giving you meaningful boosts. And the boosts aren't that hard to get in Zelda 2. I know it's a joke/isekai staple idea that you could slowly work your way up to max power by killing the weakest enemy in the game, but that kind of is actually possible in Zelda 2 (minus upgrade items) and it would still take you less time.

And, btw, the last dungeon of Zelda 2 is something you absolutely can keep trying until you figure it out. If you die in the Grand Palace and select continue you start at the Grand Palace. Maybe it's not right at the boss fight, but all things considered it's still on the time scale not too dissimilar to the more epic Souls bosses once you've learned what you need to.

Edit: Just checked a 100% speed run of Zelda 2, no skips. Entire Grand Palace in 9 minutes for a seasoned vet.

Not many Souls bosses that take much more than nine minutes for anyone, I'd guess. Alright, we aren't really getting anywhere. It's a matter of preference. But "not that punishing" is still too punishing for me and a lot of other people.

I really don't have any experience with SL1 runs myself. :P When you said it was part of a speedrun I thought that meant it's a low time for getting through there.

Yeah, but, you know... speedrun. As in no grinding for extra levels or gaining any extra power ups out of the way. Basically like taking on those Souls bosses effectively naked. Zelda 2 has a wonky difficulty curve in its unevenness, but I do think overall it's actually still more player friendly than a Souls game.

So yes, it does come down to preference, but the argument that Zelda 2 is somehow bad because of its difficulty is just misguided. Like a souls game, with patience and perseverance Zelda 2 gives you every tool you could need to overcome its difficulty short of just not being a game. The controls and hitboxes are, given the technology, just as responsive and as tight. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if someone on the FromSoftwware team just straight out said that they wanted to make Zelda 2 in a 3D world.

The difficulty in Zelda II is not the issue, most of the game is just not that well designed. I personally thought it was a fine experience but yeah.

What is not well designed about it? It's not the controls. Those are impeccable. It's not the level designs. They could use a map like LoZ, but otherwise they are no harder to navigate than most games of the time that involve exploration. The enemies are difficult but absolutely fair (minus shadow Link, who can be cheesed out). There are actually far fewer hidden/cryptic things than its predecessor, which I would not just admit but argue is a better game. Again, while I admit the difficulty curve is peculiar, there is absolutely nothing to stop you from grinding it out.

I mean, what's the gripe against it? Technological limitations?

It's definitely Spirit Tracks. I'm the kind of person who absolutely loved Phantom Hourglass and would have happily accepted more of the same, and I still thought Spirit Tracks was terrible. I'm glad this poll suggests people have reversed their opinions on those two because the consensus just after Spirit Tracks' release made zero sense to me.

Before I beat it, I would have said Zelda II. That game has one of the worst first impressions of any game I can think of, particularly because of Link's dinky little dagger that makes fighting enemies borderline impossible. Slog through it until the first sword upgrade, though, and the game is actually quite good after that point!

Skyward Sword
Shit controls
Nintendo treats its players like morons who can't breathe without cue cards
Disconnected hub overworld that's also incredibly boring
Bad pacing
Shitty stamina meter
The silent realms
Having to backtrack through entire dungeons

Its an awful mess, the only title I've ever hated, and the worst Zelda I've ever played.

Paratroopa1 posted...

zelda 2 rules

This

ChichiriMuyo posted...

Zelda 2 is not a bad game. It's different, but not bad. It's actually quite fantastic for what it is. The hate on it is not justified.

Is the difficulty curve kind of insane? Yes. Is the final boss nearly impossible without cheese strats? Absolutely. But there is a reason why the term "NES hard" exists. It's a library full of hard games, and I wouldn't put Zelda 2 on or even near to the top 10 since you can grind for stat boosts if you really need to.

Compare that to something like Dragon's Lair where most players can't even get off the first screen without memorizing every nasty little detail and coping with horrendous controls. Friday the 13th and Goonies 2 both have maps that you need to rely on and are absolutely befuddling. Battletoads at a point starts throwing stuff at you so fast you can only just barely react and the two player mode makes everything so much harder because you can team kill and one player's failure is both player's failure. I could go on, but do I really need to?

You kick ass

I don't like Minish Cap. I don't really care for Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword. Adventure of Link is a good game that has fucking obscure and non-sense puzzles. Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks are flawed, but have the best side characters in the series.
But come the fuck on guys

tazzyboyishere posted...

Tri Force Heroes and its not even fucking close. Absolutely miserable, broken game that deserves to be remembered as a complete failure on every count.

This hits it squarely on the head. Tri Force Heroes is putrid

tazzyboyishere posted...

The issue with Skyward Sword is its hella boring when you're not in dungeons. People complained about that for TP, but it's way worse in SS. It's not even a bad game, there's just too much of it you're forced to engage with that isn't very fun.

Man I just could not disagree with this more. I actually think the non-dungeon stuff in SS is the strongest in the series, sans BotW, since they made it feel like one giant dungeon anyway. There's occasional fetch quest nonsense tacked in there, but most of it rules.

Paratroopa1 posted...

yeah it can't just be that I just don't like it, it must be groupthink!

The existence of mass groupthink and you having an individual opinion are separate phenomena. Also, vitriol and neutrality, as you seemed to express, are very different things. I used groupthink there specifically because he used the word vitriol.

I do think it would be interesting to peer into a world where the internet didn't exist. My gut instinct is that Skyward Sword, The Last of Us Part 2, The Last Jedi, etc. would be noticably more appreciated today.

ctesjbuvf posted...

The difficulty in Zelda II is not the issue, most of the game is just not that well designed. I personally thought it was a fine experience but yeah.

How is it not well designed?

Controls are tight and responsive.

The level grinding is easy and far faster then any full blown rpg of its day. Each enemy gives you appropriate amounts per area and can drop p bags. There are also p bags free for the taking in the overworld, caves, and dungeons, and an automatic level up for each palace beaten. 3 stats that get leveled up 7x a piece. That's not particularly grindy.

NPCs give you precise simple advice.

Enemies are evenly spaced out, even the currently respawining ones.

Aside from the sharp spike in death mountain early on, it has good difficulty scaling and is mostly fair.

It's not even in the top most difficult NES games.

Bosses and enemies follow simple patterns, there are really only a few that give people fits. Dairas, Bird Knights, Moas, Blue Iron Knuckle, and the floating statue heads because no one likes Medusa heads or their knock offs.

_Blur_ posted...

Man I just could not disagree with this more. I actually think the non-dungeon stuff in SS is the strongest in the series, sans BotW, since they made it feel like one giant dungeon anyway. There's occasional fetch quest nonsense tacked in there, but most of it rules.

This is objectively true. MM was the only one with better non-dungeon activities (although many can be considered an extension of the dungeon), and WW was decent too. The rest, especially TP, are totally soulless empty areas that you just ride through to get to where you need to go. TP even gives you a teleport to skip it entirely.

Tazzy nailed it though by saying "forced to engage with". That's typically called gameplay, but it's kinda shocking to a Zelda player to have actual gameplay in the overworld, when they are used to a blank transition area. It's thus seen as a burden, keeping you away from the "good stuff", because you have been conditioned to think the only thing worth playing in Zelda is a dungeon.

BOTW's genius was removing dungeons entirely, so players are forced to accept that the "good stuff" is all outside. I think it sucks not to have dungeons, but maybe it was necessary to break 2 decades of conditioning. I hope after TOTK they can make a game that's pretty much exactly like SS, but people will understand it much better.

ChichiriMuyo posted...

What is not well designed about it? It's not the controls. Those are impeccable. It's not the level designs. They could use a map like LoZ, but otherwise they are no harder to navigate than most games of the time that involve exploration. The enemies are difficult but absolutely fair (minus shadow Link, who can be cheesed out). There are actually far fewer hidden/cryptic things than its predecessor, which I would not just admit but argue is a better game. Again, while I admit the difficulty curve is peculiar, there is absolutely nothing to stop you from grinding it out.

I mean, what's the gripe against it? Technological limitations?

I think you name some drawbacks while just stating they don't bother you. As I said, I think it's fine, but I don't think the levels are that well designed. Are they manageable? Sure, doesn't mean they are any good. It varies, but it's generally not a high bar.

That a boss can be cheesed and is otherwise unfair probably means it's a bad boss. Having to grind it out is not fun. You keep comparing to souls games and I don't think that comparison is good because those games offer you a variety of ways to handle stuff so its not really similar. Again, difficulty is never the issue. It's just not particularly fun regardless imo.

I feel like most criticism thrown at day PH and ST is fair as well, but I think there're vastly better at what they try to be even if they're also not for everyone.

I also don't think stating that it's better than some other games really matters. It isn't good because something is worse.

But yeah again, I enjoy it, I'd say 5/10 which is average. I just think looking at the effort put into it, it probably ranks bottom.

Saying Zelda II has tight and responsive controls is true but it dodges the actual issue with the game: I hate how combat works in the game. I can't wrap my head around it, and I don't want to because it isn't fun. Thus the skill-testing difficulty falls apart. This is not a flaw in the design, it is just design that misses for me and evidently a huge amount of people as well.

You can say this about any number of games. Dark Souls, Castlevania, Super Metroid are all games with incredibly technical and intentionally designed controls, and for each one you can find people who completely bounce off them. Gameplay is a subjective experience.

And now that I think about it Castlevania is a really good example since SotN was directly inspired by Zelda II. The design principles are solid but CV really iterated on it and made it more accessible.

Zelda II is great with save states and fills its own niche.

Phantom Hourglass on the other hand is just flat out inferior to Wind Waker and Spirit Tracks. So that gets my vote.

I will say a game like Zelda 2 shouldn't have bottomless pit deaths. But it is exciting

I plug these games all the time on B8 but anyone who likes Zelda II should check out Elliot Quest and Phoenotopia Awakening for more modernized takes on it. The former is much closer to Zelda II but they both got the spirit.

This topic has inspired me to finally play Zelda 2 at some point after TotK. The divisiveness is too fascinating.

Control-F "Majora"

Phrase not found.

.

.

huh.

Link's Awakening, but that's ignoring the DS and onwards.

_Blur_ posted...

This topic has inspired me to finally play Zelda 2 at some point after TotK. The divisiveness is too fascinating.

Its because it straight up isnt a Zelda game,

it would be liking asking in a favorite Zelda game topic if people liked halo

azuarc posted...

Control-F "Majora"

Phrase not found.

The topic is for the worst, not the best.

What about it disqualifies it from being a Zelda?

Cheers to the 8 other people who also voted Majora in the poll.

masterplum posted...

Its because it straight up isnt a Zelda game,

it would be liking asking in a favorite Zelda game topic if people liked halo

The game's title is the Legend of Zelda II: Adventure of Link. It is absolutely a Zelda game. It's insane to take the stance you are. No one argues that the 3D Zeldas aren't Zelda just because they play different. You're being a bit ridiculous.

Zelda 2 is more of a Zelda game than BotW is

TomNook posted...

Cheers to the 8 other people who also voted Majora in the poll.

Sorry dude that first vote was for Wild, and I know from context at the time that the 2 and 3rd were, too.

masterplum posted...

Its because it straight up isnt a Zelda game,

it would be liking asking in a favorite Zelda game topic if people liked halo

I imagine this standard would split many series into several pieces each.

Nanis23 posted...

Zelda 2 is more of a Zelda game than BotW is

BotW is more of a Zelda game than Metroid: Other M is a Metroid game.

Plum pulled a LMS there for sure

foolm0r0n posted...

Plum pulled a LMS there for sure

he pulled a plum tbh

paperwarior posted...

I imagine this standard would split many series into several pieces each.

Mario 2 isn't a Mario game

Metal Gear Solid 2 isn't a Metal Gear Solid game

Halo 2 isn't a Halo game

Xenosaga II isn't a Xenosaga game

it's always the second game

OK but Guilty Gear 2 actually isn't a Guilty Gear game.

Halo 2 is definitely a Halo though

Let's do DMC2 isn't a DMC game instead

Naw see if it's even the same genre that's bullshit.

Guilty Gear 2 is fucking Dynasty Warriors.

Xiahou_Shake posted...

The topic is for the worst, not the best.

Yeah, that's why it's weird.