Cruising

A quick hint for anyone wanting to work through The Adventure of Link: level up - Make sure as you go through dungeons that you level up at least once in each dungeon before you beat the final boss of that dungeon.  After you beat the boss you automatically level up again, so following this strategy makes the going so much easier.  If you do this it's pretty easy to max out your levels well before the final dungeon.  I remember being so frustrated as a kid by how hard this game is, but when you make sure to level up it actually is much easier than I remember.  Right now I've beat dungeons 1-5, and I'm almost done with level 6, which means all I'll have left pretty soon is level 7.  Likewise Zach is cruising through A Link to the Past, and between the two of us we are pretty much beating a dungeon a day.  Hopefully my next post will be about beating The Adventure of Link.

One more thought about Zelda II for tonight:  What is up with the young women in each town who offer to "help you" and invite you to "come inside" their homes to "restore your health".  My childhood innocence is shattered, I always thought Link was a one woman man.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention to check out this walkthrough over at strategywiki if you need help getting through Zelda II.  It's much more informative than the one on Nintendo's website. Yes, I'm using a walkthrough.  No, I'm not proud.  We're trying to get through these by the end of NOVEMBER!

Dividing and conquering

I could tell you that we have decided to split our duties and play different games in order to try to get through the Zelda series more quickly...I could, but that wouldn't be true.  The truth is Zach tried out Zelda II after I beat the first dungeon and decided it was too hard for him.  Zach is moving on to The Adventure of Link, while I'm sticking with Zelda II.  It hopefully will also have the added benefit of allowing us to progress through the series a little more quickly as we won't have to catch up on whatever the other person has done every time we boot up the Nintendo, but we'll see.

On to Zelda II:  The more I play this game the more I appreciate it.  It can be frustrating since the difficulty level is so much higher than the original and A Link to the Past, but the story and play dynamics it adds to the series can not be denied.  Magic, sword techniques, towns (and townfolks) and the third and final piece of triforce were all added to the Zelda series by The Adventure of Link, and have stuck around in future games.  Sure the play control may be different than any other Zelda, ever, but it still is decidedly Zelda.  At this point I have finished the first two dungeons, and collected the candle and glove, two magic containers, one heart container and three spells.  I've also leveled up a number of times and am at least on level 4 of all three skill categories (life, magic and attack).  Yes, this is the first (and to my knowledge only) Zelda to allow users to level up their abilities similar to an RPG.  I'm glad they didn't include that dynamic in future Zelda's, but it makes this game even that much more different than the others, and a nice change of pace from the other games we are working on.

A release date, and a deadline

Nintendo made it official today, and announced that Skyward Sword will be released on November 22nd.  That gives Zach and I just over 3 months to finish the rest of our quest.

It's a good thing then that I started Zelda II a couple days ago, getting a bit of a head start before he gets home from camp.  I quickly remembered why I never beat this game as a kid (though I did finally beat it in college): It's freaking hard!  Enemies require a lot more skill and planning then the first Zelda.  However, there is also a lot more depth to the story and the land of Hyrule than the original.   If you can get past the difficulties of the play control, playing through this game is really a fulfilling experience.

I'll give more thoughts as we go.

The Case of the Missing Gold Carts

As a kid, one of the best things about getting a new Zelda game on the original Nintento was opening the box and pulling out that bright, shiny gold cartridge. As a seven year old it was like having something precious that was just mine. A gold brick of pure, video game bliss. I have to admit, the saddest part of reliving those old adventures was pulling out the shoebox with all my old NES games and discovering that somewhere along the course of life my old Zelda games had been mixed up with someone elses, (probably a roomate, or something) and that my gold carts had been replaced with the later, generic grey ones.

Oh well, I guess no use crying over spilt milk. Besides, we've actually been able to get my old Nintendo and both The Legend of Zelda, and The Adventure of Link working (after lots of blowing into the system and the cartridges), which after 25 years is no small feat.