Adventure of Link Do You Think Zelda II Would Have Been Better if the Whole Game Was Side Scrolling?

[LinkIsCool]

Do you think Zelda II would have been better if the whole game was a side scrolling adventure and had a map, instead of how it was originally made?

 

[Salem]

If it gave us a map, then probably.

 

[snakeoiltanker]

Other than figuring out how to get from town to town, or palace to palace, yeah it would have been good as a 2D game, maybe portals at the end of each area, letting you go where ever you want, would fix that issue though

 

[CraptainFalcon]

I liked the way they did it.

 

[Dragoncat]

Wasn't it already all sidescrolling?

 

[Terminus]

What would have made it better:

• 100% Top-Down Gamepla, a la Zelda I
• Less RPG experimentation
• Better mechanics, i.e. no forcing a restart if you die too often

 

[Big Octo]

I actually prefer the top-down overworld. Even with a map, it would still be difficult to navigate. It would have likely been in the style of having a branching path that the player can see in the background that could be accessed by pressing up on the D-pad. I've found that format to be confusing, and, as I said, is hardly facilitated with a map. The top-down perspective of the overworld simply made removed any potential problems that would arise from going full, so I'm glad that kept it how it is.

 

[LinkIsCool]

Wasn't it already all sidescrolling?

Only in certain parts (ex: when you enter a palace/dungeon, when monsters show up on the overworld and if they touch you then it takes you to a side scrolling screen. The rest is a top down view, but not exactly how it was in the original Legend of Zelda)

 

[Curmudgeon]

Try Battle of Olympus for the NES. It's similar to Zelda II but is entirely side scrolling.

The game would have been a lot more like death mountain all around. Castlevania II also took a similar approach.

 

[misskitten]

I like side-scrolling, but the problem with Zelda II was its impossible difficulty setting and the return to start at a game over. I don't mind difficult, I don't mind dying, but when you can barely reach the first dungeon before you're killed (if that), then nope, not liking it.

 

[Curmudgeon]

I don't mind difficult, I don't mind dying, but when you can barely reach the first dungeon before you're killed (if that), then nope, not liking it.

I've made this brief video to dispel the hyperbole surrounding this misconception.

[video=youtube_share;rHb9OUwq9P0]http://youtu.be/rHb9OUwq9P0[/video]

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

nah,i think it was handled pretty well
[though if i had to be honest....im getting a little sick of side-scrollers]

 

[NESpowerhouse]

If the whole game was a sidescroller, it would lose its exploration element.

 

[Curmudgeon]

If the whole game was a sidescroller, it would lose its exploration element.

More precicely, it would lose its JRPG-esque exploration element. The original Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy did basically the same thing, though Zelda II was more like the latter in that it used the overworld to create the illusion of open space, disgusing the fact that you were actually quite boxed in.

Games like Catlevania II, Battle of Olympus, Legacy of the Wizard, Air Fortress, Blaster Master, Faxanadu, and parts of Kid Icarus all had side-scrolling exploration that was quite rewarding (excepting Castlevania II, which i feel was a poorly executed nightmare).

In the end, I think Nintendo kept the RPG exploration because it already had a semi-open world pure side-scroller. Metroid.

 

[basement24]

Changing an element to make it 'better' would imply that the game needed fixing to begin with! But them, I'm a die-hard AoL fan as it was the first Zelda game I owned, and the only one I owned until OoT came out...

But my AoL bias aside, I think removing the overworld map would make the game feel a lot more claustrophobic. I still feel, in all it's 8-bit vagueness, that the overworld in AoL is the most expansive Zelda overworld. Hyrule feels HUGE, especially when you come across the even smaller version of the first games' map tucked in the south-west corner. Yes, the whole thing is really just consisting of basic field, forest, and mountain tiles, but it still feels like a massive world.

Finding the hidden side-scrolling trigger points on the map is truly some of the great secret-questing in Zelda games. Try playing without a walkthrough and go looking for heart containers or 1ups. But then, I come from an age where your companion to the game was a notepad of villager dialogue and graph paper maps.

People complain of too much hand-holding in Zelda now, but harp on AoL for being too hard or weird. The overworld may be daunting, but it doesn't make the game bad. I always argue that the game is only as bad as the amount of time you don't feel you need to put into it.