Chip Vogel: Here it is, my first ever speedrun. Zelda 2 completed with no Up+A and no deaths.
I'll second tmont's sentiments on doing this type of Zelda 2 run: if you want to enjoy this game, don't play it like this. It was hard as hell, and took me about 4 months from the initial training stages to get this run on tape, and I was intimately familiar with the game (though a little out of practice) before I got started. And while the feeling of accomplishment I got upon its completion was second to none in my time as a gamer, getting their was certainly much less than half the fun. Also, if any of you readers plan to run this game, do yourself a favor and run this on the NES. I played on the GCN collection, and the Gamecube controller is far from ideal for this game.
I would like to give many thanks to Tommy 'tmont' Montgomery, whose run this one replaces. He was there every step of the way with advice and encouragement. Without his prior run this one wouldn't be nearly as fast as it is, and without his aid I doubt it would've been completed at all.
This run is far from perfect. The route isn't quite optimal, but for a deathless run going the fastest possible way (Death Mountain first without the candle) isn't very feasible, and the two heart containers I get could be skipped. A different leveling strategy that focused more on attack levels and less on life levels could also bring the time down a bit. As far as spells go, I get Life instead of Shield, which does save some time, but skipping that as well is also a possibility, and I wish anyone who attempts any of these changes the best of luck. This was plenty hard enough as it is.
There are lots of little errors here and there, a couple not so little one, and one that is certainly glaring. Take the latter two categories out and my time would be at least 45 seconds lower, but at the point I got this particular run down I was starting to find it very hard to make myself play the game, and I have little desire to try to improve it currently. Maybe at some point down the line, but not now.
What really makes running this game so difficult is the random movements of so many of the enemies. While you can memorize what you're going to face every step of the way, you can't know how they're going to act. This holds especially true for pretty much anything that's blue, and the designers like to put those guys near lava pits. There is also a large amount of luck that can either raise or lower your time significantly. Flawless evasion of the overworld enemies would drop my time considerably, though it would've been very possible for me to hit many more than I did. Enemy item drops can also have an effect on time, but there's no way to control those either. |
