Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

1. Legend of Zelda: The Adventure of Link (NES) Zelda II is the only game in this series that ever took a real risk. Nintendo had a massive hit and then turned the whole thing sideways with side scrolling, experience points, and a difficulty curve that runs people off, and they never had the nerve to try anything like it again. It's better than Ocarina of Time, and most of the people who put it last quit at Death Mountain.

Honest and Unpopular Reviews No. 16 Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES) The Adventure of Link is a better game than Ocarina of Time. There. I said it. Nintendo took their brand new franchise and threw out the first game's entire design on the second try. It sold over four million copies and they went right back to top down anyway. No Zelda has been a side scroller since. No other Zelda game has done anything close to this. Once you leave the map you're in a side view fighting for your life, you gain experience off every kill, and the spells come from people in towns who make you do something for them first. The sword fighting is better than anything in the top down games. You have to fight things instead of walking into them swinging until they die. Iron Knuckles move their shield to block whatever you just did, so you're faking high, going low, and backing out of range when you guess wrong. In Ocarina you hold Z and go in circles. You decide whether to take the level up in front of you or turn it down and save the experience for something better. It's hard but so were a lot of platformers on the NES. Zelda 1 has you burning bushes at random looking for a staircase. This one has combat you can actually get good at. I rate this one a 4.5 out of 5.