Adventure of Link Why Do You Play It?

[Gedmud]

This is an opinion thread. I'm not here to tell you yours is wrong, I'd just like to know why you play this game.
If your answer is simply, "I like the challenge" I'd ask that you refrain. What I'm looking for is for people to share their ideas or thoughts on why this game is fun.

Let me explain how I feel:

This game is bad. (Don't forget, that is not a fact but simply how I feel.) It is way too hard. The over world is terrible, the combat is terrible, the leveling system is terrible. The overall experience just ins't positive. Before you reply saying, "It is only too hard because you aren't skilled enough." I'll put it this way, The Water Temple in OOT is hard, The Lakebed Temple in TP is hard, City in the Sky is hard, the list goes on. We play through dungeons and we get stuck, but because Zelda games are built around puzzles, we solve them and move on. Adventure of Link is just one big grind. It's a hard game not because the puzzles stump you, but because the enemies in the game are so tedious and annoying and powerful that you die before you make the progress you need. I won't elaborate on the over world, if you liked it feel free to explain why.

Now, I welcome your rebuttle. I grew up after the time of the NES and haven't compared the difficulty of AoL to any other NES games besides LoZ. I've played The Legend of Zelda and found it to be a much more enjoyable experience than Adventure of Link.

Your thoughts?

 

[TheSageOfPaper]

Simply because it's an official, Nintendo-made Zelda game. In order to be an actual Zelda fanboy, you have to give each game a chance, no matter how bad it is. And besides, I like the challenge.

 

[dazzsheil]

AoL is the Best Zelda Ever.'Nuff said

 

[Ventus]

I play AoL because it's awesome and BECAUSE of the leveling system. It's great IMO, and something Nintendo should've tried to emulate in recent titles such as Skyward Sword.

 

[MW7]

I play AoL because it's awesome and BECAUSE of the leveling system. It's great IMO, and something Nintendo should've tried to emulate in recent titles such as Skyward Sword.

No right or wrong answer, but do you view the fact that getting game over resets the experience points as a positive because it makes the game harder or a negative because it seems unintuitive that progress could just get erased like that? I always was a little bothered by it but probably only because I was dying so much.

I would definitely agree with the OP in the regard that I highly prefer difficulty derived from puzzles rather than combat. I mean if offerred the choice between Oracle of Ages and Adventure of Link I'd pick the former. However, clearly Adventure of Link has an audience and therefore it's only "too hard" from a certain perspective (no offense to you because you even know you are just stating opinions as am I). Also my favorite aspects of Adventure of Link are the overworld and combat probably because the overworld has the awesome town system (would be ridiculously cool to have in a modern Zelda) and the combat is one of the few in the series (along with Skyward Sword) in which how you swing the sword actually matters.

 

[dazzsheil]

I also play it cause I kick-A** at it

 

[Ventus]

No right or wrong answer, but do you view the fact that getting game over resets the experience points as a positive because it makes the game harder or a negative because it seems unintuitive that progress could just get erased like that?
[...]
if offered the choice between Oracle of Ages and Adventure of Link I'd pick the former.
However, clearly Adventure of Link has an audience and therefore it's only "too hard" from a certain perspective

It's actually a little of both. You know how dying at level 1 isn't all that bad, because the experience to gain is very minimal? There's that side of it, but then there's also the "I got so far then my save was corrupted" side of it. So, it's a positive in the the early stages, a HUGE negative in the later stages of the game.

It may seem a little contradictory (somehow), but I do agree that I'd pick OoA over AoL difficulty wise. I loved the puzzles OoA presented, no matter how mindboggling hard they could get at times. However, teh same goes with the enemy ability of AoL. Sure, I'll encounter several (and by several, I do mean over 9000) tight spots but they aren't IMPOSSIBLE to escape and that's partly where the beauty comes from.

That's definitely true. I believe the game is a bit too hard, but then again it isn't UNPLAYABLE. It's very playable and just takes patience.

 

[Heriod77777]

I like AoL, I haven't got the chance to play it and I haven't got it on a system. It seems to be the 'ULTIMATE ZELDA CHALLENGE', it has good combat. You aren't thinking clearly, if a enemy attacks high block high, if they block high attack low.

 

[Gedmud]

Thank you to all who have posted so far, I have enjoyed reading your opinions.

 

[fused_shadows]

I bought AoL a while ago on the VC in an effort to acquire every zelda game. I put off playing it because of other games I wanted to play first, including OoT, LA, and MC. After I had played through and so much enjoyed a lot of the games, I looked at a list in my head of the game I had not played yet, and they were Zelda 2, and MM. I put off playing them for no apparent reason. I had heard Zelda 2 was insanely hard, and would be very frustating. I didn't want to play it because of that.

One day, I turned on my Wii to see what game was currently inserted, and it was Just Dance 3 (My sisters never stop playing it!). I didnt wan tto play that, so I decided to change the game. Unfortunately I had sat down already, and was too lazy to get up again . I was looking around and saw Zelda 2 on my Wii Menu. I decided to give it a chance.

Sure, it is hard, but realisticly that is why it's such an incredible game. The level system allows for every playthrough to be different from a playthrough by the same player. They could try to go through the game with a level 1 sword, or level 1 life. It allows variables, where as games like OoT, Tp, WW, all have a linear gamestyle. i.e. if two players were asked to play Zelda 2 individually on tv screens beside each other, each game would be totally unique. If the same two players were asked to play OoT without collecting any side-quest items or Pieces of Heart, the games were playout exactly the same. That is one thing I like about Zelda 2; it adds individuality.

Yes it is true seeing that "GAME OVER. RETURN OF GANON" screen will frustate you quite abit. For me however, seeing that screen gives me motivation to continue on. Everytime that Darknut gets the better of me I come right back and kick his ***. It is frustating, but can be motivating if you enjoy it.

The original creator of the thread stated something along the lines that the controls are horrible. I disagree. It is a challenging game that you can only be good at by learning. I always used to die against Darknuts, so I decided to try and get better a found an area that had a Darknut there, and just continued entering and re-entering in order to learn how to beat them. This game is about strategy and determination.

There's nothing wrong with you not liking this game. I get; I didn't like it either at first. If you try playing it and keep focused on playing it and observing the enemies, it will become a lot more of a fun video game than an annoying video game.

 

[Ronin]

I like viewing it more as Nintendo simply experimenting while sticking to the original formula. Adventure of Link appeared to be taken after Mario's playstyle, at least on the sidescrolling end. They thought mixing their number one hero at the time with this franchise would improve it, but in actuality it removed much of the immersion and enjoyment, making the game much too hard for casual fans, like myself. Even the regular overworld stunk by itself, because there was nothing you could really explore, opposing to what Zelda 1 brought us.

Again, Nintendo was just trying something new for this relatively new series. I'm just glad they realized sidescrolling didn't cohabit well with the "official" formula and put it to more use other than that. Besides, not to say AoL is a bad game, but there are even worse titles out there. *cough*CD-i*cough*

 

[TrueChaos]

i got the GC Colleectors Edition disk that had LoZ, AoL, OoT and MM. I had the game so may as well give it a go. never finished it

 

[Mik]

It´s a great game, what more can I say? I play it because I enjoy it. And maby because it is so hard. The water temple, for example, is not HARD, it´s complicated. Sure it takes time to beat (especially the first time...) but it doesn´t kill you much. And it´s boss is too easy... Of course, if I could play just ONE Zelda-game, I´d go for Oot, but gladly I can play them all. And just now I´m having a blast going through AoL!

 

[Big Octo]

I play it because I love the content.

First to say, there's the advanced combat system. The side-scrolling gameplay contributed to the overall experience. I guess you can say that this is what made the game 'hard.' However, the difficulty of the game is also what makes it amazing. I don't think that the "not enough puzzles/no puzzle difficulty" argument is holding much weight, as it would be the same case for the original game, which also lacked interactive puzzles, and was also combat-oriented. With AoL's perfect formula of combat, this made me keep coming back for more, if I somehow managed to put down the controller.

The experience system? I loved that, too. IMO, experience doesn't automatically turn a game into an RPG, it actually spices up a game. Furthermore, I liked how it demonstrates that Link is actually getting stronger with each foe that he defeats, being able to deal more damage or take more hits. Along with experience points, the magic system was introduced to, anditngoes without saying that this was a major contribution to the series.

I loved both the overworld and dungeons. Hyrule was represented as a large kingdom, spanning multiple islands. Also, there are more towns in AoL than any other game. This brought the feel of actually being in a dominating land, rather than an expansive wilderness with only a Capital and one village. Going under, I thuroughly enjoyed the palaces. They enhanced combat, and brought even more challenge to the game. Sure, it can be hard to beat just the first one, but with much skill, one can navigate his/her way through a labyrinth of foes. Also, the unique bosses were the icing on the cake, never disappointed.

I'd also like to mind others that this is the second game in the series; there was no preset standard for what a Zelda game should be like, so Nintendo could do anything. They could've made it terrible, but I believe that what they did with AoL was just right. It makes my top 5, and is an enigma of a game.

 

[Gedmud]

Awesome guys! Your opinions have been enlightening, which is what I was hoping for.