I don't write in this community nearly often enough. Let's dip in today and talk about my favorite retrogame. Retrogames are popular right now, and the 8-bit systems may be the most popular. So let's dive into the topic.

I really don't play many games these days. No time, no interest. I'd rather go for a walk, hang out with friends, play with my kids, and so on. But I do occasionally find myself in the mood to play a game and when that happens, much of the time it's an older game.

Now... older games are a tricky category. Most older games are better in memory. Often much much better in memory. When I go back and play them I am bored to tears within ten minutes. I may have loved playing them as a kid and still love them because of that memory, but I don't enjoy playing them anymore. I'm looking at you Dragon Warrior/Quest and Final Fantasy.

But there is one game that I can revisit endlessly and always enjoy it just as much as ever. That game is the Nintendo NES game Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

There are probably many reasons I still enjoy it, among which are the memories (nostalgia) and my muscle memory which can still carry me thru the game easily, making playing it more akin to watching a movie or revisiting an old friend than playing a frustrating game.

The nostalgia is strong. I remember buying it. I was in the 5th grade and my parents promised to buy me an NES if I got straight A's on my report card. I was a smart kid but I was also a lazy kid and never tried, so most of my school grades were low B's or C's. My parents knew this and they picked the perfect prize to motivate me with.

So confident was I that I was going to get straight A's that I took the money I had been saving from mowing lawns and I went to the store by myself—which my parents had forbidden me from doing because it involved crossing several very busy roads—to buy a game. Zelda II has been released not long before and I had already played it at a friend's house, so that was what I wanted, tho I had several other games in mind as well. I got to the store and luckily they had Zelda II so I bought it. I hid it in my sock drawer at home and waited. A few months later my report card came and it was all A's! I got the system and went right to work on playing Zelda II.

At this point today there have been many many Zelda games. My son just finished the latest Switch Zelda, Breath of the Wild not long ago. I don't know how many games are in the series now. Out of all of them, Zelda II has maybe the worst reputation. Part of the reason for that is the difficulty. The game is hard. Early Nintendo games were always hard, but Zelda II was even harder than most. But to me, this is the ideal Zelda game. I don't know how long I threw myself at that game, playing daily after school and weekends. It much have been at least several months because I do remember that it was summer vacation before I finally beat the game.

From that point forward it became a constant companion. I would play other games as I rented them from the video shop, borrowed them from friends, or (much more rarely) bought them, but I always returned to Zelda II. I got to the point where I could beat it from start to finish very quickly, within a day. I would make up challenges for myself, such as beating the game without getting certain items. This probably won't mean anything to you if you haven't played the game, but one personal challenge I remember is going to unlock downward thrust without getting the candle. That was a tough one, because it required finding the hammer first and the hammer required fighting thru many caves, all of which became pitch dark without the candle.

I loved that game so much. And I still do. I can load it up and play for five minutes here, ten minutes there, and it helps me relax.

When I first game to Japan a long time ago, as part of my Japanese study I played thru the Japanese version of the game, rinku no bōken (リンクの冒険). The game is written in katakana only making it really tough to read. I didn't understand much of it, but I wrote down all the dialogue as I played then later translated it and rewrote it with hiragana and kanji. Silly study material, but it did make me use the language and when learning another language any use of that language is good (or at least better than none).

A while ago I bought the game for my son on the 3DS virtual council on a whim. It's so different from modern games so I didn't really expect him to take to it. I was surprised when he started playing it and enjoyed it. Happy, but surprised—but happy. It's fun seeing him enjoy a game I have always enjoyed so much.

If you've never played it before... Hmm... If you like old Nintendo games, you may like it. If you need all the quality of life improvements newer games have, you may not like it so much. Either way, might be worth a try!

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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.