Zelda 2: AoL Nes

[kestegs]

Got a little burned out on D2 today so I fired up the emulator. (I do have the hard copy of this game, but prefer it on the Comp)

Haven't played it in about a year, but I thought I would start off with a challenge I had never done before: The dreaded single stat challenge! I actually have done an only Attack challenge (not leveling up magic or life) and it was tough but do-able. This one will be only Life. That means I will have to Punk thunderbird 96 times to bring him down, and I think I have to hit the mounted Ironknuckles 48 times each. This should be a good challenge!

I am just now entering the 3rd castle and my stats are maxed at 1-1-8, this is where the real challenge begins, the first two castles were easy and the hammer as well.

Hope this is interesting to some people, I'll give some updates on my progress as it goes, And maybe even some screenshots.

[Technomancer]

:shocked:

I could see Attack only (I guess!), but dear god!! What are you doing man?!!!

[kestegs]

3rd castle was pretty tough, but only the boss. Got the raft by just walking past the blue iron knuckle, nothing else in the castle gave me much trouble.

I had to hit the boss about 20 times before he would dismount his horse, so the fight took a while. It would have been much easier to come back after I had one more magic bar as I could have then cast life once, as you can see I have 4 bars left, and I need 4.5
Took me I believe 10 attempt to get him down, that was pretty painful!

Screeshot
This one didn't come out great, he still looks a bit alive, but is just going through his death animation. Onto get the boots from castle 4, then to beat castle 5, as I need 7.5 bars to cast reflect.


I need to figure out how to program my gamepad to the screenshot button so I can take some action shots.

[kestegs]

Got some more good progress:

Continued on to the 4th castle, I messed up pretty bad and died due to not using jump when I should have, got through on my second attempt though. With the boots, I rescued the child and went to the mountain town to get up thrust and reflect spell. I then picked up the 3rd heart and headed into the green castle. This castle wasn't too bad, I actually remembered the right path on the first try. Picked up the whistle and headed up to the boss (goomba I think is his name)

He was pretty tough but I think it only took me 4 times, I think I had to hut him 72 times. It was a very close battle, and I can assure you that listening to that beeping for the last bit of the fight doesn't help. Screenshot

So it is onto castle 6, I went to the town and got the magic key and the last magic jar. Then I picked up the final heart on my way to the sixth castle. This castle was done in 2 parts, the first was to get the cross, which had another mounted iron knuckle guarding it. screenshot

I then died and started over doing the second section, I had kinda forgotten that there was another mounted ironknuckle, but he went down like the first, It's much easier with shield and a casting of life.

The final boss was a little tougher than I expected, it took me a bit to remember why you don't stand on the left platform, but once I did it was just a matter of being careful while i hit him in the head 96 times. screenshot

Picked up the thunder spell from the dead town and died to reset my lives. Headed down to death mountain, it was a little tougher than I expected, as I can't really kill the flying eyeballs, and they like to knock you into the lava. I skipped all of the preset encounters, as I always do. I made it to the entrance with these stats.

After dieing to get my lives back I headed in. It really isn't very tough, the only enemies I ever killed were some flying horse heads that trapped me, I think they took about 32 hits each, so it was a real pain. I made it all the way down to Thunderbird without even losing a life. screenshot

Now comes the REAL challenge. As you can see it costs 120 magic to cast thunder (7.5 bars) so I can't cast shield, reflect, or jump. I have attempted him quite a few times now and the best I have done is hitting him about 20 times, and after I get him down half way he starts throwing twice as much fire. I'm just not sure If I have got the skills to finish this, I can only take 3 hits from him, the 4th kills me.

Thanks for reading, I'll give it some more attempts here, but if I can't come up with a better strategy I fear this may be the end of my journey.

[Technomancer]

Oh wow man, you made much further than I would have had the patience to (or possibly skill)! The final castle was what I was wringing my hands over, apparently for good reason. Good luck man! I gotta tell one of my friends about this, he just picked up Zelda 2 recently, I think he'd find this fascinating!

[kestegs]

I have finally "finished" this challenge. I made some more attempts, I was able at best to get him hit about 30 times before he killed me. And once you hit him 48 times the amount of fire he throws doubles, so I knew I was nowhere near getting him down.

Decided to abuse save states to finish him off! I gave myself 8 states for the battle, 1 to start and 7 more for each bar of life. Even at this it took me a good 45 minuets to beat him! I can't say I feel awesome about this, but I would be very impressed to see anyone do it without save states!

Shadow link went down easily with 8 hits as always.

The result


I decided to start the 3rd challenge I haven't ever done, the 1-8-1 (only magic) This is roughly equivalent to doing the above challenge with life at level 4 instead of 8. There are some major advantages however, most of them in the final battle. Meaning you can cast thunder, reflect, shield, and jump. So I am interested to see how it compares to the only life challenge in difficulty!



Hope some people have enjoyed reading this, I have really enjoyed playing it!

[Technomancer]

I can't fault you for abusing save states! I've been thinking about it and it seems like as long as you can dodge well, the Magic-only version should be easier than Life-only. Also, you can Fairy through most of the dungeons.

...That sounded funny. :grin: