ZELDA 2: THE PERFECT RPG TEMPLATE

Zelda II might be bastardized for being the only side scrolling adventure in an otherwise top down adventure game franchise, but it is the perfect template for a RPG. The quick answer why is because there are clear cut goals (palaces), unclear goals (side quests to get skills), skills that help you beat the bosses or get to the palaces, items needed for advancement, a clear plot and an ever present villain.

When you start the game, you see the goal right there. Princess Zelda is asleep in the castle. She is not kidnapped where you start off not knowing where she is. You see her right there, put to sleep by the villain Gannon. You always have the villain present without boring cut scenes. He is there laughing when you die. Most RPGs have cut scenes with their diabolical villains or have them doing evil or mischievous things. Gannon is just evil, the instruction booklet says he is. Being a pig man goes a long way for his credibility as being evil. Something ugly, strange and fat are all negative traits, while Princess Zelda is beautiful, pristine and slim. All of which are positive traits (sorry to all of you pig men out there).

First up are the palaces. These offer clear cut goals to the player. Instead of wondering what cave, tower, shrine, tunnel, mine, fortress or forest to go into, you know that your goal is the next palace. Inside each palace there are two goals and a multitude of small goals (like keys).

Depending on how you see it, the first goal is to find a special item to advance to the next palace whether it is a candle to see in darkness, a power glove to break blocks, a raft to cross an ocean, boots to walk on water, a whistle to frighten a beast and so on. Whatever it is, you will need it!

Each palace should have its own elemental theme, probably based on the special item found in it. Such as finding the candle should make it a flame theme. The power glove should make it an ice theme. The boots to run across water should make it a water theme. The whistle should make it an air theme. These themes will also help you with creating your enemies as well. It is up to you to figure out what theme goes to which palace.

The second goal is of course to slay the boss. Every area should have a boss in it, but the palace bosses are the biggest and unique enemies. These bosses have vulnerabilities that usually revolve around using a special skill found at a nearby town. Other bosses just have their heads as weak points. Of course doing a traditional RPG may make weak points less obvious and you may want to have their weak points be skill based only.

Speaking of skills, they can each be found in towns. Instead of gaining skills from leveling up, a wizard in each town will teach you a new skill. There are useful things like shield, jump and life to things specifically for taking out enemies like reflect, and fireball. Knowing that in each town there is a new skill gives players a purpose to be there. Plus finding the right person to talk to means you will need to talk with quite a few people.

On top of that, most of the people will not immediately grant you the skill. You need to fetch them something, which turns into quests that are less obvious than the palaces. The things to fetch range from finding medicine, a trophy, a mirror or a kidnapped child to gathering water in town.

There are two attack skills that you can learn as well. Up thrust and down thrust. If you think these are not viable attacks for a traditional RPG then think again! The down thrust would be useful for land enemies and the up thrust would be used for airborne enemies. Players will have to look in out of the way areas for both techniques.

With a small number of palaces, it makes the game quick and digestible to the average player. Even nine palaces might be pushing it. If you want to have more than nine palaces, then have a sequel or a dark world for players to conquer. There are only so many items, themes and boss ideas for palaces before you start to recycle them and the game doesn’t feel fresh anymore.

Every easily found area has a purpose, whether it’s a tunnel to get to a palace or a cave to find something in. There are random battles and enemies that increase in difficulty based on abilities, tactics, HP and even indicated by the color of the foe.

Another thing that makes Zelda 2 the perfect template for RPGs is having only a few main characters and not nine or twelve. Each of the main characters has one word definitions. Link = hero. Gannon = villain. Zelda = goal. It doesn’t get simpler than that! You can of course have more characters than that, especially because traditional RPGs with one character tend to be dull and the battles are even duller. However, then it turns into “your party” = hero.

Zelda 2 also has a unique leveling up system, where when you level up you can chose your desired upgrade if your experience points meet the requirements. This can easily be simmed in a traditional RPG by having a leveling up common event that allows you to choose your upgrade. Instead of giving your heroes more stats all around, you can have their stats boosted or doubled based on what the player chooses. However, if you want to still use traditional stats increases that might be best.

All of the things mentioned in this article are perfect reasons why Zelda 2 should be the template for RPGs. There are no plot twists or turns, because all the time was spent on the gameplay instead. Puzzles, clever areas, little secrets like smacking the head of statues are all what make the game worth playing and worth cloning for your next or even your first RPG.

Thank you for reading,
ShortStar