Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is commonly considered a black sheep of the Zelda series, due to it being a full sidescroller, featuring many RPG-style elements, and having a greatly increased difficulty by comparison with the rest of the series. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a very successful game.

Sub-Pages#

Prerelease Info Unused AreasSome unused areas. Enemy GroupsRemains of enemy groups. Regional DifferencesThere's a whole lot to cover.

Unused Items#

Unused Treasure Bag (20 points)#

The item 09 is an unused treasure bag containing 20 points, but not having a precise graphic, because it is defined on the first of the bank graphic which is the top part of Link. However, it uses the same color palette as the classic treasure bag.

Unused Graphics#

Palace Windows#

Maze Palace	Hidden Palace

Every palace has unique graphics for windows, but the fourth (Maze Palace) and sixth (Hidden Palace) palaces don't actually have any windows, rendering their window graphics ordinarily unused. It is still possible to see them through a glitch involving the Fairy spell which makes the game load Parapa Palace's layout with the graphics of another palace.

Spikes#

Spikes exist for every palace. Zelda II has a bunch of hazards, but spikes are not among them.

Broken Wall#

Unused "broken wall" tiles which were never adapted to the added palace graphics of the American release. Unsure what this was meant to be for.

Developer Oversights#

Leevers#

There are Leevers in a desert that are placed too low to appear on the surface of the sand. It is possible to defeat them with spells or down attack.

In the Game Boy Advance version, the Leevers are slightly visible above the sand.

Default Filename#

At address $1712 (FDS)/$2993 (NES), there is a string which reads "ICHILINK...   × ". While this string is used for the lives screen, the name "IchiLink" is always overwritten (quite literally) by the player's filename. Incidentally, filenames which have less than 8 characters are padded with space characters ($F4), ensuring they're always exactly 8 characters long.

Post-NES Rereleases#

To do: Check which revisions the 3DS VC versions use, and have a look at the Japanese GBA version.

Zelda II was re-released for the GameCube in 2003, the Game Boy Advance in 2004, the Wii Virtual Console in 2007, and the 3DS Virtual Console in 2012, some with a few minor changes. Though the American/European/Australian Wii release is straight from the NES version, the Japanese Wii release seems to be based on the Japanese GBA version, so it features some parts of the disk and cartridge plus things like the new 2003 script. Like with the first game, the American 3DS release seems to be based on the original NES version.

The American Wii U release also reverts to the original, despite the Wii U version of the first game maintaining the 2003 changes.

Intro#

The new GCN and GBA versions tried to fix up the grammar again, though being based on the NES version, there's still no mention of the different Zeldas; the copyright date was updated as well, of course. The GBA version updates the copyright again to 1987-2004, but the copyright date was reverted back in the Switch version to 1987. As previously mentioned, the American/European/Australian Wii release is pretty much the NES release, while the Japanese Wii release seems to be derived from the previous Japanese GBA version.

Game Over / Save Option Menu#

NES	GameCube / Switch

Emulated releases, such as the GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Switch versions remove the warning text due to it being unnecessary on these systems. This mirrors a similar change done with emulated re-releases for The Legend of Zelda. The 3DS Virtual Console version still has the warning text.

To do: What about the Wii and Wii U VC versions? Should a screenshot of the GBA version be uploaded too, even though it's the same thing but squished?

Screen Flashing#

When losing a life in the FDS and NES versions, the screen flashes rapidly with a rainbow of colors, potentially causing seizures. In the updated versions, the screen just flashes between similar shades of red.

Disassembled Code#

The 3DS Japanese Virtual Console release of Zelda II has some unused disassembled 6502 assembly code written in comments in "linkA.tds.patch" that relate to the changes made to adapt to the Virtual Console's automatic swapping of FDS game disk sides when necessary.

00:8452:AD 32 40  LDA $4032 = #$FF
00:8455:4A        LSR
00:8456:B0 EA     BCS $8442 -> 90 EA    BCC $8442
00:8458:60        RTS
00:8459:AD 32 40  LDA $4032 = #$FF
00:845C:4A        LSR
00:845D:90 E3     BCC $8442
00:845F:60        RTS
00:8460:AD 32 40  LDA $4032 = #$FF
00:8463:4A        LSR
00:8464:B0 07     BCS $846D
00:8466:60        RTS
00:8467:AD 32 40  LDA $4032 = #$FF
00:846A:4A        LSR
00:846B:B0 03     BCS $8470
00:846D:EE 3D 07  INC $073D = #$02
00:8470:60        RTS

PAUSE Text#

The 2003 version added a black "PAUSE" box, nowhere to be found in the original FDS and NES versions.

References#