Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

In time this page will hold information about records, races, and strategies. We've also got records and races. See also the menu above for pages on specific topics.

Categories

Whatever mood you're in, Zelda 2 has a category for. Want a 10 minute game? Bam! Want a 75 minute game? Bam!

Zelda 2 has many, many categories due to historical accident. Traditionally there are three kinds of categories for a game like this: Any%, 100%, and New Game +. Zelda 2 only starts there.

We also have the "No OOB" variants of categories because people want to be able to run the game the old way, before the new routing which was made possible in late 2012 due to new glitches found.

We also have a couple of 'deathless' variants which were popularized by SDA, which are interesting not because they're the fastest, but because they're the hardest to run successfully.

Throw in the possibility of Japanese and European versions of the games, and Zelda 2 probably has more categories than any other game.

See this Categories page for a detailed explanation of better-known categories.

Differences between versions

General differences between versions are available at The Cutting Room Floor. Here are some speedrun-specific notes:

The version most run, with the highest level of competition, is the US NES version. It's the absolute fastest version for any category. The US Virtual Console version is speedrun-wise the same, except that you lose a second every 10 minutes due to the slightly-lower VC NES Framerate (~60.002 vs ~60.099).

The possible advantage of the Japanese FDS version - faster attack leveling - is mitigated by slower elevators, the addition of load times, the inability to pick up items as a fairy, the harder Dark Link AI, the inability to get 'scroll lock' in Glitch Town (you turned into a fairy instead), and the lower gem XP payoffs. The Japanese Virtual Console despite the lower framerate is faster than the original FDS hardware, due to the much shorter load times, though we're subtracting load times on leaderboards.

Approximiate FDS load times by version:

* FDS: Variable, 6.4s on my FDS (204.8 seconds for a 100% All Keys run, 179.2s for an Any% run)
* Everdrive: 3.3s (105.6s AK, 92.4s Any%)
* Virtual Console: 1.4s (44.8s AK, 39.2s Any%)
* Powerpak: 1.3s (41.6s AK, 36.4s Any%)

A more thorough analysis of FDS load times for the All Keys category is here.

The PAL-B version is most like the US version, only with slower movement on the overworld, and the inability to fairy through doors. The PAL-A version does allow the fairy through door glitch.

Game Mechanics and Glitches

Experience and Leveling

If you do not level properly in this game, it gets harder, and harder, and the game quickly gets out of hand. Make sure to have Attack level 4 by the time you leave Palace 1. This requires some luck, and some practice. Know your 6 counts. Know your P bags. It's critical to learn how to manipulate your experience, to ensure the biggest possible payoffs at the end of each palace. Level Attack early, and make sure your "Next" level is Attack every time you put a gem into a statue at the end of a palace.

Know the experience chart, and know what monsters are left to kill in each palace (See the Maps for more).

Unwary has compiled a lot of interesting Zelda 2 data, showing experience, leveling, and attack and magic power, as well as some leveling plans. Here is his Google Docs spreadsheet of the data and Here is a PDF I made of the main charts.

Note that the FDS leveling is of course different. Here's the FDS leveling chart.

Drops and 6 Counts

There are three kinds of enemies in this game: Enemies with no drops, enemies in the "small" group, and enemies in the "large" group. This is important to know, because when the enemies drop items is not random. Every sixth enemy you kill in a group will drop an item. Kills in one group to not affect kills in the other group. So, if you kill 5 Bots, then an Iron Knuckle, killing another bot after will cause a small drop. Likewise, killing 4 Iron Knuckles, then killing some Bots, then killing two Stalfos will cause a large drop on the second Stalfos. The kind of drop you get, however, is random. Small drops will usually be a blue jar, but have a 1/8 chance of being a 50-point P Bag. Large drops are equally likely to be a red jar or a 200-point P Bag. This means if you kill the same enemies, in the same order, every time you play the game, you will get drops at the same times. This is an important fact in routing the game, as well as in recovering from bad luck or mistakes.

Fairying through Doors

In the JP FDS and US NES versions, if you have no keys, and are in fairy form, you can go through a door without using a key.

If you have a key, a key will be used, even if you're in fairy form.

However note that in the JP FDS version, you can't pick up an item in fairy form, so in that version this isn't useful for doors guarding items, such as the glove, the raft, the boots, and the flute.

The Healer Glitch and Glitch Town

The Healer Glitch

The Darunia Superjump

The Darunia Superjump

Luck Manipulation

Luck Manipulation

Daira Jumping

As mentioned in the combat section, monster AI tends to read your D-Pad.

This can be used to your advantage to skip certain enemies. Goriyas, Dairas, and Molblins can be jumped over by getting a good running start, and letting off of right or left on the dpad while in the air. This will change their movement and let you get right over them.

Getting over Iron Knuckles is harder, because their AI is different. A straight daira jump isn't as effective, because instead of freezing in place when you let off of the D-Pad in the air, they begin to meander around randomly.

So with an iron knuckle you really want to do a daira jump, then downstab on their heads. Even then it won't always work, because sometimes you'll get really bad movement patterns when they move randomly.

Combat Techniques

The most important thing to know is to keep your momentum. If you're moving forward, you can keep hitting enemies, instead of letting them hit you while staying alive. This means that generally, the worst possible attack to make is the standing sword attack. It's slow because of the backswing, and you stop to make the attack. Better is the crouching sword attack. It's faster than the standing attack, but it also kills your momentum. However certain enemies are bad to crouch stab, such as the ever-annoying Tin Suits, who have top-heavy hit boxes. Jumping is the key to combat in Zelda 2. Often a jumping crouch thrust is best. Sometimes you will want to jump, crouch, and then thrust on your way down from your jump. Against other enemies, or for a final attack, you may want to attack while you're coming up in your jump. Enemies like Iron Knuckles need special techniques. Jump at them, do not crouch, and then thrust on the way down to hit them in the visor. However in a two square-high corridor, there isn’t room to jump. Instead, when facing an orange or red Iron Knuckle in this situation, press A then B right after, very quickly, to get attacks in. A blue Iron Knuckle can defeat this. Instead do jumping crouch stabs (most notable at the last key in palace 5).

The Jackhammer

The downstab is a powerful attack. While the game limits the frequency of sword stabs that are possible by pressing B, it does not limit the number of stabs possible by pressing down to do a downstab. This means that getting on top of an enemy and mashing down will get in many hits quickly. The Jackhammer is possibly most notable against Iron Knuckles in three tile high corridors (often seen it front of items). By jumping into the iron knuckle and doing a downstab, it's possible to get *inside* the enemy doing a downstab. By mashing down, one can hit the enemy over and over, killing the Iron Knuckle (or getting through it with a lot of damage done at least) without doing any damage at all to Link. Other useful jackhammer opportunities: Dragon heads, Bubbles (in a casual run or a no-reset run where 50xp is needed), Barba, (in theory) Boss Gooma, Horsehead, Helmethead (after the helmets are removed).

The Whirlwind and the Panicked Dolphin

Related to the jackhammer is the whirlwind. Primarily used in TASes, the whirlwind does aerial crouch stabs, while alternating pressing left and right. Similarly to how mashing down will create multiple hits, so too will constantly changing directions. It's rare that this is doable and practical in a live run, but there is one enemy whom it is useful to attack in this way, or at least try: Thunderbird. Sometimes, you'll just get lucky by mashing around like a panicked dolphin.

Bosses

Rebonack

Barba

Encounters

Spawns

There are two types of overworld encounter spawns that can happen. One spawn is based on steps, one on time.

The overworld random encounter timer always counts down, even in a side scrolling area. When it reaches 0, enemies spawn. If you are on a path, it stays at 0 until you step on terrain that can spawn enemies.

The timer resets to 8 ticks upon exiting a side scrolling area. If you are standing on the overworld when it reaches 0, it resets to a new number of ticks. The number of ticks is based on what terrain you are standing on when the time encounter is spawned.

• Grass, Swamp 32 Ticks
• Desert, Forest 24 Ticks
• Graveyard 9 Ticks
• Lava 3 Ticks

When a tick counts down is based on a global timer, usually every tick takes 21 frames. However, the first tick will be variable. It could be 1 through 21. Only where you are standing when the counter is set from 0 affects the time. Moving to a new terrain has no effect once the timer is already counting.

Link moves at about 1 tile every 16 frames, so this works out to be between 10 and 11 steps (~2.8 seconds) before you can expect an encounter when coming out of a side scrolling area. This will always be the first type of spawn you see.

Overworld step counter for random encounters counts up from 1 to 255, increasing by 16 each step. When it rolls over 255 it resets to 1 and monsters spawn. This means every 16 steps there will be an encounter spawn. Terrain does not affect steps-- the path also counts as a step, so if the 16th step is on a path, no encounter will spawn for that cycle. Resets to 1 upon exiting a side scrolling area.

In northwest Hyrule, the area around north palace and palace 1, the step counter isn't active and as such you can never get a step encounter there.

Movement

One fourth of the time, overworld monsters will perform a random walk in any direction. The rest of the time, overworld encounters will try to home in on you Their movements follow this pattern, depending on the monster's position relative to link:

Consequences of this include:

• If a monster is far away from you, up in one of the random walk quadrants, there's a good chance it'll never get near you.

• If a monster is moving horizontally just above or just below you, it will only break out of that pattern by a random walk.

Credit to myask for this work.

Valley of Death Red Jar

The jar at the beginning of the Valley of Death is known for despawning. SDA user fiskbit examined the situation. It turns out there's a glitch, where a memory location ($071F) that remembers whether the red jar has been taken, is overwritten by other things in the game.

Long story short, if you attempt the encounter skip at the start of the Valley of Death but fail, you have to scroll the screen to the right, before leaving the screen back to the left to try again. If you don't, you risk despawning the jar.

It's also possible to re-spawn the jar using the same glitch, but it's probably not useful in a speed run.

Beginning Advice

Run the 100% All Keys category. It's the best introduction to the game.

All Keys Route

A true beginner to the game may not even know where to go or, worse, will emulate the routes used by the very best players playing the hardest game categories. This is a mistake. My advice is to follow this route:

1. Magic Container south of North Palace
2. Town of Rauru – Shield Spell
3. Heart Container south of Palace 1
4. Palace 1: Parapa – Candle
5. Trophy
6. Town of Ruto – Jump Spell
7. 1-up south of Medicine
8. Bagu
9. Town of Saria – Life Spell
10. Death Mountain – Hammer
11. Magic Container west of Hammer
12. 1-up southwest of Mido
13. Heart Container east of Palace 2
14. Medicine
15. Town of Mido – Fairy Spell, Downward Thrust
16. Palace 2: Midoro – Handy Glove
17. Palace 3: Island – Raft
18. Town of Nabooru – Fire Spell
19. 1-up west of Maze Island
20. Magic Container on Maze Island
21. Palace 4: Maze – Boots
22. Lost Child
23. Town of Darunia – Reflect Spell, Upward Thrust
24. Palace 4: Complete
25. Heart Container north of Palace 5
26. Palace 5: Ocean – Flute
27. 1-up north of the Valley of Death
28. Town of New Kasuto – Magic Container, Spell Spell, Magic Key
29. Heart Container east of Palace 6
30. Palace 6: Hidden – Cross
31. Town of Kasuto – Thunder Spell
32. Palace 7: Great

This is a basic route that, if executed well enough, would produce respectable times in the 100% All Keys category, assuming the runner does not fairy through doors.

Maps

If you don't know where these places are, or how to get through the dungeons, there are maps to help. Mike's RPG Center has great maps, though a beginner may find the palace maps of NESMaps.com easier to read. An intermediate form based on Mike's with extra details added is here, with Great Palace map here. A diagram showing some of the ways that do not result in encounters from the beginning is here. Here's a little animation that could serve as a reminder of the route. I link it because it's cute: Only after mastering this route should the runner attempt more advanced routes, such as those run by the top any% runners, which include skipping the candle entirely, getting the Fairy spell before Palace 1, and skipping spells like Life or Spell.

100% All Keys Leveling Plans

Here's the leveling plans page because it was getting too large to keep inline here.

Miscellaneous Tips

FDS Any% Routing

Routing

Records

We have these records in conjunction with Nintendo Records, but we've also recently found these Japanese runners.

Note that apart from loading times, you have to subtract 56 seconds to convert a time from the Nico board, to SDA timing.

Challenges

Some people have also run some challenges, for speed or otherwise. Here's a list of challenge runs.

Glitched Routing

John 'Pro_JN' Nurminen discovered in December 2014 that if you do the 'scroll lock' glitch using an alternate routing (alt glitch, or 1 door-4 door glitch) of going through one door as usual, then going through the shield spell door 4 times, you can get access to different things.

Simpoldood has done extensive route research based on this technique, useful for 100% category, as well as novelties like Reverse Boss Order (now made practical with this glitch method).

Theory TAS

Here's an All-Keys Theory TAS by Boats60. 1:11:58 by SDA timing!

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Zelda 2 streamers

List of streamers

IRC and Races

Zelda 2 races and chat can be had on two different IRC networks. #zelda2 on irc.speeddemosarchive.com or on irc.speedrunslive.com are both open for business. Choose whichever one you like, or both.