Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is quite different from most of the early games in the Legend of Zelda series. It combines an overworld view with side-scrolling platform stages. In addition, the character can gain experience and levels, visit towns, and earn spells and items which are needed to proceed.

Instead of aiming purely for speed, Arc and Inzult take a more comfortable journey through Hyrule in this movie, collecting every item, visiting every palace, and more along the way. Don't confuse "comfortable" with "slow" however, as the authors' extensive understanding of the game (seriously, check out the submission notes!) helps Link finish his quest at top speed.

If you'd like to watch a movie focusing entirely on speed, check out the authors' any% run: [4367] NES Zelda II: The Adventure of Link by Arc & Inzult in 34:58.74

PHOTOSENSITIVITY WARNING: Many moments in this game contain intense flashing lights, including during boss fights and whenever the player dies. This may cause epileptic seizures to those affected.

You can watch the complete run being played back on a console.

Here is a warpless run of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1988), which introduced RPG elements and a side-scrolling view instead of the traditional Zelda overhead view. An evil magician has cast a sleep spell on Princess Zelda. Link must place 6 crystals in palaces throughout Hyrule in order to release the binding force that protects the Triforce of Courage hidden in the Great Palace.

This movie is an improvement of 00:09.32 seconds compared to the previous run. Most of the new time saved is from getting almost impossible fairy spawns at overworld traps. Please read the authors' comments for details.

This movie avoids using the extremely gamebreaking hyperspeed and scroll-lock glitches seen in the warp glitch branch. This movie also avoids all of the minorly gamebreaking wrong warps in order to significantly increase the technical skill required to create the movie; we also have a movie which does use these "glitched warps," which allows a rather different route through the game.

This movie was a part of a two-hour Zelda II TAS showcase with audio commentary by Arc, Inzult, Jackimus, Mithical9, and Feasel.

PHOTOSENSITIVITY WARNING: Many moments in this game contain intense flashing lights, including during boss fights and whenever the player dies. This may cause epileptic seizures to those affected.

You can watch the complete run being played back on a console.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is quite different from most of the early games in the Legend of Zelda series. It combines an overworld view with side-scrolling platform stages. In addition, the character can gain experience and levels, visit towns, and earn spells and items which are needed to proceed.

However, the game also has a large glitch which produces massive speed when both Left and Right are pressed at the same time; due to the use of this and other glitches, most of this run features Link racing across Hyrule so fast that the screen can't keep up, and inexplicably warping between places that shouldn't be connected. Only a few items and one spell are collected, and the only enemy ever fought is the final boss. Luckily, he takes the same amount of damage no matter what level attack you have.

In this run, EZGames69 improves on the previous efforts by 0.03 seconds (2 frames), thanks to an earlier first hit in fight against Dark Link.

We also have a run that completes the six palaces without using the Left + Right glitch to turn the game into a barely comprehensible mess (but does allow the use of glitched warps) and another run that disallows both the Left + Right glitch and the use of glitched warps.

PHOTOSENSITIVITY WARNING: Many moments in this game contain intense flashing lights, including during boss fights and whenever the player dies. This may cause epileptic seizures to those affected.

You can watch the complete run being played back on a console.