Big Duel in 1986

In 1986, two major Nintendo titles rocked the gaming world: The Legend of Zelda: The Hyrule Fantasy and Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels. Sadly, Lost Levels only rocked Japan. Everyone other than the Japanese were stuck with The Legend of Zelda. Yes, that is a bad thing. A very bad thing. Nintendo was under the misconception that Lost Levels was too challenging. They thought gamers in the NES era were not used to challenging games? Yet they are completely okay with an unfair game that was made for the sole purpose of laughing in gamers' faces? Lost Levels is the highlight of 2D Mario platforming games. Everything people liked about the original was copied onto it, except it now had beautiful backgrounds and tricky levels rather than corny backgrounds and rehashed levels. The songs are annoying to me, but they go great with the game's frustrating obstacle courses. The game is usually fair; cheap deaths caused by disappearing platforms and random enemies do not happen very often, and it is satisfying to make progress in.

The Legend of Zelda: The Hyrule Fantasy I find to be intolerable. It blows my mind how many people give it excessive praise and perfect scores in their reviews. The graphics are okay, the music is fine, there does not seem to be any glitches, but the gameplay is no fun. At all. Along with being a very slow walker, the heroic Link is incapable of jumping and walking diagonally. Also, he starts with a very small health meter and a high-tech but useless map. And this is definitely a bad time to be lacking in good survival conditions, because in this game, the once prosperous kingdom of Hyrule has been turned into a deadly war zone. There are groups of enemies everywhere you turn, and you have nothing but a wooden sword to stave them off with while you search for a dungeon that the game does not help you find at all. In fact, the game tries to trick you into thinking that the location of the next dungeon is really an area for later in the game. There is no telling which walls you can bomb or even walk through. This is one of those games where you have to use a guide. Guides take the fun out of games! The bosses were the last chance this game had to impress me, but they were pathetic. They even get rehashed later. At least the developers knew their place as minibosses in the later dungeons.

I really found Link to be a very respectable character. He is practically the symbol of heroism, always going new places to help other people, face dangers, and vanquish threats. Nintendo did not seem to find those to be favorable character qualities, which is why they tortured him in this game. The game has a pretty sad attempt at puzzles, they are either pathetic or so obscure, you have to use a guide (unless you are crazy). For some of the puzzles, (this happens more than once!) all you have to do is push a block. It seems they focused a lot more on battle. The body count in this game is so high, saying this game is a precursor to the controversial M and AO games of today is quite plausible. Sure, there is no blood, but the game often requires you to eliminate enemies in order to progress through a dungeon, and genocide is your main method of collecting money, items, and health. In Lost Levels, you generally avoid enemies most of the time, only stomping on one if you need a boost or they are completely in your way. You can only take one item from each cave (huh?) For the final punch in the face, the game felt the need to count your game overs! Ouch! This is supposed to create the illusion that you are improving quickly, but it is just there to encourage others to laugh at you. And in reality, the game gets easier as you progress. Your life meter will drastically increase, and you will have all sorts of weapons and items to plow through dungeons with. If you collect a fairy, you will fully recover from all of your damage. The game is a mix of elements that are too easy or too hard. The difficulty balancing is a mess. This is your money, do not spend it on The Legend of Zelda.