Zelda II
1987 · Action-RPG · NES
Overview
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is a 1987 action role-playing game developed and published by Nintendo. It is the second installment in the Legend of Zelda series, and was released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System on January 14, 1987, less than a year after the Japanese release and seven months before the North American release of the original The Legend of Zelda. Zelda II was released in North America and the PAL region for the Nintendo Entertainment System in late 1988, almost two years after its initial release in Japan.
Deep Dive
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is a 1987 action role-playing game developed and published by Nintendo. It is the second installment in the Legend of Zelda series, and was released in Japan for the Famicom Disk System on January 14, 1987, less than a year after the Japanese release and seven months before the North American release of the original The Legend of Zelda. Zelda II was released in North America and the PAL region for the Nintendo Entertainment System in late 1988, almost two years after its initial release in Japan.
Developer Story
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was designed by Tadashi Sugiyama and Shigeru Miyamoto at Nintendo in 1987. It was a radical departure from the original — a side-scrolling action RPG rather than a top-down adventure. Link gained experience points, levelled up stats, and fought in real-time combat with a specific offensive and defensive stance system. The game's difficulty was notoriously high.
Did You Know?
- Zelda II is the only mainline Zelda game to use experience points and traditional RPG levelling — a design that was never repeated.
- The side-scrolling combat required holding the shield button to defend, then switching to attack — a timing-based system unusual for 1987 Nintendo.
- The game's extreme difficulty — particularly the final dungeon and Ganon's revival threat — made it polarising among Zelda fans.
- Link could learn new spells by visiting towns and meeting specific characters, adding an exploration reward system to the RPG elements.
