Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is beloved by many – so much so that it's often mentioned whenever 'Zelda remakes' are discussed – but only the most diehard fan would try to argue that it doesn't have its fair share of problems.
There's a lot of (sometimes tedious) side-scrolling combat and the difficulty level has come under particular criticism over the decades. If you're one of those people who, despite trying hard, has never really bonded with Link's second NES quest, then you might be interested to learn that indie developer Ok Impala! has created an unofficial ROM hack that alters the game to make it more enjoyable.
Zelda II - Amida's Curse is the result of 18 months of effort, and aims to "focus on the fun aspects of Zelda II and leave out the frustrating design choices". In Amida's Curse, exploration is much more important than combat, and there's an entirely new world to explore with a host of towns and temples. As well as boasting improved visuals, Amida's Curse also showcases a new soundtrack composed by Bentglasstube.
Here's the synopsis:
One day, Link finds a portal to a strange land. Curious, he starts exploring the magical world of Amida. Little does he know, that he’s on a brand new adventure that will take him to places he couldn’t have imagined. Amida has a deep emotional link to our hero. Can Link unravel the secrets of Amida and return to his own world?
Zelda II – Amida’s Curse is a brand new Zelda II adventure. The game has been rebuilt from the ground up, with a new world, new graphics and an original soundtrack by bentglasstube. The focus of Amida’s Curse lies in exploration above combat. Gameplay has been altered to make this, above all, a fun gaming experience. So, difficulty is lower than the original Zelda II, there are no cheap deaths and grinding isn’t necessary.
- 9 new temples to explore (vs 7 in vanilla Zelda II)
- 11 new towns to visit (vs 8 in vanilla Zelda II)
- New soundtrack
- Brand new overworld
- New story
- New graphics
- Animated tiles on the overworld
- Balanced difficulty, no cheap deaths
- No random encounters on the overworld
- Loads of gameplay tweaks (building on Zelda II Redux)
- Lives you find are permanent
- No grinding necessary
- Enemy rebalancing, no more huge HP pools
- Press A as a Fairy to instantly return to your normal form
- Temple stones give fixed EXP
- Fairy can’t fly through doors
- Save anywhere by pressing up and A on the start menu. Be aware though, that you’ll be warped back to the starting point of the game. So, only use this option when you want to stop playing
- And so much more…
Zelda II - Amida's Curse is playable via emulation, but it also works perfectly fine on original hardware if you have access to a flash cart, like an Everdrive.
[source romhacking.net]
Comments 61
I find ROM hacks fun and fascinating, and it's applause worthy that ROM hackers do all this work for a hobby.
But I always wonder what new projects we're missing out on, when these folks don't make their own games with their own IP. I guess we'll never know.
Removed - inappropriate language; user is banned
Wow... I might give this a try this weekend. Looks nice, I'm definitely getting Sonic Mania type vibes. Although, I won't hold my breath for an official Nintendo release/partnership.
I only beat Zelda 2, just to be able to say that I beat Zelda 2. Truthfully, if not for the Wii VC's Save States, I probably would've given up.
Zelda II only have two problems: lack of actual hints, and the fact that you have to start from the starting point when you die.
@CharlieGirl The two things aren’t mutually exclusive though. Not everyone who makes ROM hacks has an idea, vision or resources to create their own IP.
@CharlieGirl I guess out of a love of the source material and a desire to see what different things could be done with the same game engine, I suppose? Even as a kid I used to design my dream levels for the original Super Mario Bros. on paper.
@CharlieGirl
ROM hacking is often the entrypoint for aspiring developers to break out on their own.
Toby Fox and Christian Whitehead famously started out with ROM hacks of Earthbound and Sonic Mega Drive games.
They went on to create hits like Undertale and Sonic Mania.
Would love a Zelda 1 + 2 Remake. They are doing Advance Wars, so why not Zelda?
Zelda II needs no fixing. Ocarina needs a remaster.
I enjoyed Zelda II as a kid, a lot. I always chose to play it over the original. But as an adult with less free-time, tedious games are not in my ballpark anymore. This romhack looks like it could rekindle an old favorite, though!
Didn’t people hate this game cause of how hard it is? I bet those people are eating their words now that harder games are more popular these days.😂 P.S does anyone else want a Zelda RPG with a level up system or is it just me?
@CharlieGirl Those are totally different things taking vastly different amounts of time, you're not missing out on any new games.
This looks incredible.
Zelda 2 was great as it is. Such an underrated game. I think it's the predecessor of modern Souls-Likes and Metroidvanias.
I think this is the only mainline Zelda game I haven't actually beaten.
Jeeeezzzz why even call it Zelda II 😂
It’s like me saying to NintendoLife:
“Hey guys, wow I have this exact same website except we don’t feature video game related content. We talk about concerts. And we have a totally different color scheme, we don’t have a comment section, and it’s totally different.”
Or, my favorite, “I have that exact shirt except it’s not red, it’s blue, has a totally different design, and it’s a different size.”
In other words, they suck at Zelda 2. Looks to me they took the challenge out of the game.
Pity they doomed it by latching it on to Zelda. With all that effort they could have tried a broader release with a new IP of their own.
I'm intrigued by the new story. I'll check this out!
It seems like this uses a different from hack that fixes a bunch of stuff.
This is impressive work! I'd definitely like to give this a go.
I love Zelda II and while it is crazy hard, I find it much easier than the first Zelda game. I have beaten the first game, but I'll never do it again. Nothing about that experience was fun for me.
Meanwhile, Adventure of Link is legitimately one of the most addicting game experiences I've ever enjoyed. The combat truly can be mastered if you experiment. In many ways it was the early form of a Dark Souls "tough but fair" style game.
Regardless, this ROM hack sounds intriguing!
@RupeeClock yes, and likewise, people get inspired to create their own stories eventually after writing fanfic for fun...though sadly the most recent example is still 50 Shades, ugh.
That's some seriously good music for a NES
I think Zelda 2 is totally fine as it is, it doesn't really require any kind of 'hacking' or improving. It's totally playable today and is brilliant in its design.
But I'm glad that Zelda 2 is getting more and more recognition these days even through such fan conversions.
@SpaceEcho
Or perhaps you need to consider buying a 3DS, because Ocarina of Time 3D is a great remaster.
@ModdedInkling That actually does look remarkably better. I hope it comes to the Switch in some form.
Im downloading this before the big N takes it down it looks like it will be fun to play.
I always wanted to finish Zelda 2. I still won’t but I want to.
"I think Zelda 2 is totally fine as it is, it doesn't really require any kind of 'hacking' or improving. It's totally playable today and is brilliant in its design."
Are you serious?
@SpaceEcho Zelda II needs no fixing. Ocarina needs a remaster.
Get a 3DS.
@Gamepro500 absolutely.
@Severian
In any case, it still cracks me up that a song that debuted in an Earthbound ROM hack is now featured in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and has been played in concert.
The game is supposed to be easier but the candle is out of reach and there's no clue where to find the high jump ability. I hate this bait crap.
@Greatluigi Speak for yourself. I still hate hard games.
interesting, never liked zelda 2 on the nes while growing up but these changes seem to give some life to it, so cool
This is Error.
@Greatluigi Zelda II hit me as "hard" in bad ways rather than good.
Zelda with turn-based combat? Chinese bootleg Famicom game producer Nanjing did that to Minish Cap. (it would not be advisable to play Nanjing games, as they are known to have poor quality testing, and probably rushed out on a timeframe. Like the famous FF7 bootleg that one fan spent a long time to turn it into a more respectable port).
Never had an issue with the difficulty and the changes present in this hack don't appeal to me at all. Definitely don't like the new Link sprite, either. Despite that, it's great to see Zelda II getting some love as this is one of my favorite Zelda games. I'll likely be replaying the original on the Game & Watch soon.
Ah I'm not great at games but I still managed to beat Zelda II without save states. There's wayyyy harder NES games.
@DrDaisy well I don’t know if you would like cuphead since that game is supposed to be really hard.
@DrDaisy: Sorry to hear you got stuck there. Some players don't know. But you can just take a run-up and jump higher in Zelda II, just like in Mario. In this specific location, walk about 6 tiles left from the pillar, start running and press (and hold) jump on the 3th tile left from the pillar. With a little practice it is easy to pull off. One other player got stuck here, he had the A/B buttons accidentally matched to the turbo buttons in his emulator. So make sure that's not the case in your emulator, otherwise you can only jump really low. You can always contact me at [email protected] if you get stuck in the game.
I see ROM hacks as an extension beyond hacking cheat codes. I used to love cheat codes on old games and different random codes creating unexpected results. I also loved the unofficial original doom hacks. I do like good rom hacks of games I love, like hyper Metroid. I think the next step from these is using something like unity or gamemaker studio.
I'm someone who's played the original Zelda II enough times to be very familiar with it, and even have beaten the game without dying. That said? I honestly don't find it particularly fun. I find it more stressful than fun. I'm definitely going to check out this rom hack, it sounds awesome!
@Rocky2418 I think the core gameplay is very good. I enjoyed exploring the map and the main, side-scrolling sections are fun. The penalties for dying are severe and the game can be unbalanced in parts, such as Death Mountain being quite grueling so early in the game. I can definitely see why it could be stressful. It's a good example of a game that I think is improved by modern conveniences like save states.
@Ok_Impala Thanks. I'll try that soon.
Some of the cheapest deaths in Zelda II were when you were jumping over a pit, only for an enemy to jump/fly up and knock you backwards into said pit, making you lose a life. I hope they got rid of that.
But I do see that shielded enemies still have the mechanic where they raise or lower their shield and block your attacks. I would prefer if they just kept the shield up, allowing you to strike at their legs.
@Sinton It has plenty of straightforward hints. Maybe try talking to npcs once in a while.
@Yorumi applauds
@Yorumi Zelda II The Adventure of Zelda!
Whoever thought that using fairy to fly through doors was annoying? Its a challenging game, but it's difficulty is overblown.
@Greatluigi i think an rpg Zelda spin-off could be fun
@Tempestryke Not sure if serious or not, but I can assure you I spoke to every single NPC, probably twice. With better hints (I'm guessing alot went missing in translation), I would've beaten this game in half the time it took me.
@Sinton So your telling me that hints like
Use hammer to break a roadblock
Find heart over ocean
With boots I could walk on water
Master is in woods N of river
There's a secret at the edge of town
And so many others are cryptic? That sounds strictly like a you problem if you can't figure them out. Or you've never actually played and are just mindlessly regurgitating what other people say. There's maybe one or two lines that are confusing in the whole game. And only one sidequest item that's a pain to find.
What's wrong with flying through doors as a fairy?
@Ok_Impala
Some points to make:
I don't think you know what a random encounter is. A random encounter is when you get hit by an invisible enemy on any given tile and you don't know what it is until the battle starts. Pokémon is a good example. In this game you have two visible sprites and a handful of enemies in each overworld environment. The dungeon and cave enemies are visible and you know precisely what is coming after you, unlike in Final Fantasy.
Why did you downgrade Fairy so that you can't fly through keyholes? That's really dumb and not annoying to anybody.
Completing a temple takes you to the next level automatically. What do you think you're fixing exactly?
This game is not grind heavy at all. Each enemy gives you the appropriate amount of points for each area, and p bags give anywhere from 50 to 300 points. Some of them are scattered in the overworld, caves, and dungeons. The only reason you would not arrive at the last palace completely leveled, is if you're doing a minimalist run.
Have you never played a platformer? The point of extra lives is to grant you extra chances, which takes the place of quarters. Either keep to the rules of getting 1-ups, or just delete the life system.
What huge HP pools? This isn't a full-blown rpg where late game enemies and bosses have ridiculous amounts of health. How much damage you do, is tied to the Strength Stat, and the stronger you are, the less hits they take to kill. I finally bothered to play new game + last year instead of resetting, and flew through the game. It was actually pretty boring.
On some positive notes, new towns, new dungeons and new areas to explore sound intriguing.
The graphics look very nice.
Hi @Tempestryke,
I'll share some considerations I made when making the design choices for Amida's Curse:
In Amida's Curse you will still get a Game Over when all your lives run out. However extra lives you found will be added to your starting total when you continue your game. This way extra lives get more value to the player, which makes them interesting to collect when you see them.
New Game+ is surely boring because it has almost no challenge, especially at the start of the game. Amida's Curse does have a fair challenge. I've seen most streamer get a Game Over several times. So it surely is not comparable to New Game+ in the original Zelda II. Amida's Curse is meant to make the many strengths of Zelda II shine in a brand new world!
Have fun exploring!
@Ok_Impala
The fairy flying through the door is one of its two features. I've never had any problems entering a room from any side, and I've owned it on the NES, GBA, and NES Classic. Perhaps your copy simply has issues due to age? Or you had bad luck, and it was faulty from the get-go?
Taking away the overworld encounters rebalances grinding? That's really stupid. Its an adventure/rpg. There's only ever a few sprites that spawn onscreen and they're visible. It never had random encounters like most true rpgs past or present. It's like removing all the encounters from a route in Pokémon in order to "balance grinding." You're actually making it frustrating to level by doing that. The leveling once again is very fair. Far more fair and modern then many others of its day. The only thing that would have needed fixing is for excess points to roll over.
The bubbles are one enemy and most of the time easily avoidable. Again, strength stat.
Your breaking what didn't need fixing at all.
@anynamereally well obviously you've never played the improved version with dozens of fixes....smh
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Late to the party on this, but I had an absolutely AMAZING time with this game. In many ways it's better than the original. Maybe pretty much all ways? Brilliant work and absolutely worth a try!
Well, a little background first. The first Legend of Zelda game I ever played was Ocarina of Time and it wasn't till I became an adult that I had the opportunity and money to play some of the older games. I was finally successful in beating LoZ 1 (the Nintendo Switch cheat edition with the help of the rewind function), I've beaten A Link to the Past as well and the Link's Awakening NS remake.
I've tried LoZ 2 multiple times and gave up. I've read the plot of the game in the Hyrule Historia and Hyrule Encyclopedia and I think if they remade it and made some Quality of Life changes that wouldn't affect the story (like getting rid of the side scrolling and actually give you hints on where you are supposed to go and/or what you are supposed to do next) I would definitely buy it. It seems like it would be fun.
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