Zelda II: The (lack of) Adventure of Link

As I've said in the weekly game releases, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is being released for the Wii Virtual Console on Monday.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it yet on this young blog o' mine, but the Legend of Zelda is my favorite series, bar none. It began way back in 1986, when my Dad came home from work one night with a copy of the original Legend of Zelda. I can still remember what it looked like coming out of his black briefcase, all shiny and gold, immediately more special than all those other gray cartridges.

I played it as a four-year-old, and of course it was too hard for me. My Dad helped, but, since he is not the biggest video game fan, it was even too hard for him. But I never gave up, even when my cousin was able to beat the game in a single morning and I could not even figure out how to find the boss on Level 7 (you have to move the center block on the northeast-most room, if you are still stumped!)

I've, in fact, played it so much that I can now conquer the first quest in just over 60 minutes consistently, without dying once. I've beaten the Entire Game using only the Wooden Sword (I have it on video as proof), and I've even gotten up to the Level 6 without Any Sword AT ALL.

So, when I heard there was a sequel to this, the greatest game in the history of Man, I was ecstatic. But, being a young person with no cash, I could not just buy it when it came out, I had to wait until some occasion to receive a gift. So I waited. And Waited. And my Anticipation grew and Grew and GREW — until finally my birthday came around, and low and behold, my best friend had given me a copy of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Although, my best friend was a youngster with no cash also, so this was not a new copy. He, in fact, bought it at a garage sale from a slow (you know, slow) kid we knew, who was a bowling prodigy. He also was thrown out of the same daycare place my friend went to, after he opened a jar of pickles and proceeded to take each pickle out one-by-one and place them on the carpet.

I should have known then what I was in for.

The game damn near made me cry. After erasing all the kid's progress on the game, I started fresh and new, ready to conquer Gannon once more — but this was not the Zelda game I spent hundreds of hours with. Link was — gasp! — tall! And he could jump! And he could die and have to start from the beginning! And Gannon wasn't even a blue pig-thing anymore! He was black and dark, like the color this crappy excuse for a sequel turned my soul.

Sure, now as I'm older I realize Nintendo back then really didn't know what they were doing with sequels — they were pioneering the technology, after all, and Super Mario Bros. 2 was equally as confusing. They made up for it on their third try and all subsequent Zelda games too.

But still, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link will always put me in a bad mood when I think about it. I never even beat the game. The damn thing was so difficult it was painful. And not in the fun difficult "I must conquer you!" way, its difficult in the "Dude, that's screwed up you can go to hell!" way.

And you know what really burns me up most, even to this day? Remember all that progress the kid had made on the game I said I erased? Well the damn bowling pickle picker got closer to beating the game than I ever could.

I hate pickles.