I have spoken numerous times in the past about my love of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. I feel it is a truly underrated gem and have made my opinion known that I feel the game should be remade. There are a few reasons that this is the case. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was a game ahead of its time, and while Nintendo seems to have moved to the open world format for Zelda going forward, there is still something to be gained from the Zelda II style. Zelda II offered a genuinely fun and challenging experience, but was flawed in the end. The difficulty ramped up too early in the game which put many off of the experience, but games like Elliot’s Quest show that Zelda II has been influential to many. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was disliked for not being like the original game, and yet most later games in the series have taken something from the title, such as names and variations on the magic system.
Shigeru Miyamoto once said this about the game in an interview
“I wouldn’t say that I’ve ever made a bad game, per se, but a game I think we could have done more with was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. When we’re designing games, we have our plan for what we’re going to design but in our process it evolves and grows from there. In Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, unfortunately all we ended up creating was what we had originally planned on paper. I think specifically in the case of Zelda II we had a challenge just in terms of what the hardware was capable of doing. So one thing, of course, (that he would have liked the game to been like) is, from a hardware perspective, if we had been able to have the switch between the scenes speed up, if that had been faster, we could have done more with how we used the sidescrolling vs. the overhead [view] and kind of the interchange between the two.But, because of the limitations on how quickly those scenes changed, we weren’t able to. The other thing is it would have been nice to have had bigger enemies in the game, but the Famicom/NES hardware wasn’t capable of doing that. Certainly, with hardware nowadays you can do that and we have done that, but of course nowadays creating bigger enemies takes a lot of effort.”
I feel that a remake would show people just how good the game was, while also taking the time to fix some of the issues. These issues include the difficulty spike occurring before players were ready, less stiffness on jumps and of course fixing the enemy placements, while also giving a proper continuing system. But how should it be revived? Here is where I might lose some people, as I do not feel Nintendo themselves should do it, nor give it to Grezzo. Instead. I feel the game should be given to Ubisoft to work on, as I feel the UbiArt Framework engine would be a perfect match for the game. Games like Rayman Legends and Child of Light show just why the engine is perfect for a Zelda II remake. It would give the game a beautiful look. while also enabling the developers to tinker around. Ideas that were planned or desired could be implemented in such a version and this could bring the game closer to what Miyamoto had in mind.
Zelda II is still respected by many gamers even if its flaws are acknowledged. I feel that the game not only deserves a second chance to win over people, but also a chance for the developers get things done like they desired. The fact that indie developers take influence from the game shows that its legacy is going strong and with interest in the Zelda series at an all time high, this would be the best time to bring Zelda II to a new generation of fans. The game could be expanded further, while still keeping true to the original, which is not unheard of, and thus have a game that is a new experience for many but with a strong sense of familiarity. This is something I would love to see happen, and I know I am not alone in this matter.