Dude I gotta tell you, I'm going through a bit of rough patch on this voyage that is my life but just hearing your voice talk about these beloved games of my youth is totally uplifting. Thanks for everything you do man. I love it.
Man, I love this Metroidvania series. I almost wish it was your main focus so we'd get more frequent entries. Still, these aren't just quick rehashes of Wikipedia entries with an opinion slapped on top like most UA-camrs, there's clearly a ton of thought and research behind everything you do. I appreciate the efforts and I'll definitely be keeping my eyes out for the latest entries in this series (and many of your others as well, of course!)
First of all, that Zelda 2 dungeon music is a thing of beauty every time you hear it! And secondly, the game was ambitious. And it was great! A bit on the cryptic and difficult side. But it fit the bill for the time. Speaking of amazing music, the spider cave (Sagila's cave) was amongst the best of the era
Love your videos -- I'm rarely on the PC when I watch them, but today I am so I figured I'd let you know that the presentation of your series is awesome.
13:57 Its possibly true that Rygar is more clumsy than Zelda II, but the gameplay was so much more fun. I absohated the teeny sword and frustrating combat in Zelda II, but Rygar's serrated yo-yo was a joy to weild.
sixstringpsycho probably you are more hardcore than me. I just got frustrated. Rugar’s deadly retractor-frisbee, with its thump thump sound effect, may not have been as technical, but it was satisfying
They're pretty different, Rygar is trying to be like Gauntlet where you're just mowing down enemies, but in Zelda 2 the badguys will actually fight back, even the smallest enemy can ruin your day if you drop your guard. The original Zelda was somewhat like this too, and it's pretty thrilling when you get into it, almost like an exploration game that can randomly turn into a tournament fighter game at any time.
@@pentelegomenon1175 I hear you. But teenage me would rather have Zelda 1's combat over 2 any day. It felt frustrating and punitive; why not pick up a sharp stick, Link, its got to be better than the little steak-knife you're carrying...
I've grown to appreciate Zelda II. Hated it as a kid because it was a little different...but after playing when I got older, I can appreciate the RPG elements and side scrolling/action segments. And since I got Rambo as a kid before even playing Z2..I was wondering why the hell did Nintendo copy Rambo of all games
I always loved Zelda 2 as a kid, but I think it’s because I never owned it. I only ever borrowed it. Possibly rented it. Yes it was different but I loved that. I think the only thing that bothered Me is that it got too hard.
I fluctuate between liking Zelda II and not so much. It still has the feel of exploration and discovering stuff but the dungeons often become more about the annoying enemies since they can be solved with simple process of elimination. The block breaking deal is almost pointless except in one room where it creates a mini maze. At least turning into a fairy is cool. There needed to be some tweaking and a few more ideas to make Zelda II a great game. For the same team that brought you Mario 3 and LTTP it was a mediocre warm-up. But at the same time they deserve some respect for taking a chance and making the sequel radically different, since every RPG series kept roughly the same format with a few changes.
I loved The Goonies 2 so much as a kid, probably because I loved the movie too. The rendition of "Goonies R Good Enough" on the NES is wonderful. I was just bad at the game -- I could never figure out how to get the jumping shoes and so I would just hit a wall.
Thank you so much Mr parish. My wife died last week and your videos and books are the only thing keeping me going right now. Great content as always takes me back to 1990. Thank you so much sir. Please keep your videos and books coming
I'll fight anyone who refuses to acknowledge that the downward thrust in Zelda 2 isn't among the best video game weapons of all time, up there with Doom's double-barrel shotgun, Turok 2's Cerebral Bore, Symphony of the Night's Crissaegrim, and many, many others.
I beat Zelda 2 earlier tonight. You get the Triforce next to your name and a reset of your deaths and quest but you get to keep all your spells along with your levels and the upward and downward thrust. All the dungeon items like the candle will need to be regained.
This is such a fascinating series-- I particularly like the way you look at these games in their historical context, identifying the specific innovations they added to form the basics of the genre. It would be easy to take for granted the simplicity of a game like Donkey Kong or Pitfall without realizing how much other games built upon their concepts. Zelda II was a great game that I devoted many hours to, though it has a couple of places where the difficulty level spikes a bit too high-- in particular, the cave maze full of Lizalfos you need to complete in order to get the Hammer. If you can just get the Hammer somehow, the world finally opens up and becomes enjoyable again. I also got totally stumped because I missed the little reference in the manual to the Hammer being able to chop down trees (I mean, would you use a hammer to cut trees down?) and there's just one place in the entire game that you need to do that to proceed.
There's a special place in my heart for Zelda II. I love the cautious dance of its combat, and there's something really exciting and evocative to me about its world and dungeons. It just really feels like an adventure. And Rygar is another game I love, although I certainly also hate it. There's nothing like the satisfying push-back and explosions of enemies as you hit them with your spiky shield yo-yo thing, and I like the texture of the world a lot; but it's also filled with immense frustrations, and I'll never forget the horrible (lack of) detection on those ropes in the top-down view. I really need to check out The Goonies II some time. The use of first-person adventure game puzzles is really interesting in that context.
I always thought the fairy through keyhole thing was a glitch, as it doesn't work in the PAL version, the one I grew up with. That said, I love Zelda 2, it's one of my favorite Zelda games and NES games, and I think it gets such an undeserved bad rep just because it plays differently. It's not really that difficult either, with game knowledge being critical to your success, but also something you pick up on just by playing. It's Dark Souls before Dark Souls.
I hear ya. I grew up with Zelda 2 and it was actually the first Zelda title I played. I wonder if by not having Zelda in the title, it could have spawned its own successful franchise with more games of that style.
@@Nails077 Curious that you mention that, it was in fact developed as a standalone title, but Miyamoto (which wasn't its creator) saw it and suggested it should be set in Hyrule and be a sequel to TLoZ. Have you seen the recent Giga Leaks? Some sprites of a 2D Link in 16 bit style were found and rumor says those were for the undeveloped Zelda III before it become ALttP with isometric POV.
Thank you for honoring Zelda II. So many folks disparage it, but I always think it's a solid, if challenging, contribution to the genre. I love your works.
dragon buster also introduced a level select hub. while not part of the metroid genre, it would become a staple of more traditional platformers, particularly those inspired by the mario games.
Zelda 2, The battle of Olympus, and Rygar were the games to play for me in the old days. There was this aura of mystique surrounding them, and obviously their difficulty that made me come back for more. Apart from Rygar, I had to play them around the N64 era in order to beat them. Remember there wasn't internet back then...
I recently beat Zelda 2 for the first time. I actually grew to love it by the time I was done. I've never pulled such a hard 180° on a game before. Once you get the hang of it, the difficulty becomes really rewarding. And I had Goonies II when I was a kid and always loved it. Never beat it and not sure I could today, even with a walkthrough, lol. It's just such a confusing/tedious game, I normally give up after a while. But I still love it for some reason!
I love this game. Only change I think they should have made was to get rid of instant kill pits, and instead put you at the start of the screen and take away some life after falling like the later games did.
Friday the 13th was one of my favorite games, when I was like 7. It reminds me of Goonies 2. I don't know why people hate on LJN so much. Jaws had role playing elements too.
Just watched the whole series so far and I'm enjoying this crazy deep dive into a nearly undefinable genre! I have a suggestion regarding the presentation, though. The red on blue text can be kind of fuzzy, especially the small text on smaller screens like phones. It's a bit difficult to read!
I owned all three of these, and loved them. I could beat Rygar and Goonies II in one session each. I still got lost, though; I'd be a terrible speedrunner.
Wait, if Dragon Buster came out just a week before Zelda II, how could it influence it? Zelda II was basically finished by the time Dragon Buster got released.
Nah, Namco pretty much stuck to recreating their arcade creations for NES/Famicom ports-they jumped ship to the more powerful PC Engine right around the time the difference in capabilities between the NES hardware and their arcade boards would have made direct home conversions for Nintendo deeply unsatisfying.
ngl the adventure sequences in Goonies II is the one thing that keeps me from loving that game. I had more trouble as a kid plaything through that than I did even Deadly Towers. Rygar really captured my imagination as a child and I have to wonder nowadays looking back if it really was just because of the fantastic background scenery and nonstandard looking enemies.
My smart ass view about Zelda II has always been "it's actually a good game and people just suck at it." In all seriousness though, I do love it, blemishes and all. It does follow the trend of the time where sequels to hit games that started franchises were radically different which I've usually chalked up to developers having a lot more free reign to be creative and take chances back then. I think they didn't understand at the time that the foundations they were laying were being accepted by the players as new gold standards for gameplay.
I'm actually crying tears of joy right now because these trifecta of games are some of my favorite games of all time! Thanks for giving them justice, Jeremy.
I personally think all three of the games in this video are really good ones, some of my favorites on the system, actually. Rygar on the NES really does make Rygar for the arcade look bad. A couple of other things I'd like to mention: -In The Goonies II the Jumping Shoes are not needed at all. Instead of making the big leap shown in this video you can go back to the area you find the first Goonie and get to the same area the Jumping Shoes would get you to via the volcano. This is actually a better idea since it means you don't have to go across the bridge yet again and risk losing your boomerang. -Dragon Buster actually makes a sort of appearance in Tales of the Abyss for the PS2. There is a minigame where you play it, although it isn't the original arcade game. It's the same basic thing, though.
The Rygar NES game made me think of the 2002 Rygar remake for PS2 and later for Wii. Apparently that remake is the only one I've known of Rygar at the time until I've known of the original since then. As for Goonies 2, I remember playing the game years ago, in some form.
What leads you to believe there won't be an NES Works episode on this game, when the other two games in this episode have already been covered individually on NES Works?
Hate to split hairs and be that guy, but isn't the sword in Zelda and Zelda II the magic sword, and the first game with the titled Master Sword is Link to the Past?
It is, yes. Or, as the Zelda II manual calls it, "a magical sword and a magical shield". I suppose it's possible that someday they'll retcon it to be the Master Sword, though, given how both the magical sword in Zelda 1 and the Master Sword in Breath of the Wild have a heart requirement.
@@Gemini476 Totally makes sense and to be honest I too refer to the sword in Zelda as the master sword. Link to the Past was so iconic that it made series staples even retroactively!
Every time I see Dragon Buster footage, I always wonder what the hell was happening in the studio that would make them allow a game to be launched with that bad of a character design flaw.
One thing I’ll give Rygar above the other games mentioned- they are more accessible to beginners, and to modern gamers. I was able to beat Rygar as a young child in the early 90s, due to leveling up, easily navigated maps. Goonies and Zelda 2 were and are still so confusing and combat wise difficult.
Yeah, Zelda II and The Goonies II took me weeks (months?) to complete. Rygar I blasted through after borrowing the game from a friend for a couple of days.
Zelda II is...interesting. I appreciate that they were trying something different, but the translation made it more difficult than it needed to be (same as Castlevania 2) and the difficulty balance is all over the place for me. I'm looking forward to the next episode, though, as Faxanadu always felt to me like a more refined version of Zelda II (I'm also just happy to see someone talk about Faxanadu as I think that game is sorely underrated and not mentioned nearly enough).
Chris Blanchard I hope they release Faxanadu on NSO soon, so I can replay it, as well as Milon’s Secret Castle which Jeremt covered in a previous episode.
Arcade Rygar is in a special place in my heart. What it lacks in gameplay depth is more than compensated for in my imagination- something about the visuals makes me feel like there’s a huge amount of lore and world building there. Those end-of-stage rooms with the statues that he turns to face eastward just capture my imagination.
Wow. Three different games from three industry legends and they each have such a thread woven between them. I love Zelda 2 for exploration, Rygar for being more developed than its arcade namesake, and Goonies 2 never made a dent in my interests at the time (I can see the appeal now). Great video, Jeremy. Also, I just remembered how the final boss fight in Zelda 2 was incredibly difficult for me. It was the first game I allowed myself to read the Game Players magazine article and figure out the best pattern to avoid death and beat the game. I used a guide, once you do that you can never go back, kids. Gateway cheats.
Banished from the fandom? Zelda II has had a lot of love in recent years. Hell, even AVGN said it was good when he did it years ago. As for disowned by its creators, not really. The worst Miyamoto has ever said about it is that they could have done more with it, and even then he said it wasn't a bad game.
@@SonofSethoitae Ask any average Zelda fan and invariably >90% will say that it's the worst Zelda. Their argument: it's too hard, it's too different from the other Zelda games, it's the ugly duckling, etc. Most haven't even tried it beyond booting it up. Funny that you mention AVGN, that douche was a pioneer on Zelda II bashing. He might have said it as tongue in cheek, but the damage was done. Many late Millennials and Zennials were influenced by that review. As for Miyamoto, he's not even the creator, he was the producer. Zelda II started as a standalone fantasy 2D Action RPG before Miyamoto saw it and decided to turn it into a sequel of TLoZ. Tadashi Sugiyama was the co-director along with Yasuhisa Yamamura. Kazunobu Shimizu was the designer and overall creator, so credit where credit is due. It's completely arrogant of Miyamoto to say it was not a good Zelda title when all he did was slap its title. As for the resurgence of popularity of Zelda II, I couldn't be any happier. Some homages on some indie titles are more than welcome. What could be even better is if Nintendo somehow acknowledges it as part of the Zelda canon and gave us a spiritual sequel or enhanced remake like both ALttP and Link's Awakening did. Heck, even Metroid II had a decent remake.
@@garlandstrife Like I said, plenty of Zelda fans don't say that anymore. Especially not post-Skyward Sword. Miyamoto _didn't say it was a bad game_ , he said they could have gone farther with their ideas. Miyamoto liked it so much that OoT was deeply influenced by it, and it may have started as a polygonal remake of Zelda II. It has fairly emphatically not been "disowned by its creators." And I haven't seen any evidence indicating that it was a standalone game before Miyamoto and Tezuka (who wrote the game's story) became involved, everything I've seen indicates that it was built from the ground up as a Zelda game. Edit: and being the producer doesn't mean the game wasn't his idea, as he claims. Directors are not necessarily the creators. Nintendo _does_ acknowledge it as part of Zelda canon? Aside from the references in other games and the reuse of many of its mechanics, it's literally on the officially released Zelda timeline. Nintendo rereleases it on every system they can, and it was even on the NES Classic.
Great video Jeremy. As a Brit I’m late to owning an NES (last year) but always wanted one since my best friend had one back in the day making my C64 pale in comparison. Now I’m building a collection these videos are very helpful
If Zelda 2 was called "Greg's Rad Quest" or something it would almost universally be considered a classic game way ahead of it's time. The name alone torpedoed all expectations. Probably the same with Mario 2, but that game at least had more active similarities (and is also way better than Zelda 2)
Zelda 2 is by far my most favorite Zelda game. It felt like a grown up Link adventure with the darker tone and the somewhat harder difficulty. I also liked how much control you had in combat thanks to the 2d with the different attacks and the blocking. This game just oozed atmosphere. The Zelda series became more and more a kiddie series and less about feeling like a real hero with freedom to make mistakes and get in over your head. BotW I simply dislike because of some of its mechanics and mostly because of it's atmosphere and aesthetics.
They're definitely metroidvania adjacent, but I'd say the fact that Kirby's powerups aren't permanent prevents them from being true metroidvanias. They definitely warrant mention for their focus on exploration and using Kirby's standard powerset for traversal, though.
Rygar remains one of my most memorable NES experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed playing through it again recently largely on the strength of the tone its music so effectively sets Edit: You could pretty much copy and paste what I wrote about Rygar for Goonies II as well. I liked Zelda 2 but didn't love it as a child. It has held up well though
Rygar was one of my favorites in the early days of the NES. Zelda II was also very influential on my young imagination. I only ever played The Goonies II as a rental; I never got the hang of it, but I liked its mix of concepts.
In the arcade game’s literature, it’s apparent that Rygar is actually the villain’s name. The hero is just called the hero of Argus. They swapped the name to be the hero’s name for the NES version (in the US localization at least)
I honestly feel like Zelda II could be an amazing game, but it just falls short somewhere and becomes a bit of a clunky difficult mess. I'd love to see a game try this format again, as long as it isn't a Zelda game.
@@topfranluis1 Have people really said the latter two? I'd understand the underrated argument, since it is/was the black sheep of the series...but Better than LoZ or best game on the NES? Never heard those arguments
Zelda 2 is a really good game but I'm guessing it gets most of it's hate from the avgn episode becouse I don't remember any one hateing it back in the day, but this Zelda 1 and triforce of the gods have to be the best trilogy of games ever
@@topfranluis1 what makes it a bad sequel?? It was just as clunky and uncontrollable as Zelda 64,(edit) My knowledge is only on the original release of these games so if stuff has been changed over the years I wouldent know
Considering there have been good, fun games that emulate Zelda 2 (Chibi Knight/Super Chibi Knight, the Gunmetal Arcadia games, etc), all it needs is improved controls and the level and enemy encounter design to match it and a better script so we can actually understand what the NPCs are saying, and I assure you it would get a lot more love. I've been hoping for a Metroid: Samus Returns-style remake for Zelda 2 that would redeem it finally and more people can see the actually really cool ideas that Zelda 2 had
I struggle to see where it would be a terrible game. Mediocre is about the worst thing you could say about it and you'd have to ignore it's context to be that harsh. It's only real downside is having no save/password feature. It's not a long game by any means, but it always felt, like other games of this type with no ability to save progress, like a chore to get back to where you last were on last play. With games like this that have infinite continues, you often literally just ran out of free time to play the game to completion.
@@heavysystemsinc. I would even say that the only reason it might be perceived as mediocre or bad in any way is mostly due to it being overlooked compared to the really well known NES games, and there's a general assumption that anything not as well known as megaman, etc, is probably typical barely designed NES crap, when anyone who has actually played Rygar knows that it is only a slight step below all the famous games, if not their equal in many ways due to how unique and experimental it was for the time, and how fun it is to actually play. I think that unfortunately not enough people have played it themselves to know this.
@@jedgrahek1426 Yeah, it's really difficult to separate out nostalgia from praise this far off from history. I mean, we run into the same thing with a lot of 'classics' of any art form. The Mona Lisa isn't a particularly good painting by a lot of standards, but is, indeed, a classic for various reasons. I'm not sure lot of people appraising games these days have the critical tools necessary to look at a game in it's own context and historical importance (or lack thereof). Sometimes by pointing this out, one comes off as an old man talking about walking up hill both ways waste deep in snow and that's how we liked it, dammit. It's not that at all, though. There's also the glaringly obvious aspect of Zelda beying a Miyamoto production and he's often given a pass even on games that fall short of Nintendo's standards. I think if Miyamoto's name was on Rygar instead of Zelda, we'd be having this discussion the other way around. That's just my take on it. Of course, that'd also mean that Rygar would have probably had a save/password feature, too, drastically changing it's front facing persona as a true adventure game.
I had mixed feelings while playing this game as a kid. I asked my parents for a Zelda game to play on my new Nintendo. This is what they got me. It wasn't exactly what I hoped for. I did like it, but at the same time. I didn't quite understand it and the difficulty frustrated me. I didn't end up beating it. Fast forward 5 years I had my SNES . Had played through all my games and decided to dust off the old NES and revisit some undefeated titles. I chose AoL this time i was more determined. And boy was I happy I did it ended up being one of my all time favorite games. And something that I replay at least once a year.. i think its up there with the best games on the NES
Proof that millenials made the term Metroidvania if it was us 80s gamers it should be called Goonietroid or to be more correct Gooniedokipanic since they beat both metroid and castlevania with the maps
Oh dear, Zelda II was a frustrating mess. I honestly thought this was a game I could get into because of how much more action focused it was. Then I was hit with the traditional old school Nintendo Hard BS tropes real hard And sorry to nitpick, but the Master Sword wasn't a thing until A Link to the Past. He simply carries a non-descript magical sword and shield. And yes I made sure to read the instruction manual's story to verify
It would be interesting to survey Zelda fans to find out how many dislike Zelda II AND Dark Souls. To me, ZII is the original DS, both being flawed beauties that demand skilful combat and severely punish carelessness.
This is a lot easier to do before you get the required downstab technique, which seems to get priority. Simply pressing the jump and duck inputs will force you to downstab and it takes conscious effort and a separate input to crouchstab in midair.
@@INFERNO95 you somehow know for a fact this stranger to you on UA-cam does this? Wow. Keen to hear you describe what every other UA-cam stranger does that you dislike..
Dude I gotta tell you, I'm going through a bit of rough patch on this voyage that is my life but just hearing your voice talk about these beloved games of my youth is totally uplifting. Thanks for everything you do man. I love it.
Man, I love this Metroidvania series. I almost wish it was your main focus so we'd get more frequent entries. Still, these aren't just quick rehashes of Wikipedia entries with an opinion slapped on top like most UA-camrs, there's clearly a ton of thought and research behind everything you do. I appreciate the efforts and I'll definitely be keeping my eyes out for the latest entries in this series (and many of your others as well, of course!)
First of all, that Zelda 2 dungeon music is a thing of beauty every time you hear it! And secondly, the game was ambitious. And it was great! A bit on the cryptic and difficult side. But it fit the bill for the time. Speaking of amazing music, the spider cave (Sagila's cave) was amongst the best of the era
Also not so hard as many say .
Love your videos -- I'm rarely on the PC when I watch them, but today I am so I figured I'd let you know that the presentation of your series is awesome.
13:57 Its possibly true that Rygar is more clumsy than Zelda II, but the gameplay was so much more fun. I absohated the teeny sword and frustrating combat in Zelda II, but Rygar's serrated yo-yo was a joy to weild.
Safe-T-inspector Rygar is way more fun
Agree to disagree. I preferred Zelda 2’s swordplay
sixstringpsycho probably you are more hardcore than me. I just got frustrated. Rugar’s deadly retractor-frisbee, with its thump thump sound effect, may not have been as technical, but it was satisfying
They're pretty different, Rygar is trying to be like Gauntlet where you're just mowing down enemies, but in Zelda 2 the badguys will actually fight back, even the smallest enemy can ruin your day if you drop your guard. The original Zelda was somewhat like this too, and it's pretty thrilling when you get into it, almost like an exploration game that can randomly turn into a tournament fighter game at any time.
@@pentelegomenon1175 I hear you. But teenage me would rather have Zelda 1's combat over 2 any day. It felt frustrating and punitive; why not pick up a sharp stick, Link, its got to be better than the little steak-knife you're carrying...
I'm 44 and I still have the final palace in Zelda II mapped out in my head.
Jeremy probably has the final palace literally mapped out in a drawer somewhere.
I've grown to appreciate Zelda II. Hated it as a kid because it was a little different...but after playing when I got older, I can appreciate the RPG elements and side scrolling/action segments. And since I got Rambo as a kid before even playing Z2..I was wondering why the hell did Nintendo copy Rambo of all games
Did you learn to jump and attack the iron knight's head to hit past their sheild every time? This helped the frustrating combat with them
Yeah, Zelda II is vastly underrated. I'm glad Nintendo chooses to re-release it alongside the other Zelda titles now and then.
I always loved Zelda 2 as a kid, but I think it’s because I never owned it. I only ever borrowed it. Possibly rented it. Yes it was different but I loved that. I think the only thing that bothered
Me is that it got too hard.
I fluctuate between liking Zelda II and not so much. It still has the feel of exploration and discovering stuff but the dungeons often become more about the annoying enemies since they can be solved with simple process of elimination. The block breaking deal is almost pointless except in one room where it creates a mini maze. At least turning into a fairy is cool.
There needed to be some tweaking and a few more ideas to make Zelda II a great game. For the same team that brought you Mario 3 and LTTP it was a mediocre warm-up. But at the same time they deserve some respect for taking a chance and making the sequel radically different, since every RPG series kept roughly the same format with a few changes.
I loved The Goonies 2 so much as a kid, probably because I loved the movie too. The rendition of "Goonies R Good Enough" on the NES is wonderful. I was just bad at the game -- I could never figure out how to get the jumping shoes and so I would just hit a wall.
2:27 It's wild how bad Dragon Buster's protagonist looks facing right. I'm glad they tried, though.
I don't even like that guy anyways...
Rygar is so good. I loved it as a kid and I love it now on Switch Online.
Thank you so much Mr parish. My wife died last week and your videos and books are the only thing keeping me going right now. Great content as always takes me back to 1990. Thank you so much sir. Please keep your videos and books coming
So sorry to hear that. My condolences, and I'm glad to know my work can help you through this difficult time.
So THIS is where Nigoro got the idea for La-Mulana's front-back system! Fascinating.
Very much enjoying this series. Thanks!
I'll fight anyone who refuses to acknowledge that the downward thrust in Zelda 2 isn't among the best video game weapons of all time, up there with Doom's double-barrel shotgun, Turok 2's Cerebral Bore, Symphony of the Night's Crissaegrim, and many, many others.
@@dansmith1661 Technically, you're correct on both counts but c'mon...play along. :-)
@@dansmith1661 Link did it first.
Dang... well, ok. I’m not really wearing the right clothes for this but if you think we should....
I totally agree!
I beat Zelda 2 earlier tonight. You get the Triforce next to your name and a reset of your deaths and quest but you get to keep all your spells along with your levels and the upward and downward thrust. All the dungeon items like the candle will need to be regained.
This is such a fascinating series-- I particularly like the way you look at these games in their historical context, identifying the specific innovations they added to form the basics of the genre. It would be easy to take for granted the simplicity of a game like Donkey Kong or Pitfall without realizing how much other games built upon their concepts.
Zelda II was a great game that I devoted many hours to, though it has a couple of places where the difficulty level spikes a bit too high-- in particular, the cave maze full of Lizalfos you need to complete in order to get the Hammer. If you can just get the Hammer somehow, the world finally opens up and becomes enjoyable again. I also got totally stumped because I missed the little reference in the manual to the Hammer being able to chop down trees (I mean, would you use a hammer to cut trees down?) and there's just one place in the entire game that you need to do that to proceed.
thanks for your uploads! very informative. you bring unique passion for retro games
There's a special place in my heart for Zelda II. I love the cautious dance of its combat, and there's something really exciting and evocative to me about its world and dungeons. It just really feels like an adventure. And Rygar is another game I love, although I certainly also hate it. There's nothing like the satisfying push-back and explosions of enemies as you hit them with your spiky shield yo-yo thing, and I like the texture of the world a lot; but it's also filled with immense frustrations, and I'll never forget the horrible (lack of) detection on those ropes in the top-down view.
I really need to check out The Goonies II some time. The use of first-person adventure game puzzles is really interesting in that context.
I always thought the fairy through keyhole thing was a glitch, as it doesn't work in the PAL version, the one I grew up with.
That said, I love Zelda 2, it's one of my favorite Zelda games and NES games, and I think it gets such an undeserved bad rep just because it plays differently. It's not really that difficult either, with game knowledge being critical to your success, but also something you pick up on just by playing. It's Dark Souls before Dark Souls.
I hear ya. I grew up with Zelda 2 and it was actually the first Zelda title I played. I wonder if by not having Zelda in the title, it could have spawned its own successful franchise with more games of that style.
it is a glitch
@@Nails077 Curious that you mention that, it was in fact developed as a standalone title, but Miyamoto (which wasn't its creator) saw it and suggested it should be set in Hyrule and be a sequel to TLoZ. Have you seen the recent Giga Leaks? Some sprites of a 2D Link in 16 bit style were found and rumor says those were for the undeveloped Zelda III before it become ALttP with isometric POV.
Am I the only one who thinks that the "Dragon Buster" protag looks like it's doing something lewd? haha
I want another side scrolling Zelda game like Zelda II. And 1987 really brought it with memorable games.
Thank you for honoring Zelda II. So many folks disparage it, but I always think it's a solid, if challenging, contribution to the genre. I love your works.
The one who don't like it are entitled gamers who fear a challenge. It that AVGN generations of whiny gamers.
FYI - While I do enjoy arcade Rygar with its faults, it can’t be a clone of Rastan. It’s an older game.
The side scrolling also also owes a debt to urban champion!
dragon buster also introduced a level select hub. while not part of the metroid genre, it would become a staple of more traditional platformers, particularly those inspired by the mario games.
Zelda 2, The battle of Olympus, and Rygar were the games to play for me in the old days. There was this aura of mystique surrounding them, and obviously their difficulty that made me come back for more. Apart from Rygar, I had to play them around the N64 era in order to beat them. Remember there wasn't internet back then...
Jeremy, do you think you're going to talk about Quackshot as a game of this genre? Do you consider it a metroidvania at all?
Link moves in Zelda 2 like the man that climbs the mountain in the Price is Right game.
Oh my god...
I recently beat Zelda 2 for the first time. I actually grew to love it by the time I was done. I've never pulled such a hard 180° on a game before. Once you get the hang of it, the difficulty becomes really rewarding.
And I had Goonies II when I was a kid and always loved it. Never beat it and not sure I could today, even with a walkthrough, lol. It's just such a confusing/tedious game, I normally give up after a while. But I still love it for some reason!
I love this game. Only change I think they should have made was to get rid of instant kill pits, and instead put you at the start of the screen and take away some life after falling like the later games did.
Friday the 13th was one of my favorite games, when I was like 7. It reminds me of Goonies 2. I don't know why people hate on LJN so much. Jaws had role playing elements too.
Just watched the whole series so far and I'm enjoying this crazy deep dive into a nearly undefinable genre! I have a suggestion regarding the presentation, though. The red on blue text can be kind of fuzzy, especially the small text on smaller screens like phones. It's a bit difficult to read!
Looks like the ending and next-episode preview wound up after Zelda 2, right before Goonies 2, rather than at the end of the video after Rygar.
Yes, that's how Metroidvania Works videos have been structured for quite a while now.
@@JeremyParish Ah, indeed! I'd forgotten. Sorry for the false alarm.
It’s kinda like Asimov’s footnotes to Exodus which ends up being much longer than the original work...
Dr Chaos! Yea!
I owned all three of these, and loved them. I could beat Rygar and Goonies II in one session each. I still got lost, though; I'd be a terrible speedrunner.
Wait, if Dragon Buster came out just a week before Zelda II, how could it influence it? Zelda II was basically finished by the time Dragon Buster got released.
The arcade version was widely popular and debuted in 1985, a full two years before the Famicom version.
@@JeremyParish I see. Guess Rygar was on my mind too much, where the arcade version was nothing like the Famicom game.
Nah, Namco pretty much stuck to recreating their arcade creations for NES/Famicom ports-they jumped ship to the more powerful PC Engine right around the time the difference in capabilities between the NES hardware and their arcade boards would have made direct home conversions for Nintendo deeply unsatisfying.
I start thinking of Wonder Boy 2 and 3.
ngl the adventure sequences in Goonies II is the one thing that keeps me from loving that game. I had more trouble as a kid plaything through that than I did even Deadly Towers. Rygar really captured my imagination as a child and I have to wonder nowadays looking back if it really was just because of the fantastic background scenery and nonstandard looking enemies.
My smart ass view about Zelda II has always been "it's actually a good game and people just suck at it." In all seriousness though, I do love it, blemishes and all. It does follow the trend of the time where sequels to hit games that started franchises were radically different which I've usually chalked up to developers having a lot more free reign to be creative and take chances back then. I think they didn't understand at the time that the foundations they were laying were being accepted by the players as new gold standards for gameplay.
I'm actually crying tears of joy right now because these trifecta of games are some of my favorite games of all time! Thanks for giving them justice, Jeremy.
8:38 Golgo 13 flashbacks, no!
Rygar's top/side switching with the same mechanics gives me big NieR vibes.
Rygar was clearly inspired by NieR...
I personally think all three of the games in this video are really good ones, some of my favorites on the system, actually. Rygar on the NES really does make Rygar for the arcade look bad.
A couple of other things I'd like to mention:
-In The Goonies II the Jumping Shoes are not needed at all. Instead of making the big leap shown in this video you can go back to the area you find the first Goonie and get to the same area the Jumping Shoes would get you to via the volcano. This is actually a better idea since it means you don't have to go across the bridge yet again and risk losing your boomerang.
-Dragon Buster actually makes a sort of appearance in Tales of the Abyss for the PS2. There is a minigame where you play it, although it isn't the original arcade game. It's the same basic thing, though.
Feel into the Zelda II clone rabbit hole few years back.
These are by far my 3 favorite NES games ever! They are so fond memories of my childhood.
The Rygar NES game made me think of the 2002 Rygar remake for PS2 and later for Wii. Apparently that remake is the only one I've known of Rygar at the time until I've known of the original since then. As for Goonies 2, I remember playing the game years ago, in some form.
I haven't played it since release but I remember that PS2 game being surprisingly good at the time
Not getting a separate Zelda 2 video in NES Works hurts. I need more history and context.
What leads you to believe there won't be an NES Works episode on this game, when the other two games in this episode have already been covered individually on NES Works?
Toasty!! WDMB forever!
Wow, blast from the paaaaast
I never really got into any of these titles but still a good review on them
Hate to split hairs and be that guy, but isn't the sword in Zelda and Zelda II the magic sword, and the first game with the titled Master Sword is Link to the Past?
It is, yes. Or, as the Zelda II manual calls it, "a magical sword and a magical shield". I suppose it's possible that someday they'll retcon it to be the Master Sword, though, given how both the magical sword in Zelda 1 and the Master Sword in Breath of the Wild have a heart requirement.
@@Gemini476 Totally makes sense and to be honest I too refer to the sword in Zelda as the master sword. Link to the Past was so iconic that it made series staples even retroactively!
I assumed that was already retconned.
Every time I see Dragon Buster footage, I always wonder what the hell was happening in the studio that would make them allow a game to be launched with that bad of a character design flaw.
One thing I’ll give Rygar above the other games mentioned- they are more accessible to beginners, and to modern gamers. I was able to beat Rygar as a young child in the early 90s, due to leveling up, easily navigated maps. Goonies and Zelda 2 were and are still so confusing and combat wise difficult.
Yeah, Zelda II and The Goonies II took me weeks (months?) to complete. Rygar I blasted through after borrowing the game from a friend for a couple of days.
Was that the Evangelion dance montage song redone in chiptune??? @jeremy parish that's amazing where did that come from?
Zelda II is...interesting. I appreciate that they were trying something different, but the translation made it more difficult than it needed to be (same as Castlevania 2) and the difficulty balance is all over the place for me. I'm looking forward to the next episode, though, as Faxanadu always felt to me like a more refined version of Zelda II (I'm also just happy to see someone talk about Faxanadu as I think that game is sorely underrated and not mentioned nearly enough).
Chris Blanchard I hope they release Faxanadu on NSO soon, so I can replay it, as well as Milon’s Secret Castle which Jeremt covered in a previous episode.
Arcade Rygar is in a special place in my heart. What it lacks in gameplay depth is more than compensated for in my imagination- something about the visuals makes me feel like there’s a huge amount of lore and world building there. Those end-of-stage rooms with the statues that he turns to face eastward just capture my imagination.
Wow. Three different games from three industry legends and they each have such a thread woven between them. I love Zelda 2 for exploration, Rygar for being more developed than its arcade namesake, and Goonies 2 never made a dent in my interests at the time (I can see the appeal now). Great video, Jeremy.
Also, I just remembered how the final boss fight in Zelda 2 was incredibly difficult for me. It was the first game I allowed myself to read the Game Players magazine article and figure out the best pattern to avoid death and beat the game. I used a guide, once you do that you can never go back, kids. Gateway cheats.
"Metroidvania Galápagos" interesting term
Zelda II is criminally underrated. Disowned by its very creators and banished from the fandom. It deserves a second chance.
Banished from the fandom? Zelda II has had a lot of love in recent years. Hell, even AVGN said it was good when he did it years ago.
As for disowned by its creators, not really. The worst Miyamoto has ever said about it is that they could have done more with it, and even then he said it wasn't a bad game.
@@SonofSethoitae Ask any average Zelda fan and invariably >90% will say that it's the worst Zelda. Their argument: it's too hard, it's too different from the other Zelda games, it's the ugly duckling, etc. Most haven't even tried it beyond booting it up.
Funny that you mention AVGN, that douche was a pioneer on Zelda II bashing. He might have said it as tongue in cheek, but the damage was done. Many late Millennials and Zennials were influenced by that review.
As for Miyamoto, he's not even the creator, he was the producer. Zelda II started as a standalone fantasy 2D Action RPG before Miyamoto saw it and decided to turn it into a sequel of TLoZ. Tadashi Sugiyama was the co-director along with Yasuhisa Yamamura. Kazunobu Shimizu was the designer and overall creator, so credit where credit is due. It's completely arrogant of Miyamoto to say it was not a good Zelda title when all he did was slap its title.
As for the resurgence of popularity of Zelda II, I couldn't be any happier. Some homages on some indie titles are more than welcome. What could be even better is if Nintendo somehow acknowledges it as part of the Zelda canon and gave us a spiritual sequel or enhanced remake like both ALttP and Link's Awakening did. Heck, even Metroid II had a decent remake.
@@garlandstrife Like I said, plenty of Zelda fans don't say that anymore. Especially not post-Skyward Sword.
Miyamoto _didn't say it was a bad game_ , he said they could have gone farther with their ideas. Miyamoto liked it so much that OoT was deeply influenced by it, and it may have started as a polygonal remake of Zelda II. It has fairly emphatically not been "disowned by its creators." And I haven't seen any evidence indicating that it was a standalone game before Miyamoto and Tezuka (who wrote the game's story) became involved, everything I've seen indicates that it was built from the ground up as a Zelda game. Edit: and being the producer doesn't mean the game wasn't his idea, as he claims. Directors are not necessarily the creators.
Nintendo _does_ acknowledge it as part of Zelda canon? Aside from the references in other games and the reuse of many of its mechanics, it's literally on the officially released Zelda timeline. Nintendo rereleases it on every system they can, and it was even on the NES Classic.
Great video Jeremy. As a Brit I’m late to owning an NES (last year) but always wanted one since my best friend had one back in the day making my C64 pale in comparison. Now I’m building a collection these videos are very helpful
If Zelda 2 was called "Greg's Rad Quest" or something it would almost universally be considered a classic game way ahead of it's time. The name alone torpedoed all expectations. Probably the same with Mario 2, but that game at least had more active similarities (and is also way better than Zelda 2)
Petition to rename Zelda II "Greg's Rad Quest".
Zelda 2 was my first gaming love. And it's still great.
Zelda 2 is by far my most favorite Zelda game. It felt like a grown up Link adventure with the darker tone and the somewhat harder difficulty. I also liked how much control you had in combat thanks to the 2d with the different attacks and the blocking. This game just oozed atmosphere. The Zelda series became more and more a kiddie series and less about feeling like a real hero with freedom to make mistakes and get in over your head. BotW I simply dislike because of some of its mechanics and mostly because of it's atmosphere and aesthetics.
kirby super star: the great cave offensive and kirby & the amazing mirror count at metroidvania like without rpg elements?
They're definitely metroidvania adjacent, but I'd say the fact that Kirby's powerups aren't permanent prevents them from being true metroidvanias. They definitely warrant mention for their focus on exploration and using Kirby's standard powerset for traversal, though.
I just played this game and gave it MAD PROPS🙌🏿 I love the battle mechanics
Rygar remains one of my most memorable NES experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed playing through it again recently largely on the strength of the tone its music so effectively sets
Edit: You could pretty much copy and paste what I wrote about Rygar for Goonies II as well. I liked Zelda 2 but didn't love it as a child. It has held up well though
Rygar was one of my favorites in the early days of the NES. Zelda II was also very influential on my young imagination. I only ever played The Goonies II as a rental; I never got the hang of it, but I liked its mix of concepts.
The Goonies ll should be on NSO. Come on, Nintendo: lift your game.
Rygar, featuring the titular hero character, Rygar.
Nope
In the arcade game’s literature, it’s apparent that Rygar is actually the villain’s name. The hero is just called the hero of Argus.
They swapped the name to be the hero’s name for the NES version (in the US localization at least)
@@zerobyte802 I know, that's the joke.
it's short for the hero's full name, Ryan Garloz
@@homosaur It's true, Shigeru Miyamoto told me himself, he named the character after his younger brother, Ryan Miyamoto.
Ahh, yes... Portopia: The game that launched a bajillion visual novels. 😂
I honestly feel like Zelda II could be an amazing game, but it just falls short somewhere and becomes a bit of a clunky difficult mess. I'd love to see a game try this format again, as long as it isn't a Zelda game.
I hear you. I always wondered what Nintendo could have achieved had they followed with this style of gameplay and mechanics.
@@topfranluis1 Have people really said the latter two? I'd understand the underrated argument, since it is/was the black sheep of the series...but Better than LoZ or best game on the NES? Never heard those arguments
Zelda 2 is a really good game but I'm guessing it gets most of it's hate from the avgn episode becouse I don't remember any one hateing it back in the day, but this Zelda 1 and triforce of the gods have to be the best trilogy of games ever
@@topfranluis1 what makes it a bad sequel?? It was just as clunky and uncontrollable as Zelda 64,(edit)
My knowledge is only on the original release of these games so if stuff has been changed over the years I wouldent know
Considering there have been good, fun games that emulate Zelda 2 (Chibi Knight/Super Chibi Knight, the Gunmetal Arcadia games, etc), all it needs is improved controls and the level and enemy encounter design to match it and a better script so we can actually understand what the NPCs are saying, and I assure you it would get a lot more love. I've been hoping for a Metroid: Samus Returns-style remake for Zelda 2 that would redeem it finally and more people can see the actually really cool ideas that Zelda 2 had
I have never been able to decide whether or not Rygar is an NES classic or a terrible game.
It's a classic. A clumsy one, but still a classic.
I struggle to see where it would be a terrible game. Mediocre is about the worst thing you could say about it and you'd have to ignore it's context to be that harsh. It's only real downside is having no save/password feature. It's not a long game by any means, but it always felt, like other games of this type with no ability to save progress, like a chore to get back to where you last were on last play. With games like this that have infinite continues, you often literally just ran out of free time to play the game to completion.
I place it solidly on the side of classic. It's certainly janky though.
@@heavysystemsinc. I would even say that the only reason it might be perceived as mediocre or bad in any way is mostly due to it being overlooked compared to the really well known NES games, and there's a general assumption that anything not as well known as megaman, etc, is probably typical barely designed NES crap, when anyone who has actually played Rygar knows that it is only a slight step below all the famous games, if not their equal in many ways due to how unique and experimental it was for the time, and how fun it is to actually play. I think that unfortunately not enough people have played it themselves to know this.
@@jedgrahek1426 Yeah, it's really difficult to separate out nostalgia from praise this far off from history. I mean, we run into the same thing with a lot of 'classics' of any art form. The Mona Lisa isn't a particularly good painting by a lot of standards, but is, indeed, a classic for various reasons. I'm not sure lot of people appraising games these days have the critical tools necessary to look at a game in it's own context and historical importance (or lack thereof). Sometimes by pointing this out, one comes off as an old man talking about walking up hill both ways waste deep in snow and that's how we liked it, dammit. It's not that at all, though. There's also the glaringly obvious aspect of Zelda beying a Miyamoto production and he's often given a pass even on games that fall short of Nintendo's standards. I think if Miyamoto's name was on Rygar instead of Zelda, we'd be having this discussion the other way around. That's just my take on it. Of course, that'd also mean that Rygar would have probably had a save/password feature, too, drastically changing it's front facing persona as a true adventure game.
Zelda 2 is amazing!!
Zelda 2 was and still is a great game. In my opinion, the US version was better than the Famicom version.
Oh yeah, the FC version is some beta-level frustration.
I like the goonies 2.😀👍🎮
James Moss: It’s a great MetriodVania game, and I LOVE the music! 🎶 ❤️
@@DkViking1 cool dude. 😀👍🎮
I had mixed feelings while playing this game as a kid. I asked my parents for a Zelda game to play on my new Nintendo. This is what they got me. It wasn't exactly what I hoped for. I did like it, but at the same time. I didn't quite understand it and the difficulty frustrated me. I didn't end up beating it. Fast forward 5 years I had my SNES . Had played through all my games and decided to dust off the old NES and revisit some undefeated titles. I chose AoL this time i was more determined. And boy was I happy I did it ended up being one of my all time favorite games. And something that I replay at least once a year.. i think its up there with the best games on the NES
Zelda ll is for lovers.
The Virginia of video games
Zelda 2 is so awesome
❣️
Just an idea: "Playstation vita works"?
Sure, go ahead.
@@JeremyParish yeah, like i can compete with you :*
Proof that millenials made the term Metroidvania if it was us 80s gamers it should be called Goonietroid or to be more correct Gooniedokipanic since they beat both metroid and castlevania with the maps
It was definitely coined by Gen-Xers. Source: I know the Gen-Xers who coined it.
@@JeremyParish They coined it wrong
Goonietroid sounds better cause metroid copied goonies2
Clever of Nintendo to travel forward in time almost a year to rip off a game from the future
6:00 when was Neon Genesis Evangelion adapted to a NES game though??? xDDD
Oh dear, Zelda II was a frustrating mess. I honestly thought this was a game I could get into because of how much more action focused it was. Then I was hit with the traditional old school Nintendo Hard BS tropes real hard
And sorry to nitpick, but the Master Sword wasn't a thing until A Link to the Past. He simply carries a non-descript magical sword and shield. And yes I made sure to read the instruction manual's story to verify
At least Zelda 2 gave us that great dungeon theme...
It would be interesting to survey Zelda fans to find out how many dislike Zelda II AND Dark Souls. To me, ZII is the original DS, both being flawed beauties that demand skilful combat and severely punish carelessness.
I'd argue that Rygar begat Blaster Master, which then was a dead end until that series got its own sequels
me, an intellectual: this is why Metroidvanias are actually Zeldalikes
My biggest distraction is the poor strategy vs the red knights:
C’mon man. Duck, stab, and jump simultaneously!
This is a lot easier to do before you get the required downstab technique, which seems to get priority. Simply pressing the jump and duck inputs will force you to downstab and it takes conscious effort and a separate input to crouchstab in midair.
Zelda2 was a good game I hate that avgn generated so much hate on this game (the episode is funny and its truthful but still)
Doubly bizarre given that he said it was good multiple times
Ugh, Zelda II bores me even when one of the most interesting retro gaming UA-camr talks about it
And yet you play the same 3D zelda games over and over again like a mindless drone.
@@INFERNO95 you somehow know for a fact this stranger to you on UA-cam does this? Wow. Keen to hear you describe what every other UA-cam stranger does that you dislike..
@@INFERNO95 Are you trying to insult me? My favorite Zelda games are Link's Awakening, the Oracle games and Minish Cap