Link gets "Marioized" in this side-scrolling sequel to the game that started it all.
Once again, Link is tasked with a quest to help the kingdom of Hyrule, this time rescuing the princess Zelda from her eternal sleep. Through a vast overworld environment, you will explore caverns and towns, all the while searching for 6 palaces, that once conquered, will allow access to the Great Palace, containing the stolen Triforce and the key to rescuing the princess. Along the way you will acquire magic spells and special items needed to complete your quest. Movement is now on a large map with a variety of terrains, still in a top-down perspective, but any random or scripted combat now shifts the action to a side-scrolling view, clearly adopted to make the game have a touch of Super Mario Bros.
The number of attack/magic options is much larger than in the previous game, allowing for a larger variety in combats, and the gradual acquisition of skills helps keep things fresh. The palaces are much larger, and the fact that they go side-to-side and up/down makes them feel more impressive that the original.
The biggest gripe is the absence of a mapping feature in the palaces. Being much larger, taking away this feature makes it a tad difficult to get your bearings, and slows the game down for those who decide to break out the graph paper and map by hand. The sounds are also recycled in large degree. There are also some areas that are perhaps hidden a bit too well, tilting the game at times away from fun and towards frustration.
The overall gameplay is handled by the GBA adequately. There's nothing really special because they didn't try anything overly new. The graphics are good, though the map is rather plain and the repeating blocks used for terrain sometimes look quite odd. The sounds are decent, and though the constant musical riff is better than most of the effects, the sound of fireballs sounds pretty cool. The game can take a good time to complete (around 20 hours for me) given how tough it can be to find/access some areas. Like the original game, you can also play a second quest upon completion of the game. You can't help but wish they tried to add a bit more to the formula, though in fairness there wasn't much in the way of home console sequels before this. If you can get this game cheap, pick it up.