/vr/ - Retro Games

>>1596306
Yes, it's very normal. Prepare to die like a bitch, specially in Death Mountain later. Props to you for having balls, being a man and not savescumming.

>>1596310
Also, you might want to overlevel a bit because it really helps early on.

In the swamp there's that battle with infinite birds. If you stay in the edge of the screen in the right spot and keep spamming the attack button, you can kill every bird that spawns. I just fired a turbo controller on that and let it run the entire night and I was max level on everything pretty fast before the second dungeon

Don't read a faq, grab an online scan of the manual instead. These should be easy to find.

Then once you get stuck, read a faq.

Yeah it might be better just to grind early on.

It's much more action-oriented than other games in the series, so being able to beat it mostly boils down to learning how to fight enemies and avoid environmental obstacles. The environmental obstacles will be much more numerous by the time you reach Death Mountain, as there are lava platforms everywhere.

As already mentioned, level grinding will certainly make things easier.

One trick to keep in mind is the jump-thrust attack. When you're fighting Iron Knuckles, jump toward them, then slash while in mid-air just before you hit the ground. Your sword should strike the Knights in their faces. Get the timing right and you'll bypass the Knights' shields.

>>1596314
You never owned it, did you? And you're repeating what you've heard/read others say? It's simply not true.
You would have to press 'start' when the level-up window pops up. Your player character would get the level up screen the first time while you're sleeping then be there still when you wake up.

>>1596310

I heard Death Mountain has lots of boomerang guys and that scares the shit out of me.

>>1596341
No, I actually played it and I discovered this trick by myself back in the day. Now that I checked it, you're right. So my memory's a bit off, but I do remember using a turbo controller to grind on those birds. Maybe I left it doing that and checked out once in a while to press start after a level up. I actually don't know if there's an easier method to level up or anything.

>>1596342
Worse, there's those lizard dudes who throw axes and are even harder than the boomerang guys since you can't defend against them. On top of that it's a goddamn maze of hell.

>>1596331

Yeah I did figure out the jump strategy for Iron Knuckles. They are still pretty difficult though. In general your movements in this game just have to be very precise, your sword doesn't reach very far.

Also, the stalfos in the second palace surprised me. They were really easy in the first, but these new blue ones can both jump and shield their bottom selves, so you cant just duck and hit. And sometimes you come face to face with multiple stalfos at once.

>>1596357
Ah. Apologies for jumping to conclusions then, /vr/other. We all misremember things from time to time. I coulda sworn, for example, that FFV's x-magic/dualcast accessed every spell in the game, up to and including high level ones and summons. Technically, it can, but you'd have to equip it on a mime with two additional magic commands such as time and summon so you can't access all the spells simultaneously with x-magic. If you equip a mime with x-magic, white and black, s/he'd have access to double-cast every white/magic spell in the game and with time and summon instead, they'd be able to double-cast summons and time spells.
But yeah, ya gotta hit start from time to time in AoL if you go the turbo route.

I like hard games but in my opinion this game is too hard. It starts feeling more tedious than fun. The original Zelda was often hard without feeling frustrating and unfair.

Thinking about starting it soon too.

Should I go for the NES or Famicom version? They are apparently very different.

>>1596412

I say just the NES

>>1596373
>FFV is my favorite RPG ever
I know exactly what you're talking about and I actually thought the same thing a while back before checking you can'd do that.

Funny how sometimes we think about something in a game we swear we did but when we check it, it can't be done at all. Happens quite often with me.

>>1596310
Not him but what is savescumming again? I've heard that teen used before

>>1596306

in some ways keeping the keys makes it more difficult, because you have to remember where you left off

>>1596445
playing in an emulator and abusing savestates because you hate dying

It's a great game but putting in a "level up" system was a big mistake, the game didn't need that. Imagine if they didn't use it, they could have designed the game and difficulty in a much more balanced way.

>>1596412

The NES version is mostly an improvement, IMO. The only things I wish they had kept intact were the animated tiles and boss SFX. I'm not even sure why those were cut.

The Famicom version feels a little easier to me. There's also less overall color. The first few palaces use an all-gray palette scheme, and it isn't until mid-way into the game when the palaces start to feature new palettes and tilesets similar to the ones in the English version of the game.

>>1596493
the boss sound effects were produced by the disk system's sound chip. I would guess that the animated tiles are gone because of the loss of the disk system's extra power too.

OP here, actually now the iron knuckles are really easy, you just jump toward them and strike their head and repeat. Still it sucks dying on the boss and having to go all the way back from the start.

>>1596503

They didn't *need* the disk system's power to pull those things off, though. Various Zelda II hacks add the animated tiles back in, and the boss SFX can be done on a different channel.

>>1596504
Good progress anon

>>1596504

The nightmare has only just begun.

>>1596504

Yeah I really think the game should have allowed you to continue from the start of the dungeon instead of the beginning of the game. Or at the very least from the town you were at most recently. AoL's game over system was the biggest problem and why it felt so tedious, especially since the game is very hard and you get game overs very often.

>>1596594
>especially since the game is very hard and you get game overs very often

Not if you practice. It's not that hard to do a no death run through Zelda II, no more than it is with Contra or any other action game.

Games have to punish you're going to have any chance of improving your skills. Starting off right where you left off is actually going to hurt you, because you're just going to get killed by the same things over and over again. It's not about luck. You can't just rush straight into a group of enemies, die, respawn, die, respawn and hope you eventually win for some inexplicable reason. You *have* to learn enemy patterns and change your strategies accordingly.

>>1596604
>It's not that hard to do a no death run through Zelda II, no more than it is with Contra or any other action game.

I think this is false just given the length of the two games. Contra is over in about 20 minutes, if that.

>>1596613
I don't think it's impossible, just difficult.
I've done a no game over screen run of AoL, though.

>>1596604

Yeah but why do you have to start from the beginning? Starting from the start of the dungeon wouldn't really get rid of any of those things

>>1596625
That's what truly kills the game. It's just a retarded waste of time that only makes you wanna drop the game.

i stopped playing because of the boomerage/axe throwers. just too difficult for me, i absolutely could not get the timing down.

>>1596613

Sure, Contra is a short game, but the reason I made the comparison is because it's a similar setup. People struggle with Contra the first time they play it, but a lot of people who have been playing it since their childhood can fly right through the game without losing a single life. It comes down to practice and rote memorization. Zelda II is no different. It's one of my favorite childhood games, so I play through it pretty regularly without losing any lives.

>>1596624
>I've done a no game over screen run of AoL, though.

Such a scary game over screen, though!
It might be the best part of the game. Dat laugh, man...

>>1596687

>>1596412
NES version has better music, better graphics, and a new boss (Gooma). Play that one.

>>1596687
Woff woff woff woff woff!

>>1596645
I had this for the first time in a while recently

I've been playing Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu on my NES, it's a simple and quite short game which meant I was able to easily chart my improvement.

I went from getting Game Overs on the first level to breezing all the way through to the last level without losing a life and barely taking a hit. All through remembering levels and enemy behaviour

Felt so fucking good

I always wonder what they're thinking when they design/playtest it. Are they like "yeah it needs to be harder, much harder"?

>>1596851

Downsword is the best attack from any video game ever.

The moment you get it after all the painful bullshit in death mountain feels absolutely glorious, and it is so fucking satisfying just pogoing over enemies and hammering that blade into their skulls.

Fucking love this game. Is Faxanadu as good?

>>1596859
can you do THIS?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvl5OzuOJZM

>>1596851
Well, cartridges had very few memory back then, so they made the games harder so you could get more gameplay hours out of them

>>1596858

Yeah, this tends to happens. I guess the devs will often test play their own games to avoid budgeting too much for actual test players off the street.

That, and I think it was one way to make sure players got a bang for their buck. Older games were usually pretty short, and things like sidequests were uncommon outside of CRPGs. By pumping up the difficulty and requiring players to spend a lot of time developing their skills, the developers could ensure these games weren't over too quickly.

>>1596858

Did most people in the production really end up playing it? I mean it's hard to believe the people who programmed the game played it all the time, that's usually for the testers and stuff. And I'm not sure if Shiggy even played the games much.

What I find strange is how people find Death Mountain so hard. I found it not hard at all. Most parts in the rest of the game are a lot harder.

>>1596889
Game production then is not the same as game production now.

Now games are so big that you -need- a dedicated team to find bugs and playtest it. Back then think about it.

Would Simon's Quest been as cryptic if they got player input on it? Probably not. Consider the fact that the dudes who made the game are testing it.

They know what to do.
They know where to go.
They know whats good against what, what boss patterns are, etc.

So they play the game, casually or whatever and see if the game -works- then move on to whatever is next.

Games now are far too complex and far too big budgeted for the developers to test and code it themselves. Of course a lot of indie titles probably do it that way.

>>1597056

Yeah, it is pretty cool if you think about it. Must be hard if you're a developer to truly know if something is too cryptic or not, since you know it so well.

>>1597146
I'm working through Alundra right now.
It teeters on ridiculous.
I know how to do the puzzles conceptually, but its actually quite execution heavy as well. Jumps that feel pixel perfect, a massive plethora of timed puzzles, or trial and error bullshit. Theres also a lot of fuck up one part and you need to reset the whole thing.

That being said I think its pretty good, but man, parts are frusterating as hell.

>>1597156
Frustrations aside, I like the Discworld -silliness ×His.Dark.Materials concept. Prayer and belief brings things to life and/or gives them power + parallel existences = pretty nifty idea.
But yeah: it's frustrating. And I detest the lack of open exploration.

I think AoL should have let you start out with 5 lives. Or at the very least, they could have allowed Link dolls to permanently increase your life count. 3 just isnt enough. When you come across a new enemy you are sure to die once because you don't know how to beat it exactly and you die quick, and having to start from the beginning is horseshit

>>1597227
At least you can restart at the beginning of the Great Palace if you die. Having to go through the area before it after each game over would be terrible.

>>1596373
>>1596357
You were probably using an NES advantage and had "Slow Motion" on too, which just spams the start button.

>>1596306
>but I'm at the second palace and I have probably gotten around 20 game overs already. Is this normal when just starting to play?

Yes. Think of your death as inevitable. You have three lives. You need to "spend" them wisely. You need to accomplish SOMETHING. You have to be smart. Are you going to go for the easy upgrade, or are you going to risk going for the more expensive one but at the risk of dying (thus wiping out your exp?).

>>1597383
Oh god, yes, it's that. I remember it now. It wasn't an NES advantage, but some shitty chinese or whatever knock off turbo controller that had the slow motion function as well.

I let that turning on during the night. During the day I'd do the same thing without the slow-mo and would check it once in a while to press start because it leveled up faster like this.

Back when beating a Zelda game actually made you feel like a hero...

>>1596331
>When you're fighting Iron Knuckles, jump toward them, then slash while in mid-air just before you hit the ground

Is that considered a glitch/exploit, or fair?

And man, those blue Iron Knuckles....jesus.

I always thought it was bullshit how the bosses could go off the screen to avoid getting hit. It's not like you can do that.

>>1597513

Good question. I guess you're exploiting a gap in the mechanics, but I wouldn't consider it cheating. Remember that official strategy / player's guides would often detail these findings for players, so I suppose they're "condoned."

>>1597513
>And man, those blue Iron Knuckles....jesus.

you can try and get 'em with a jackhammer

it's a little tricky, easier if they're in a hallway

here's what I mean

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLsZix7bloY#t=0h36m25s

>>1597541
shitballs, apparently embedding the link doesn't skip to the timecode, either copy paste it or just go to 36:25 to see what I mean

zelda 2 is sort of a gatekeeper between 'easy' and 'hard games'

Most players new to NES games gravitate towards it because its a familiar title and surprised by the difficult and think they found a really hard game.

Zelda 2 is not a difficult game at all, at least not until the final dungeon. Once you get the heal spell the amount of damage you can take before dying makes the game way too forgiving. You can also cheese your way through 80% of the game just by grinding up your stats.

Tons of hit points and being able to win by grinding doesn't make a game difficult.

>>1597513
its 'fair' if you discovered it yourself
If you just watched a video that told you the easy way to kill the enemy than you could consider it a form of cheating.

its the same thing as looking up the solution to a puzzle or finding were extra heart pieces are located

>>1597541

heh thats really cool. almost feels too cheap though....its hard to get a hit on them since they keep throwing their little daggers and there's hardly any breathing time in between throws

>>1597545
The only reason the final dungeon is even hard is because if you go the wrong way, you'll never have enough magic to use fairy twice to get back.

>>1597545

I honestly do think it is pretty difficult, I mean nobody really likes to grind. The game definitely isn't a breeze.

>>1596520
Care to link to these hacks?

>>1597636
There are magic bottles all over the Great Palace. It's been a while since I have played, but I don't remember needing the fairy spell for it.

>>1597549
I wouldn't say those are equivalent. Knowing the solution is one thing, but executing it is another. In a puzzle game, if you know the solution, the execution is simple, as it's just following steps. In a fast-paced action game, you have to have the finger speed to execute and get the timings right. I'm sure a lot of people found out about the trick to beat the Iron Knuckles, and proceeded to get their shit pushed in anyway because they couldn't get the timing right at first.

The game is at it's best when you play it skillfully, by scrupulously playing to the advantage of the ATK - MAG - DEF system.

Go ATK - ATK - ATK - by this point you'll be at Boss 1 if you do it right. Save the boss 1 auto lv up till later by jumping over the statue after you beat him. (Then go to Saria and get LIFE if you need it, which you most likely will) - ATK - At this point the level will be too high to pursue so level your MAG as much as you need and save the rest of your ATK stat for post boss lv-ing (after you go back to the first dungeon).

Do that and you'll be a pro-Zelda II player in the making in no time.

>>1596306
op there are all these tricks people are talking about but i beat this last year without knowing any of this shit, you just have to practice fighting the enemies. remember you're always defending high, and if you crouch you're defending low. eventually you'll beat it if you keep trying. very satisfying when you do!

>>1597751

Man that's some complex stuff . I always just take the next upgrade, I figure that's a decent way to play

Since this discussion has kind of run its course anyway, can we discuss this obvious Zelda II clone? I haven't seen it brought up on /vr/ before, so I'm curious if any fans of Zelda II also play Battle of Olympus on occasion.

>>1597545

Maybe its not intensely hard but I think it might be the best designed challenging game ever. I mean when you consider all the retro zeldas and marios and metroids adventure of link stands out as the most difficult and also perhaps the best.

>>1598368
In the original JP you're expected to beat the game without dieing, or continue and change your MO due to the stat reset when you Game Over. However as you get into the higher level dungeons it isn't difficult to quickly lv your way up because exp comes in larger waves.
That's why the final dungeon is also the easiest in the game to complete if you know the direct way to the boss. So that in case you're going in underleveled, you still have a fighting chance to beat the game.

It is i-n-g-e-n-i-o-u-s. That's JP > NA

Souls series has got nothing on AoL.

>>1599083

Does AoL expect you to grind at all? I have a tendency to avoid enemies in any game if I find them too fearsome but that may be counter-intuitive. The Eastern region of Hyrule is far more difficult than the West.

>>1598848
"best designed challenging game ever"
hardly. You could probably name a dozens shmups or platformers that are overall more well thought out and more fluid.

The trouble with zelda 2's difficulty is that it is very uneven. The iron knuckle (and its many clones) are by far the most difficult part of the game. All the other enemies are easily beaten, even the bosses arn't too much trouble once you know their pattern. Once you get good at fighting the iron knuckles the game's difficulty goes down. I think they should have lowered the iron knuckles health and made the other aspects of the game more challenging in exchange. Its boring for good players and frustrating for bad players to have all the challenge contained in just 1 enemy.

The other major flaw with zelda 2 is the adventuring stinks. Theres almost no puzzles at all. Most of the items you find arn't used for much interesting.

Zelda 2 is an interesting game because mechanically its very unique: there arn't many side scrollers that put so much emphasis on high-low blocking.

>>1598693
>FIRST! THERE WAS LEGEND OF ZELDA!
>THEN! THERE WAS ADVENTURE OF LINK!
>NOW! THERE'S BATTLE OF OLYMPUS!!!
This commercial aired in the US in the late 80s.
There was also one featuring Guardian Legend which was otherwise identical to the BoO one.

>FIRST! THERE WAS LEGEND OF ZELDA!
>THEN! THERE WAS ADVENTURE OF LINK!
>NOW! THERE'S GUARDIAN LEGEND!!!

I owned all four of the games mentioned in this post and never considered BoO a clone of AoL. Is Superman a clone of AoL, too?

>>1599628
Also, I bring up and see others bring up BoO fairly often. It's a well-liked games amongst the /vr/ethren.

>>1599630
*among

There's no -st in among. There's literally no reason to suffix additional letters to it. It just makes you look like some backward dipshit.

>>1599559

I like the fact that it has no puzzles. Zelda 1 didn't really have any puzzles either. Really the tough combat feels more intellectual to me than silly puzzles like pushing some blocks around that, let's be honest, are rather simply and elementary. Tough combat that has a high emphasis on movement/blocking/positioning is a lot more demanding on the brain than a polite puzzle in my opinion.

>>1599689
>only my variant of English is correct
You're the one who seems backwards, Anon. Perhaps you'd realise that there are more than a few standardisations of the language had you paid attention enough to have learnt something in school.

>>1597541
People actually just watch assholes play like that? Holy fuck that's boring.

I'd be like "Hey meathead, pass the controller, other people want a turn."

>>1600357
You're doing it WRONG you imbecile, you're supposed to watch the guy show and explain every time saving trick then try to do a better time than his in your own run.
It's called competition.

>>1600363
Why am I competing with him? It isn't multiplayer. I just wanna play the game, ya meathead.

Any tips for someone who will be playing the game for the first time? (Will be playing it on my 3DS due to ambassador status.)

>>1600371
It's a speedrun you dumbfuck.
You run the game as fast as you can to show off on the internet.

>>1597541
I figured something like that out when I was a kid.

Hold down, then while holding, jump and hit B, hits maybe 60% of the time and doesn't require the downslash (though having it seems to improve the odds of landing a hit).

>>1600383
Speed runs! Speed runs! We've got Speed Runs here! See, nobody cares.

i find it funny how people say modern zelda has too many barriers to prevent you from the whole world until you get an item, but AoL is the definition of that. You can't proceed to the next palace/area until you get the item from the palace before

>>1600418
Yeah, but Zelda 2 has great action to make up for that. No other Zelda comes close in that regard.

>>1600396
Nice hat.

I finished the game for the first time last week.
That fucking trek to the Grand Palace, man. Shit's brutal.
That second last boss you fight was a pushover though. Once I cast Reflect and Shield, I pretty much just stood still in the centre of the room and pretty much never got hit.

>>1600443
I'd argue it's not that great. At least not to make up for the stifling exploration.

Zelda 1 was really cool in that regard. You just did stuff how you wanted to, for the most part.

While I have been on many trips, I have been chipping away at this game, and so far, I have gotten past the ocean where you need a raft[\spoiler] and so far, it's been a pretty good experience. I barely play Zelda games though. I have beaten OOT though, but not Majora's Mask, which is undoubtedly one of my favorite Legend of Zelda games right next to Wind Waker[\spoiler]

>>1600418
Every single game does that except for the very first one.
I love the first Zelda but people complaining about it nowadays are looking back at something that existed for only a brief time and basically required a guide of some kind to beat.

>>1603369
Can't we drop this "you need a guide to beat Zelda 1"? The official manual is enough, and even without that it would just take a slightly longer.

>>1603739

I agree with this, all I had was the ENCLOSED INSTRUCTION MANUAL and that was all you needed because it pretty much set you up for the first 3 dungeons and had a map that marked possible secret areas in sections so you knew there was either a bush to burn or a rock to push.

>>1603739
:Grumble Grumble:

>>1605778
What, you never heard the expression "My stomach is grumbling"?

>>1605778
the bait is clearly described in the manual. and why wouldn't you buy it to find out what it does?

you buy it, walk into that room, and boom. mystery solved

>>1598368
You should really try mixing up the order of the upgrades. It really changes the dynamic of the early part of the game, especially the parts that people always complain about.

zelda ii is a 10/10

I asked this in another thread but I'll ask this here.

Was Zelda II the first game where whores could replenish your energy?

>>1599775
The puzzles Zelda 1 did have were good though, places where fairies aren't?

>>1603369
That's bullshit. OoT and LttP allowed for tons of weird orders of completing their main quests, while MM has most of its content as optional quests.